Gretsch Guitars Custom Shop Tour

foreign [Music] Bulger with Premier Guitar we're in Corona California at the Gretch American Factory and I'm with Chad Hendrickson who's one of the Master Builders Chad hey man thanks for having us hey thank you yeah so it's interesting this shop is not a particularly big shop it's kind of what I imagine Gretch the gret shop looked like in the 50s like yeah pretty close to this yeah it's very small scale um we get a lot done in a small amount of space but this is where it all happens and it all starts kind of right here this is it yeah but why don't you kind of take us through what you what you all are doing here so basically this is where all the magic starts we've got our mahogany body blanks for duo Jets and Penguins these are you know we've got Spruce tops here Maple tops you know got a little spalted Maple guy hiding in there wow um all of our mahogany neck blanks down at your feet Maple neck blanks over here ebony fingerboards you name it it all comes in just like this and we we use all the machines you can see around the shop how do you work out what you're building it's actually a combination of both so every order that comes in has to go through a specific dealer but a lot of those orders are from artists or just you know people who you know they see what we can make and they're like well I want a pink sparkle and you know gold binding or whatever the case is you know as long as we can do it it's not a problem we'll make it happen Okay so Chad we're trying to get from here to here absolutely so what is what is the process so the first process would be to take these laminates glue them up and we put them in a press so the Press has this mold built into the Press you let it sit in there for specified amount of time and no easy steam water or is it it's just pressure it's heat and pressure okay so once you've got that once you've got the the top and the back what's next so we have a press that deals with the sides whether it's curly you know a solid side or a laminate side like this one and uh once we get the sides put together then we cap it with the top and the back which are actually the same shape and once we get that box closed it's Off to the Races and when you're when you're bending this it's a similar thing just it's heat and pressure that's exactly it yeah okay wow all right and show me this what this big machine here so this is our copy Carver so on the left side here and that's how we do all of our Spruce tops all of our sprue stops are completely solid so we have we have various forms this one is actually for our double neck but we have you know Duo Jet um Falcon 6120s you know we have the negative side here and then we also have the positive side so what happens is this wheel if I can pull this up you might see a little better that Wheel rides along the form and this big Old Cutter head that you wouldn't want to get your fingers in that thing you know comes on the other side and we'll just have a blank stock you know blank top or back and it just rides and cuts that exact form into the other side just like a big chunk of spruce or whatever yeah and it's that much so it's cutting one chunk of wood down to that yeah so we can you know obviously we can set our depth of cut you know through various various adjustments here we wouldn't want to take the whole thing at once Spruce itself wouldn't like that very much but now are these older machines that have been using for quite a while you know this has been up here as long as I've been up here and even some of the some of the Master Builders downstairs who've been here a long time they say they remember this from years and years ago yeah if it isn't broke don't fix it yeah right well you can't get more authentic than that right this is probably how they did it you know a long time ago right okay so now we're in your neck world and this is really what this is your your your place yep how do you get from this to a net it seems like a long ways away oh it's actually a little shorter than you'd think but so the first thing I would do is I would take it over to the jointer I'd get a real nice flat straight edge on there then I would take it to the planer I would set the dimensions you know we we make different styles of necks and some of the necks have different dimensions and so whatever I was working on I'd get it set to those dimensions then I would take we have some side templates that we use for you know whether it's a a falcon or a penguin or a Duo Jet or whatever it is um then I would rough bandsaw out the rough shape on this once I get that rough shape then I would take it to the shaper and the shaper is really what gets you to this point here now so is this is this one piece of wood I mean is this literally like like that wasn't attached on right so these are the wings so depending on the width of the headstock sometimes our stock isn't wide enough so we add wings to it now this this neck in in particular is set up like we would do a 6120 or a falcon it's actually um it's a it's made from a single piece of maple this is roasted Maple but what we do is we cut it in half and flip it around and then we we add this veneer in the middle it's kind of hard to see this is a mahogany veneer but sure uh maybe this example is a little bit easier oh okay so sure so this is what you know pretty much almost all of our Hollow Bodies are made from uh all Maple necks are made this way mahogany necks Are All One Piece next WoW maybe some wings if it's a penguin penguin has that giant headstock on it so we'd need to add wings for that but Duo Jets one piece snack yeah well so that's why you start with such a big chunk exactly exactly until correct snacks are done I mean they're all old school cut out like that yeah every single one like they've been doing it since the beginning yep just billets and mahogany wow that seems very labor intensive it's actually not too bad if you have the right jigs you have the right setup the right machine it actually goes pretty quickly as long as you know what you're doing you're not sticking your fingers into things and yeah yeah it's guitar players you don't I still have all mine but yeah good yeah that's great all right so once we once we hit the shaper get get the neck to this you know basic spot the truss rod comes next install the truss rods filler strips after that neck extension also this one doesn't have one yet that'll come later the head caps go on next so you know depending on the model the year whatever they want if they have custom inlays we do that too head cap goes on here we'll trim the edge here so we have a nice you know nice straight edge then it gets routed we route the perimeter so these are these are what we use for our perimeter routes those specific ones for a penguin you know the taper's already set headstock shape is all set um it really makes quick work we don't have to do a lot of hand sanding a little bit but not too much once that is done binding comes next you can see we've got our classic penguin with some gold Sparkle binding here I just glued up this morning oh wow great here's The Duo Jet with our you know classic white binding here you guys Gretch really leans Into The Binding we love the binding we love many many layers of it it just makes it look cool yeah it does yeah it's it's an iconic look yeah so what's the headstock once all the binding is done all everything's cleaned up everything looks great then I'll move to the fingerboards okay well so we'll go ahead and think yeah so we'll Pretend This has binding on it okay and so depending on the binding that's on the headstock in the neck I may need to trim down that board a little bit you know just make everything fit to whatever specified nut with the customers requested so once we get the fingerboard on you know level it out Frets come next then binding side dots all that stuff we are now at a spot where we can shape the neck do the final shape of that neck and so we do all that by hand we got a couple of machines over there pillow sander big deadhead sander that'll you know remove a ton of material real quick and we just use you know little templates we have a bunch of different shapes V's u c you name it we just shape it all down by hand make sure it's good so there's got to be just a a little variation in every neck with that much hand work very minor but there is going to be some sure yeah yeah we're all doing it by hand there's there's no machine taking this down for us it's it's human eyes with templates and making sure everything is as close as we can get it yeah that's cool and a lot of it is feel too are there say some orders where they're very specific and they want something a little bit different and you just have to shave it by hand just to their their requirements yeah we've actually had artists come in bring their own guitars and we have you know traced the back of their neck to get that same back shape that they want I have an order this month where they're they're requesting a specific taper you know it it runs the gamut of you know whatever you can request and as long as it's physically possible we don't have a problem we got to do the same process anyway I'd rather get to give the customer what they want sure okay so we got a we got a body we got a neck what's next joining them up okay okay so now we're with uh another Master Dora Gonzalo and he's got a build here and we're gonna put the neck on the body right yep that's where we're at okay kind of talk us through this a little bit what do we have going on so this neck it's already been final shaped it's all ready to go so what we would do you know we have to make sure that our tolerances are good nice tight fit Gonzalo can he can walk us through um regardless if it's a this is our Tenon this would be a dovetail it's just a different type they both do the same thing they hold the neck on okay so he's gonna work that neck into that body and it's glued in right yep it looks like it almost can hold in on its own it's such a tight squeeze that's yeah that's what we want okay yeah there's there's a bunch of other things we need to take into account as well you know neck angles what kind of bridge they want sure um you know make sure everything lines up correctly your center lines are good there's there's a lot of little things involved in that but once we get all that taken care of then it sit it in there glue it up and it's ready to go off to paint okay then after paints uh final assembly and yep you're not the door to a happy customer and what is this model this is a billy bow oh right a 61.99 billy bow okay so Billy Gibbons and Bo Diddley yeah so we make a couple different variations of it uh some people they like the Falcon headstock on it we make a version called a caddy bow that actually has these profiles cut into the corners which is actually really cool they've been fairly popular lately been making quite a few of them wow what a great spaceship over the car it's it's all Gretch yeah yeah isn't it amazing and your company this year I think this is your 100 years 140th coming up yep wow yeah and it's it's amazing that that since the 50s it's really had this kind of futuristic aesthetic yeah like Jetsons you know yeah yeah if you look at the uh the Astro jet yeah that they made years ago yeah yeah it's got Jetsons written all over it yeah I hadn't thought about that yeah that is literally a Jetson's record yep yeah it's it's uh it's it's interesting how you've always been this kind of futuristic company yeah even you know but at the same time you look at a white Falcon yeah and it's just you know tested over time oh yeah it's just it's Priceless yeah yeah all right so up here in Gretch we take a lot of pride in our binding and so you can see with this it's got tortoiseshell binding it looks like it has four or five layers of purflame behind it wow you can see this double neck here double bound gold Sparkle binding it's a show stopper yeah she's got three layers or gosh I guess yeah it it gives the impression of three the gold and the white are actually pre-laminated and then it has a black pursling behind it wow makes our job a little easier sure but yeah binding is something we take very seriously and and uh Gonzalo here is working on on something here and we'll show you that real quick so right now he's installing the tortoiseshell binding and so there's actually two purflings that go behind that looks like he's got a looks like a 40 000 black a little thin white and then the tortoise shell on the outside and even the F holes yeah absolutely yeah it's actually a rare request that somebody didn't want the S holes bound ah so great so the uh the apples obviously you can't have the the top on the guitar you have to have access from both right yeah so before the top gets glued onto the sides uh he would take care of The Binding on the effles prior to that make sure everything's nice and smooth and sanded flat I still when I watch them do them well I don't know about that yeah he's been doing this a long time yeah there's a lot of a lot of people in this building that come to him for his expertise it's about 45 minutes so he didn't make that bend yep with tortoiseshell you have to be very careful about that right flammable yeah yeah so it's so all this material is Nitro based not all of it um the sparkle bindings are not or the tortoiseshell and our white and our Pearl Lloyd is and so it just takes a little bit of time to you know understand which bindings to be careful with and right I mean that's a delicate balance yeah you're adding heat to something flammable yep there's some I bet there's some fire ads yeah you know as long as they're quick on your feet it's it's not it's not a problem but but it is possible that's why there's only a few of us in the building that work with that kind of stuff sure all right so here we have lawn he's putting together this 12-string Country Gentleman and doesn't look like he's got the mutes in there yet those are always fun there you go yep so once it gets to this stage you know paint buff everything is done everything is finalized all the parts go on we get tuners you know Bridge Electronics tail pieces everything gets assembled and then we get one of these right that was on the bench when we walked in and now yeah wow yep so here here we have a three pickup penguin loaded with supertrons gold Sparkle binding Paisley in Black Paisley yeah well the cat's eye F hole wow yeah these have been very very popular people really like this Paisley oh it isn't amazing the penguin initially they're just a handful of made yeah right and then they became like the most sought after Gretch and and now you guys are are leaning into that right yeah you know it's I I don't want to say it we make more than anything else but it's a fair amount of what we build our Penguins um but yeah these are great guitars I love these yeah how amazing to see in this in this fairly small building you take it from a chunk of wood to that really impressive yeah thank you thank you you know that's one of the things I really like to show people when they when they come and visit the shop is you know what we can do with such few machines and and just the talent that all these guys have it's really incredible that we can produce these amazing instruments every single day yeah I love it I can't wait to see what happens here the next 140 years stay tuned for a treat yeah

Channel: Premier Guitar

Views: 66,619

Keywords: guitar, guitars, guitarist, demo, guitar player, tone, electric guitar, fender, gibson, gibson guitar, gibson les paul, rig, guitar gear, pedalboard, pedals, guitar effects, guitar pedals, premier guitar, factory tour, how it's made, how it's done, how to, how to do it, how to build a guitar, building a guitar, designing a guitar, chet atkins, brian setzer, malcolm young, ac/dc, angus young, gretsch, gretsch guitars, white falcon, 6120, gretsch 6120, country music, rca, bigsby

Id: NhFlrE8gq1Y

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023