Unstealable?
Mr. Jalopy was on a quest to create an unstealable bicycle, so of course he junked it up with some House stickers.
ShareHow Much for a Rib?
I had a little mishap last Friday while pushing my sweathog scooter a little too hard through a gravely right-hander in western North Carolina. A separated AC joint as well as a bruised rib or two was the result.
Things moved a little slow for me this week, but I was cheered today by our concerned colleagues to the north.
Dinner is served. Thanks guys!
No Reserve!
I remember driving Ed Roth back to his hotel room one night and asking him if he had regret getting rid of any of his cars. “Andy, you never really own anything until you give it away” was all he said.
I doubt they’re giving this one away…
More options
Now that the upcoming PLINC site is getting some press, I realized that we didn’t highlight an important part of the House Industries site redesign. If you’ve ever wondered which OpenType features a font has or what those features do, click on the “More Options” part of the type tester for each font. You’ll get to play will all those cultural sets in Studio Lettering or see Ed Interlock in action. See something you like? You can email it to that client holding your project’s purse strings to persuade them to open said strings. Liked what you set before? Just click on it in the history window to go back. Ever wondered what all those figure styles look like in Neutraface Slab Text? Go nuts.
All this made possible by Lettersetter and the coding skill of Brook Elgie.
down with jive
John Downer gets his lettering brush dirty for Rick Klotz on a few new Freshjive shirts.
Criminal Resurrection
This is my first major foray into the luthier arts to restore a solid body guitar. The guitar was once owned by a character named Brazilian Joe, carried caseless and left for dead after a walk-in tryout for my cousin’s band. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity to strip, repaint and restore it.
In the early to mid 1970s Ibanez of Japan was copying many of the popular guitar designs of Gibson USA, including the SG model. Gibson eventually sued over the use of the “open book” style headstock, claiming trademark infringement. These guitars are now referred to as lawsuit guitars. Go here for a short history.
Crusty ol’ bastard!
I began by stripping the paint, filling the mahogany grain, and spray applying a clear vinyl sealer coat. I decided to use a transparent black nitrocellulose lacquer for the top and opaque black for the sides and back. All in all approximately ten coats of clear lacquer were applied.
At first my intention was to keep the original inlay, until I discovered through sanding the headstock that it was a very thin piece of pearloid and not a true inlay. I saw my mistake as an opportunity and redid the “inlay”, carving a new sheet of paper-thin pearloid with a Dremel. I also took the liberty of fattening up the type from the original a bit.
The pickguard was remade by streamlining the original curves, sharpening the points, and routing the edges with a chamfer bit. All the electronics were replaced and I swapped that ghetto neck humbucker with a new Gibson model. Other mods include a new bridge, Bigsby vibrato, black knobs and a new nut.
After initial setup I discovered it could use a set of locking tuning machines and a bit of fretwork in the upper register. New strap buttons need to be installed as well. Oh, and the tone… It’s a monster.
Show Details
The Letters & Ligatures Show will be at the 222 Gallery in Philadelphia until the end of July. Here are a few opening night shots…
Ray Nichols in his HOUSE, Made in Taiwan R.O.C. shirt from 1995.
Letters & Ligatures Opening
Hope you didn’t try to get Andy or Adam on the phone this week. They were putting the final touches on the Letters & Ligatures show in Philly’s 222gallery. Join us Friday night, June 5 at 6 p.m.
For you drinkers, we even have our own booze sponsor. So look for the sign between 2nd and 3rd on Vine:
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