You just had one ten hours ago...

Magnitude Location Time
4.5 Crete, Greece 10 hours ago Map
4.3 Crete, Greece Yesterday Map
4.8 Central Turkey 2 days ago Map

earthquake.usgs.gov

But I think they might have been talking about the one in June:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25044732/

It must be very scary. There is a picture of one in porto katsiki on the beach that leads me to believe it wasn't a good day for fun in the sun.

http://lollitop.blogspot.com/2008/07/po ... -time.html

Glad you are o.k. Wild Rose.

I'm far away from Crete too, I'm scared to death of earthquakes!

thanks for thinking of me

_________________
2010 Gibson Les Paul Studio (Silverburst)
2007 Fender CD-60 (Sunburst)
G.A.S-ing for a Fender Stratocaster HSS with floyd rose

you're welcome

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Hi Guys!

Ooo-o-o-o-ps! A whole thread wondering where I've got to: I'm like the kid who stays out too late at night and has everyone worrying after him. Sorry...!

Yep, that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Nice weather: a friend of mine invited me over for a few days sailing down the coast in his boat. Here it is - would we call this a yacht? I'm too much of a lubber to know:



That was this afternoon, after we spent hours putting the boat to bed (or some such nautical expression).

My friend is a shipwright and rebuilt that boat himself from a complete ruin - it had had a calor gas explosion at sea which had killed whoever was sailing it, and then run onto rocks smashing a 15 foot hole in the side. He bought it for pennies as a write-off from the insurance company and lovingly pieced it back together over several years, more than 30 years ago.

Who cares - why am I telling you? Hold on: we'll get there...

My friend owns a stretch of river bank, including this little quay and the two houses you see here, which he also rebuilt almost from the foundations up. (He's my kind of guy - one or two of you might be beginning to see the connection...)



Orvilleowner might remember that I once mentioned to him I thought it would be fun to find a nice bit of driftwood on the beach and build a guitar from it - but I'd never found the right piece of timber. A spot like my friend's place on an estury naturally accumulates piles of driftwood like this, and home from our sailing trip I thought I'd have a delve around and see if I could come up with something useful:



But no joy: nothing the right size and type. However, as well as making boats my friend also breaks them, and he directed me down the quay to where he'd been chainsawing up a very old wreck for firewood. Here's the last chunk of bow:



Beside it is a huge heap of timber: I felt sure I could find something amongst it:



Again, in all that timber and a lot more out of shot I could find no single piece of the right dimensions for a one-piece guitar body. How annoying!

However, I did find this piece (seen with my friend's wife's sewing tape measure which I cheekily borrowed):



Now that lump is 11.5 inches wide - just not quite wide enough for a Strat-type body. On the other hand, sawn the right way we could get a two-piece center-seamed body and another piece long enough to make the neck. So a whole guitar from a single plank. More interesting, my friend (who has forgotten more about wood than the rest of us will ever know) tells me that plank is iroko, a West African hardwood that many are using these days instead of mahogany. He uses it a lot in boat interior fittings and finished beautifully it is very nice!

And most interesting of all, it formed a decking plank in the little hole in the bow of the boat where half a ton of anchor chain normally sits - and if that don't present tonal implications that will make BigJay break out in a sweat I don't know what will.

So there you go: it all came down to guitars in the end.

I've dragged that lump of timber home in the car and if I can make it happen I shall do you a building thread in a few weeks' time where we turn a hunk of old boat into a spanking new guitar. (Something tell's me Russianracehorse has been waiting patiently for some sort of off-beat building thread like that...)

I'll start sharpening my chisels...

Cheers - C

EDITED for latenight spelling mistakes...

Permit me. Rock Street is a real place and though there appear to be Rock Streets in Brighton, Dudley and Oldham, my understanding is that this is the one in Finsbury Park, North London, postcode N4.

Someone could try typing Rock Street N4 into that Google Streetview thingy and go see if it still looks anything like that today. It's a bit out of my way, so I won't be popping over there just at present.

Or Rhumba could go and see if it's the one in Oldham after all!

The story about the album title. Mid-70s someone graffiti'd "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SLADE?" in eight foot high white paint on the curved outer wall of the Oval Cricket Ground in South London. I know, because I live about a mile away and passed that sign hundreds of times. Like the graffiti "Clapton is God", this one took on a life of its own because Slade were tickled by it and named their album after it.

Bizarrely, that graffiti stayed there for years until the wall was pulled down during refurbishment of the cricket ground. Nobody has put it back on the new wall yet...

Questions asked: questions answered!
Cheers - C

Well. well, I glad all is "Well"!! You had us worried mate! Is this the build you've been eluding to as "soon, very soon"? Probably just one of a few coming our way. Glad you're home and I know you enjoyed your vacation! Thanks for posting and sharing!

PS. Tell someone next time.....please

Hi Hop. Sorry: smack on the wrist accepted. No internet on that boat! (Or perhaps there is? But we had other things to be doing...)

And no, the above is in fact a different project, which only occured to me today whilst prodding around all that waste wood. A guitar with a story to the timber: seemed an amusing idea.

I also have a different project shortly to arrive - now which to run first...?

Anyway, one more photo. Here's the view from my friend's dining room. His boat in the foreground, the Naval dockyards across the river beyond, with some sort of assault ship being manoeuvred. It's all go on that stretch of river...



Cheers - C

I would not be thinking of the forum either Ceri if I was on such an adventure! I never get to do such things. Surely would love to!
Must be pretty late(or early) in the atolls now so I won't keep you in an extended conversation now. Later!

Yep, it's 2.00 am where I am and my bed is calling. But one more pic: this is the view up the side creek from my friend's waterside house. Pretty spot, huh?



I didn't take a camera on the voyage, but we spent the first day sailing in convoy with some other friends who seemed to have very glamorous cameras and lenses. Apparently there's some nice shots of us at sea. Soon as I see 'em I'll post one if I can.

This boaty stuff is fairly new and exciting to me too!

'Night all - C

And most interesting of all, it formed a decking plank in the little hole in the bow of the boat where half a ton of anchor chain normally sits - and if that don't present tonal implications that will make BigJay break out in a sweat I don't know what will.

On the occasion of it being razed; ZZTop took a piece of timber from the shack in which Muddy Waters was born and brought up, and had a guitar build out of it which they appropriately called "The Muddy".

There's a jumping of point for you.

Doc

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"Another day in paradise!"

Cool story and pics, Ceri!

_________________
you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

wow Ceri, fantastic places there!

_________________
2010 Gibson Les Paul Studio (Silverburst)
2007 Fender CD-60 (Sunburst)
G.A.S-ing for a Fender Stratocaster HSS with floyd rose

I cant blame you Ceri. The ocean a boat and a fishing rod are the only thing besides my family in my life that are on par with guitar.

Terrific pics, Ceri. When the weather is good, you have to make the most of it. Glad that you had a good time.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I thought it would make a nice picture in the "Ceri recreates classic album covers" series. Of course, it would be hard to call that album a classic. A "lost classic" if anything. I was a Slade fan back in the mid-70s and I first heard the album recently. I don't think it was even released in the USA at the time. Slade's popularity was plummeting at the time. It is a fine heavy album, by the way.

The sign says: London Borough of Islington Rock Street N.4
I thought the "Rock Street" part could have been "photoshopped" in (or whatever they called that kind of creative photo modification 30 yrs ago).

Do you have any cans of white spray paint, ceri?

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.