The Whale Guitar | Providence | Guitar of Resistance

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A Sonic Nantucket Sleigh Ride

This sonic work of art is on a mission to raise awareness, prompt action, and support the science of protecting the marine environment for the preservation of whales, oceans and ultimately ourselves. With its Moby Dick theme, this "Sonic Nantucket Sleighride" is on a journey to be played and signed by guitarists as it sings the message that it is time for mankind to change our toxic attitude toward nature. Follow us to catch live and recorded performances!

The Whale Guitar is an instrument of change!

Concept: Jen Long Design: William Schaff

Sculpture & Luthiery: Rachel Rosenkrantz

Electronics: Gwen Forrester

Laser Engravings: Jess Rosenkranz

Skull Tuning Peg Sculpture: Jen Long

Skull Castings: Kirk Hindman

Strap & Embroidery: Double Treble

Exhibition Photography: Michael Cevoli

GALLERY

SOUNDINGS & SIGNINGS

JOURNEY Scroll through to see how it was built!

shine on.jpg

After a half hour of non stop friction, here comes the shine, naturally from the wood. No lacquer or anything else than elbow grease.

radius in.jpg

Curf back in, like nothing happened. The dutchman is nice and tight, no need to hide it behind side bindings... we are back in business!

repair flying dutchman.jpg

Big thanks to chisel wizard, Dan Collins, who taught me all about dutchman repair, or how they would say in dutch, Dan the beitel tovenaar! (according to google translate).

pocket inlay.jpg

Second, routing a pocket to inlay it where it belong on the 12th fret.

coffin excavation.jpg

First, excavating the death from the 13th fret

misplaced coffin.jpg

The moment of realization, the coffin is at the wrong spot... Luckily not too late, here is how in couple of seconds:

setting inlays.jpg

Sweated bullets today. Routing the pockets for the inlays...

slicing frets.jpg

Japanese saws for cutting the fret grooves.

tracing tails.jpg

Tracing frets and markers. prep' abalone for inlays.

visualizing neck.jpg

Trying to visualize before the neck shaping.

headstock transfer.jpg

And now to transfer the headstock design!

backing on.jpg

The backing is on! Just some trimming needed for the sides.

fingerboard sandwich.jpg

Clampin all those layers together for a fingerboard sanwich!

glue and shim.jpg

dyeing the glue.jpg

wave on wave.jpg

The puzzle fits! Now, some sanding on few spots to "massage" the match for gluing.

jewelry saw and wave.jpg

Sea-saw! Precise jewelry saw to cap the waves!

adjusting waves.jpg

The crests of the waves need a little adjustment - the cnc can only get so close! Now for some hand work!

sand and waves.jpg

sanding the waves - wherever there are waves, there is sand!

wave over wave.jpg

The inlay strip glued to one side of the neck wood! Wave over wave, and looking good!

template test OK.jpg

test "dummies" are mating well - let's do this on the real material!

test cut.jpg

This time we do a dummy test to make sure we have it right before we cut the final piece of wood!

cnc magic.jpg

To respect Willialm Schaff pencil line to a T,we've vectorized it for a precision CNC cut. Thank you Eric for the CNC magic!

mistake on neck cut.jpg

Mistake!! The best laid plans of mice and men...sometimes lead to even better things! The new wood that wil replace it has nicer waving grain! Serendipity!

templates on the neck.jpg

The templates are laid over the sky and water woods for the neck!

the journey begins.jpg

And now the journey of the building begins - here is the full scale print out to begin the neck!

inked tile.jpg

After rubbing ink into the lasered kitched countertop tile, and wiping the surface ink away, we found the look we were searching for! The guitar body of the whale will be made out of this!

more laser tests.jpg

Clear acryllic etching over the drawing gave a ghostly look!

laser on clear acrylic.jpg

Laser etching into a clear acrylic tile - looks nice for something! We will keep this in mind for some other project!

laser test.jpg

Rachel with a laser test on an old wood guitar body. We want the body to look like scrimshaw, and thought maybe a white wood would workl,. It looks nice, but looks more like wood burning than scrimshaw.

will's sketch.jpg

William Schaff's first sketch

shine on.jpg

After a half hour of non stop friction, here comes the shine, naturally from the wood. No lacquer or anything else than elbow grease.

radius in.jpg

Curf back in, like nothing happened. The dutchman is nice and tight, no need to hide it behind side bindings... we are back in business!

repair flying dutchman.jpg

Big thanks to chisel wizard, Dan Collins, who taught me all about dutchman repair, or how they would say in dutch, Dan the beitel tovenaar! (according to google translate).

pocket inlay.jpg

Second, routing a pocket to inlay it where it belong on the 12th fret.

coffin excavation.jpg

First, excavating the death from the 13th fret

misplaced coffin.jpg

The moment of realization, the coffin is at the wrong spot... Luckily not too late, here is how in couple of seconds:

setting inlays.jpg

Sweated bullets today. Routing the pockets for the inlays...

slicing frets.jpg

Japanese saws for cutting the fret grooves.

tracing tails.jpg

Tracing frets and markers. prep' abalone for inlays.

visualizing neck.jpg

Trying to visualize before the neck shaping.

headstock transfer.jpg

And now to transfer the headstock design!

backing on.jpg

The backing is on! Just some trimming needed for the sides.

fingerboard sandwich.jpg

Clampin all those layers together for a fingerboard sanwich!

glue and shim.jpg

dyeing the glue.jpg

wave on wave.jpg

The puzzle fits! Now, some sanding on few spots to "massage" the match for gluing.

jewelry saw and wave.jpg

Sea-saw! Precise jewelry saw to cap the waves!

adjusting waves.jpg

The crests of the waves need a little adjustment - the cnc can only get so close! Now for some hand work!

sand and waves.jpg

sanding the waves - wherever there are waves, there is sand!

wave over wave.jpg

The inlay strip glued to one side of the neck wood! Wave over wave, and looking good!

template test OK.jpg

test "dummies" are mating well - let's do this on the real material!

test cut.jpg

This time we do a dummy test to make sure we have it right before we cut the final piece of wood!

cnc magic.jpg

To respect Willialm Schaff pencil line to a T,we've vectorized it for a precision CNC cut. Thank you Eric for the CNC magic!

mistake on neck cut.jpg

Mistake!! The best laid plans of mice and men...sometimes lead to even better things! The new wood that wil replace it has nicer waving grain! Serendipity!

templates on the neck.jpg

The templates are laid over the sky and water woods for the neck!

the journey begins.jpg

And now the journey of the building begins - here is the full scale print out to begin the neck!

inked tile.jpg

After rubbing ink into the lasered kitched countertop tile, and wiping the surface ink away, we found the look we were searching for! The guitar body of the whale will be made out of this!

more laser tests.jpg

Clear acryllic etching over the drawing gave a ghostly look!

laser on clear acrylic.jpg

Laser etching into a clear acrylic tile - looks nice for something! We will keep this in mind for some other project!

laser test.jpg

Rachel with a laser test on an old wood guitar body. We want the body to look like scrimshaw, and thought maybe a white wood would workl,. It looks nice, but looks more like wood burning than scrimshaw.

will's sketch.jpg

William Schaff's first sketch

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inked tile.jpg

After rubbing ink into the lasered kitched countertop tile, and wiping the surface ink away, we found the look we were searching for! The guitar body of the whale will be made out of this!