T-shirts came in today for Henri Guitars, and I am really excited to have them! They look awesome, and I can’t wait to start wearing my own logo all over the place.

So sometime this month I’m going to start a fundraiser on Indiegogo for the shop so we can gather funds to start custom builds ASAP. It would be very greatly appreciated if people could help get the word out about Henri Guitars in the meantime! Liking the page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HenriGuitars) would be a huge help, and also passing this post around so people can catch a glimpse of what we’re all about. With your help we can turn this small shop into a major provider of custom guitars!

And if you would just like to leave a donation before the fundraiser on Indiegogo starts, I have a donations button on my Tumblr sidebar.

Spent my night frustratingly working on the Henri Guitars logo, since I’ve gotten so fed up with waiting on graphic designers flaking out on me. The end result is that I’ve finally come up with a set of logos that I think I can live with! Which means flyers, banners, business cards, and MERCH are soon to follow!

Printed off some templates to use for designing some guitar bodies tonight - great decision, it’s 100x easier to design when there’s a template to work with. I’m excited for these, though I’m not having much luck with headstock designs. Hoping I can get stuff rolling by the new year, just need to get funds in place for the proper tools and supplies.

There’s a chance that if I can get the shop doing full custom builds by sometime late next year (not exactly sure when, but hoping it’s at least midway through the year, if not later) I could be able to pass along a few custom guitars to a local band that may be going on tour. The kind of exposure that on-tour photos would bring to the shop… That’s definitely something I want to shoot for!

Donations are always welcomed and much appreciated, there’s a button for it on my profile. I also hope to get some merch going soon, I have a designer working on the shop logo, hoping to get it finalized so I can order some T-shirts, stickers, all that fun stuff.

Worked with a friend today on the Henri Guitars logo. It’s still not done, but this is the progress we’ve made on it.

I’m glad someone finally came through on working with me on this thing. At least 5 other people before this fell through after saying they’d help. It’s nice to be making progress.

Another update on the paint job on the Henri Guitars project transformation: KH-202.

Finally got the paint job to do what I wanted! All it took was painting heavily in small spots, and dabbing the paper towel right away. A few times out of the bunch it pulled up to the primer in a few spots, but eventually all of those imperfections were dealt with and now it’s looking killer! Can’t wait to get this lacquered up and ready to play.

Finally got the paint job on Henri Guitars Project Transformation: ESP LTD KH-202!

It gave me a little grief, honestly. There are a few parts that wouldn’t fill and kept cracking the paint. Ended up dipping into my second can of black for this one. And then my plan to dab the red paint over the top of the black didn’t quite work out - it dried way too fast! I did a first coat on the front, moved to the back, went back to the front with a paper towel and no paint came up, anywhere. Finally hit a point where paint came up, but… Well, it came up all the way to the primer, so that didn’t quite work out how I’d hoped! Currently waiting a few hours for the entire finish to dry so I can wet sand that spot and a few others before finally starting the lacquer coating!

If I can build the hot box in the next few days, we’re looking at having this guitar done by next Wednesday. How exciting!

The road so far on Henri Guitars Project Transformation - ESP LTD KH-202

So far this has been a great job, and I’m excited to have it painted, lacquered, cured, wet sanded, polished, and reassembled to see how it matches up to my ESP LTD H-1001 Deluxe! I’ll have a number of people, including a guitar shop owner that lives down the street - a seasoned veteran of many decades - to make sure it’s up to good standards.

Guys. I seriously have felt like crying the past few hours - And for the first time in a very long time, I wanted to cry for good reasons!

I spent this morning gathering supplies for my current projects, but this afternoon I spent my time clearing out the shed at my grandfathers house, which was filled with old and new tools. I was told I could “permanently borrow” whatever I wanted.

I nearly came to tears of joy when I found pretty much every piece of equipment I would need to do more advanced work, including a table saw! There is a lot I can’t house currently, but what I can use for now is still an amazing find. Everything else will come in stride. This is the general treasure trove I walked away with today.

I seriously cannot even. This means so much to my guitar shop work, and to have all of this equipment - hundreds of dollars worth of tools, just in what I took home with me today - for FREE from my family… I just can’t even express how happy I am.

This is how the “crack team” at Henri Guitars spends their time after midnight!

Whelp, we have some winners. I think these are the designs I’m going to stick with as my first 3 headstock shapes. Might work on a few more just to get more variety, but now I think I need to design some body shapes.

I wasn’t too happy with the original dual-side headstock shape I came up with, so I tried again. I like these results much better.