Michael Winston Dales Guitars: Blog

I've learned a lot from other guitar builders over the years, and so this blog is a way for me to share my own build experiences and hopefully let others learn from my success and mistakes!

The bottom end of the wooden core of älgen has a copper-tape covered cavity with all the wiring in. To close this off, there is a laser-cut cover made from frosted-translucent orange acrylic. The cover has my initials, MWD, etched into it, along with 'Älgen Prototype 1'

A Week in the Shop

26 Mar 2023 - älgen, design, ESP32, pickups, verkstaden

Fixing up the details on my älgen guitar build, remodeling an in-progress older build to have a fresh new look, and I curse generally about letting electronics back into my life.

My brother on stage at King Tut's Wah Wah hut singing into a mic whilst holding a PRS guitar

A Week in sources of inspiration

19 Mar 2023 - chuncaster, inspiration, jazz, paul reed smith, pickups, podcasts, prs, straps, wuthering bytes

Pausing my regular workshop updates this week to look at something that's been on my mind of late: sources of inspiration and motivation, and how to channel that into my guitar building.

A Week in the Shop

12 Mar 2023 - älgen, amp, dalarna, design, fusion 360, hästen, website

A busy week, with lots of progress: älgen guitar finally becomes an instrument, I design a new guitar, and I do some work to upgrade my old amp.

The pub sign for The Duke of Cumberland which shows a painting of a 17 or 18th century duke playing a Fender Telecaster with a jazz ensemble behind him.

A Week in the Shop

6 Mar 2023 - 3D-printing, älgen, birthday, laser-cutting, telecaster, templates

Rushed weeknotes for a rushed week: I make some progress on älgen, meet the real version of what it's named after, and spend far too long nursing a laser-cutter.

A 3D render of my älgen guitar design, which has a central wooden core that starts as the neck and continues the full length of the body, and then has a 3D printed latice either side where the guitar body would usually be.

A Week Out the Shop

26 Feb 2023 - archtop, bhm, cad, delfinen, fusion 360, rendering, templates, verkstaden

A week spent paying off some CAD debt to fuel the workshop time, and a look at another builder of some amazing archtop guitars.

A work in progress guitar neck, shaped and fretted, sat on a workbench. Beside the neck is a black sharpie pen, and closer inspection reveals all the frets have been drawn on with the sharpie ready for fret shaping work.

A Week in the Shop

19 Feb 2023 - 3d printing, älgen, bhm, delfinen, fretwork, memphis minnie

A shorter weeknotes this week, as I've been heads down on slow tasks: fretwork and 3D print iterations. I also learned about the person who wrote one of my favourite Led Zepplin songs back in 1929.

An unfinished guitar neck sits fretboard down on a workbench, surrounded with sanding disks.

A Week in the Shop

12 Feb 2023 - 3D printing, älgen, bhm, blues deluxe, delfinen, grant green, neck, orca, sanding

A bit of everything this week: more neck carving, inspirational jazz performers, 3D-printing with carbon-fibre, finding odd imperial sized screws, and having fun with obtuse seeming digital music tools.

The 3D printed bridge mounted on the guitar with strings running over it. In the background you can see the floor and my pedal board, telling you that this is now being used!

A Week Out the Shop

4 Feb 2023 - 3d printing, bhm, blues deluxe, ef1, freecad, generative art, gibson, laser-cutting, sister rosetta tharpe

I have some fun 3D printing a prototype of my new bridge design and fitting it to my daily player for testing, I start learning FreeCAD, and I spent some time listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the under-appreciated inventor of rock-and-roll.

The neck is on the trestle stand still, with the rasp resting on top of it. You can see that what was a squared off edge now has a flat angled edge cut into it along the length of the neck on one side.

A Week in the Shop

29 Jan 2023 - älgen, carving, coffee, delfinen, generative art, screws

Why go to the gym when you can carve a guitar neck? This week we get a bit of a work out, and then fail to finish a guitar due to some stripped screws, before playing with some generative art.

A guitar body sat on the workshop, with a couple of parts laid on top of it to give the impression of how it might look when finished. The top is a nice birds-eye maple, and on one side it is nicely rounded, and on the other side it has a pointy horn to it.

A Week in the Shop

22 Jan 2023 - delfinen, fretting, kerf, laser-cutting, neck, palm router, verkstaden

Getting back into the swing of things with making dust in the workshop: a neck gets prepped and fretted, and I try out my new ferrule block technique to learn that it needs improving.