Tulsa Sound Guitars

Knobs 267, 268, 269

Knobs 267, 268 & 269 are 3 of 8 knobs made from a ¾” by 4” board of Yellowheart, and a ¼” by 1.5 “ stick of Bloodwood.  A 3/4 x 1.5 x 4” piece of Yellowheart was glued to a ¼ x 1.5 x 4” piece of Bloodwood, with the grains of each piece crossing the other at 90 degrees.  The Bloodwood warps in contact with water-base yellow wood glue, so four C-clamps had to be used to flatten it agains the Yellowheart.

This made up a laminated piece of wood 1 x 1.5 x 4”, which was cut, dividing the 1.5” dimension in half, making two pieces 1 x ¾ x 4”.  Those two pieces were cut into four each, making 8 knob blanks of about 1 x 1”, ¾” high, with the Yellowheart grain vertical and the Bloodwood grain horizontal, as can be seen in the picture above.  The bloodwood provides a kind of rotation pointer.  Each knob has a base coat of Superglue (SG), layers of SG, and a final finis of Kiwi neutral shoe polish.

This gives the Yellowheart iridescence on the sides, but not the top, and the bloodwood iridescence on the top and from a particular angle on the side.  Knob 269 in the bottom right of the image above was not turned to the precise angle to show it.  Knob 267 in the  upper left shows the non-iridescent deep red end grain of the Bloodwood.