I have just been to the Youtube site and typed Alembic in the search box hoping to find some video clips of clarkee with his alembic.
What i found was quite shocking.
 

 
Have a look at the top 2 video clips. This must be at the alembic mothership as the guitar rack in the background looks familiar to other photo's from alembic's workshop.
 
If after watching this you are still gobsmacked,  you may like me think how strong these basses are to take what seems to be serious Grievious Bodily Harm to a bass.
 
Now I don't need to be so delicate with mine..  :-)
Jazzyvee

Cool vids!  It does look like the shop, and there are three videos in all.  Interestingly, in the one titled Battery compartment routing, it looks like they're using some kind of bolt-on bass as a workbench.
 
The Grinding a fingerboard bass look like an Orion.

Jazzyvee:
 
That is indeed the main manufaturing room in Santa Rosa.  Cool videos.
 
Bill, tgo

Dave:
 
I've heard that Precisions make excellent workbenches.  Very effective doorstops, too!  LOL
 
Bill, tgo

Actually, if you look closely, the fender bass is the one that is being routed out, the piece of wood on the top looks like some kind of template for guiding the cutting of  the holes.
Jazzyvee

Ah ... That makes sense.  But why would a workbench need a battery compartment?

What really scares me is that the same poster (metalkpirate1day) also has a video dissecting a durian.
 
All I can say is: he better not have touched my bass afterwards.  You can be fined in Singapore for attempting to carry durian on to the subway.
 
For those who don't know what durian is, it is a fruit that smells like a rotting corpse when opened.  And yes, people eat it.
 
Bradley

What's the old line about 'If you ever watched sausage being made, you'd never eat sausage?'
 
Sanding ebony is like that:  It's a holy terror to work, stiff and hard as hell (it doesn't even float!).  Typically has to be worked with blades, wheels, etc. for metal, just eats wood tools alive.  
 
What's amazing to me is as much coco as they go through, and it's a pulmonary irritant:  Do they wear fresh air hoods for that?
 
J o e y

Jimi Hendrix would have been proud!

He probably would have had problems breaking a neckthrough guitar with ebony neck laminates if it's that hard.
Long live Jimi.
jazzyve

he would have found a way....
 
Jimi Rulez!
 
Btw it's what you hear on the background when the fretboard is being attacked with flames.
The Alembic employee could be Pete Moran Click here

Don't get me started on working with ebony: it's sheer hell.
 
I always have to wear a dust mask when working with the damn stuff, the dust just suffocates me if I don't. I said to my boss that he should try to sell the dust as instant coffee since it looks similar to that.
 
As for the routing footage: nothing new to me, but why wasn't the neck taken off? When we modify basses at Knooren handcrafted instruments, we ususally take them apart. We take necks off so that the body lies flat on the working bench. With the neck still attached, it just wobbels all over the place. (as you might see when the guy takes the router out and nicks the routing template)
 
(Message edited by Blazer on August 07, 2006)

While we're talking poisonous woods, heres a link to a wood toxicity site you might find interesting.
 
graeme

Video has been taken down form YouTube ...

Oops I hope I haven't got anyone reprimanded at Alembic HQ for finding that video.
 
Jazzyvee