Mercury Lab Guitars Rezentine distressed plum finish close up

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Mercury Lab Guitars — Hand Crafted Resonator, Electric, and Cigar Box Guitars

While each and every customer is important, I take special care of left-handed players, as I am one. Every instrument is hand-built in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Scroll to Gallery at end of page for images of the building process. First the body. Then the neck.

The DCS slide version left handed

Mercury Lab Guitars "leftie" Resolution with spun aluminum finish

Introducing the IMS

Integrated Microphone/pickup System

Removable compact microphone internally routed through the guitar in tandem with choice of magnetic or piezo pickup/s

Integrated microphone/pickup system

Strips and rings

They all start out this way. The only CNC parts are the rings.

Resonator guitar body process. Forming the sides pic 1

Forming the sides

Resonator guitar body process. Beginning to form the sides

Following the pattern

Rolling the sides

Rollling the sides

Resonator guitar body process. Checking the accuracy of the walls

Checking accuracy

Resonator guitar body process. Finishing up the walls

Finishing the walls

Resonator guitar body process. The tops

Finishing the tops

Resonator guitar body process. Fitting the neck pocket.

Fitting the neck pocket

Resonator guitar body process. Beginning the welding

Beginning to weld

Resonator guitar body process. Welding the edge in sections

Welding in stitches to avoid warping

Finished seams

Resonator guitar body process. Finishing the welding

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More weld removal

Grinding the welds

Flushing out neck pocket

Welds finished

Resonator guitar body process. More grinding of the edge

Smoothing the surface

Resonator guitar body process. grinding complete

Body finished, ready for sound hole and pickup cavity

Resonator guitar bodies in process. The sound holes

Cutting the sound holes

Guitar body process. Marking pickup cavity

Marking the pickup cavity

Resonator guitar body process. Routing the pickup cavity

Routing the cavity

Resonator guitar process. Pickup cavity routed

Finished routing

Various bodies ready for final surfacing

Resonator guitar body process. Brushing the aluminum

Brushing lines

Resonator guitar in process. marking lines

Marking the lines for spinning

Resonator guitar body process. Making spun pattern

Applying spun pattern with drill press

Resonator guitar process. Clear coat

Clear coating the body

Resonator guitar body process. Painting.

Painting the body with candy colors

Resonator guitar in process. Installing cone

Inserting the cone

Mercury Lab Guitars Resolution with spun aluminum finish

Finished leftie

Mercury Lab Guitars Resolution full view ruby shimmer fade finish

Finished righty

Guitar fingerboards. Fret slotting in progress

Fretboard Blanks (mostly)

Neck blanks

Beautiful Ebony black and white

Some beautiful Madasgar Ebony

Guitar neck process. Beginning of a scarf joint

Beginning of a scarf joint

Guitar neck process. Gluing the scarf joint

Gluing the scarf joint

Guitar neck process. Finished scarf joint

Ready for truss rod channel

Guitar neck process. Truss rod channel

The truss rod channel

Checking the depth

Guitar neck process. Shaping the headstock

Shaping the headstock

Guitar neck process. Finishing the headstock

Drilling the peg heads

More of that beautiful Ebony in progress

Guitar neck process. Neck jig

Jig for the neck taper

Tapered and ready for neck profile

Routing the profile

Ready for hand carving of heel and volute

Guitar neck process. Shaping the fingerboard radius

Meanwhile, shaping the fretboard radius

Radius profile

Exotic wood fretboards

Fret slots cut

Drilling the inlays

Drilling the inlays

Guitar neck process. Koa fingerboard

Beautiful Koa fretboard

Guitar neck process. Neck and fingerboard before gluing

Neck and fretboard cut to size

Guitar neck process. Prepping the neck for the fingerboard

taping the truss rod to keep free of glue

Guitar neck process. Gluing on fingerboard

Gluing and clamping

Guitar neck process. Fingerboard and neck unfinished

All put together

Guitar neck process. Setting the side dot markers

Adding the side dots

Guitar neck process. Koa neck with fingerboard glued

Koa neck ready for frets

Resonator and electric guitar necks unfinished

More necks ready to fret

Guitar neck process. Pressing the frets

Pressing the frets

Guitar neck process. Setting the frets

Finished with pressing

Guitar neck process. Trimming the fret ends

Ready to trim frets

Guitar neck process. Shaving the fret ends

Filing fret ends

Guitar neck process. Frets almost finished

Finished fret ends

Guitar neck process. Checking the level of the frets

Checking fret level

Guitar neck process. Fret leveling

Leveling and recrowning frets

Guitar neck process. Frets finished and polished

Polishing to a nice shine

Resonator guitar neck process. Clear coating.

Finished necks getting lacquer