Bell in the Telegram

The Star Telegram, that is.

OK, so it's not a front page full feature spread with interview, but there is a photograph!
Here's the link: http://www.star-telegram.com/408/story/600131.html

A little over half-way down the page. Travis Hensley is the kiddo rocking the V.

Photo is on this page: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/photos/gallery/600132.html

5th photo in the slideshow.

Thanks, Fort Worth Star Telegram!

Cameron's here...

and doing fine. So far he prefers sound of the bass to the guitar.

He's keeping me quite busy, so I haven't been able to work at the shop at all.

Don's been doing lots of repairs and marketing for BCG. The JazzBlaster made it's first live appearance at the Green River Ordinance show at the Dallas HOB this month...


I've been working on an amp project to keep my production skills sharp. It's a 1 12" combo using a custom cab, a Sovtek tube midget 50w head and a 60 watt Hellatone Celestian. I have no idea what I'm doing, so it should sound interesting. Many thanks to my dad and his tools & skills with lumber manipulation.


I hope to get out to the shop soon and get back into some sort of groove. We'll see...

Preparing for my son...

to come into the world so updates to the blog will be taking a hit for a while. Although I'm not counting it out, mind you, they are just gonna be slim for a while.

March 16 Update...

Not the most exiting job, but necessary none-the-less. Adding the dots to the fretboard. I never really thought about how this happened until I had to do it. One of those, "Ohhhh, so that's how it's done." moments of discovery. I think I did about 10 or so yesterday.

This is the CNC machine routing out the cavities for the controls. The programs are created in a 3D modeling software and then exported to the CNC's routing software. The CNC is also used to create the relief in the bodies. Basically it does the rough cuts and the rest is finished up by hand.

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No progress on the Bell-a-Blaster, but I am hoping to have some work done this week.

A little progress...

Routing the bodies to a half inch radius causes a mess when routing plex.

That was just the fourth one out of ten. At the end of the run it was a winter wonderland.

Routing for the control plates and cavities is next, then necks.

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New headstock for the Bell-a-Blaster.

Zoomed out


Here's the art for the 12th fret. It's meaning is two-fold. BAB for the name of the guitar and for the initials of it's future owner

Jazz and Bell-a-Blaster...

After a very positive response to Don's guitars, namely the JazzBlaster, Don is busy at work creating the first ever production run of Bell Custom Guitars. 10 to be precise. 7 of which are already spoken for. Over the past two weeks Don and his help have cut the wood and acrylic, carved the bodies' cavities, bonded the body materials, plane sanded them and are in the process of fretting the fingerboards. The efforts of fretting have been made much easier thanks to the addition of the wonderful press.


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We have also begun the design and development phase of the Bell-a-Blaster, a new twist on an old favorite. I am building the all wood version for long-time friend and band mate, Brett Bledsoe, and Don will be building the wood/acrylic prototype at the same time. These will likely feature Amalfitanos in the form of tele single coils in the bridge and a hot rod soap at the neck.


An early mock-up:

A brief history...

I met Don when a fellow musician/co-worker/friend showed up to work after lunch one day with a flying V guitar case.

As soon as the case was opened I could tell it was something special. Originally built for a charity auction to benefit a local woman with terminal breast cancer, the guitar and it's mojo bounced around ownership a while before it landed at Guitar Center, Arlington.

I called Don to get work done on my recently acquired Gibson eb0, went to his home/shop, and he did the work for me then and there. I took an immediate interest in his craft and he was gracious enough to let me hang around to help. Soon thereafter I began to help him with website and graphic needs so I could wedge myself in there!

Don has since retired from his job as an engineer and is building guitars full-time. Things are getting interesting now as we are making a push to carve out a niche in the world of music. That's as much history as I am going to provide, as the future looks much more interesting.