| Author | Message | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 525 Registered: 6-2002 |
I have just been to the Youtube site and typed Alembic in the search box hoping to find some video clips of clarkee with his alembic. What i found was quite shocking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys5pZJt58ZI Have a look at the top 2 video clips. This must be at the alembic mothership as the guitar rack in the background looks familiar to other photo's from alembic's workshop. If after watching this you are still gobsmacked, you may like me think how strong these basses are to take what seems to be serious Grievious Bodily Harm to a bass. Now I don't need to be so delicate with mine.. :-) Jazzyvee | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 4199 Registered: 5-2002 |
Cool vids! It does look like the shop, and there are three videos in all. Interestingly, in the one titled "Battery compartment routing", it looks like they're using some kind of bolt-on bass as a workbench. The "Grinding a fingerboard" bass look like an Orion. | ||
| lbpesq
Senior Member Username: lbpesq Post Number: 1520 Registered: 7-2004 |
Jazzyvee: That is indeed the main manufaturing room in Santa Rosa. Cool videos. Bill, tgo | ||
| lbpesq
Senior Member Username: lbpesq Post Number: 1521 Registered: 7-2004 |
Dave: I've heard that Precisions make excellent workbenches. Very effective doorstops, too! LOL Bill, tgo | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 526 Registered: 6-2002 |
Actually, if you look closely, the fender bass is the one that is being routed out, the piece of wood on the top looks like some kind of template for guiding the cutting of the holes. Jazzyvee | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 4201 Registered: 5-2002 |
Ah ... That makes sense. But why would a workbench need a battery compartment? | ||
| byoung
Advanced Member Username: byoung Post Number: 324 Registered: 12-2004 |
What really scares me is that the same poster (metalkpirate1day) also has a video dissecting a durian. All I can say is: he better not have touched my bass afterwards. You can be fined in Singapore for attempting to carry durian on to the subway. For those who don't know what durian is, it is a fruit that smells like a rotting corpse when opened. And yes, people eat it. Bradley | ||
| bigredbass
Senior Member Username: bigredbass Post Number: 940 Registered: 9-2002 |
What's the old line about 'If you ever watched sausage being made, you'd never eat sausage?' Sanding ebony is like that: It's a holy terror to work, stiff and hard as hell (it doesn't even float!). Typically has to be worked with blades, wheels, etc. for metal, just eats wood tools alive. What's amazing to me is as much coco as they go through, and it's a pulmonary irritant: Do they wear fresh air hoods for that? J o e y | ||
| fc_spoiler
Advanced Member Username: fc_spoiler Post Number: 227 Registered: 5-2006 |
Jimi Hendrix would have been proud! | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 527 Registered: 6-2002 |
He probably would have had problems breaking a neckthrough guitar with ebony neck laminates if it's that hard. Long live Jimi. jazzyve | ||
| fc_spoiler
Advanced Member Username: fc_spoiler Post Number: 228 Registered: 5-2006 |
he would have found a way.... Jimi Rulez! Btw it's what you hear on the background when the fretboard is being attacked with flames. The Alembic employee could be Pete Moran Click here | ||
| blazer
Member Username: blazer Post Number: 86 Registered: 12-2003 |
Don't get me started on working with ebony: it's sheer hell. I always have to wear a dust mask when working with the damn stuff, the dust just suffocates me if I don't. I said to my boss that he should try to sell the dust as instant coffee since it looks similar to that. As for the routing footage: nothing new to me, but why wasn't the neck taken off? When we modify basses at Knooren handcrafted instruments, we ususally take them apart. We take necks off so that the body lies flat on the working bench. With the neck still attached, it just wobbels all over the place. (as you might see when the guy takes the router out and nicks the routing template) (Message edited by Blazer on August 07, 2006) | ||
| jacko
Senior Member Username: jacko Post Number: 739 Registered: 10-2002 |
While we're talking poisonous woods, heres a link to a wood toxicity site you might find interesting. graeme | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 996 Registered: 6-2002 |
Video has been taken down form YouTube ... | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 530 Registered: 6-2002 |
Oops I hope I haven't got anyone reprimanded at Alembic HQ for finding that video. Jazzyvee | ||
| byoung
Advanced Member Username: byoung Post Number: 327 Registered: 12-2004 |
Drat! Removed the good videos, and left the Durian one. Mica, Valentino, I don't know if this was a mothership decision, but I thought they were pretty cool really. Bradley | ||
| paulman
Member Username: paulman Post Number: 62 Registered: 2-2005 |
Yes I thought it was cool too. If that's what my Further fretboard had to go through, wow! That the fretboard is so excellent goes to show how some skill and a power tool can make art! I would feel disaster every second I had the tool on the fretboard, eep! It was neat to see the method, but it might be giving away trade secrets of Alembic if the shop vids stayed up on youtube. It could be why they were pulled...? | ||
| byoung
Advanced Member Username: byoung Post Number: 329 Registered: 12-2004 |
Trade secrets like: We use grinders, torches, and the occasional plunge router? I think the real reason is because there was a F***** bass depicted. The horror! Bolts!  Bradley PS- for those humo(u)r impaired: I'm going now to have my tongue surgically removed from my cheek. | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 531 Registered: 6-2002 |
Judging by how sharp that tongue is, the surgeon may send you to alembic for them to give that tongue a severe grinding... lol :-) Jazzyee | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 4222 Registered: 5-2002 |
Ok. I think what's going on here is that the videos were not actually representive of work being done at the Alembic shop as I, and apparently others, mistakenly assumed. It follows that the videos were probably removed because of the inaccurate impressions they were making. | ||
| paulman
Member Username: paulman Post Number: 65 Registered: 2-2005 |
They certainly did make an impression. | ||
| byoung
Advanced Member Username: byoung Post Number: 335 Registered: 12-2004 |
Bring back the grinders! Bring back the flames! |
