Guitar Making

Snow Day - Part 2

2010-03-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

These pictures are pretty self-explanatory. I'm basically just working the neck shaft down to size with a little finger plane, occasionally going over it with a sanding block to make sure I'm maintaining a straight line. As I get closer, I start blending in the heel and nut areas with a rasp.

Snow day - Part 1

2010-03-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

So after getting the splice glued onto the side, I realigned the fingerboard and clamped it up again, this time much more slowly and methodically so the clamps didn't pull the fingerboard sideways.

And here it is out of the clamps a few hours later. This time I used 2 small finishing nails as alignment pins, drilled through fret slots.

And again to the band saw to trim down the splice close to the fingerboard with this little fence I made for the band saw.

And here it is, ready for carving.

Mistake #872

2010-03-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

I slept well last night, pleased with the progress I'd made in getting the fingerboard prepped and attached to the neck. I went up to the shop this morning to admire my handiwork, only to discover that the fingerboard had shifted slightly and was now slightly overhanging one side.This is a problem, because if I try to sand the fingerboard down to the neck, the maple fingerboard binding will look really uneven.

So I grabbed an old iron that I keep around for such occasions, and used it to heat up the fingerboard and loosen up the epoxy and separated the fingerboard from the neck. Here's the mess the epoxy leaves behind.

During the neck removal the edge of the neck got beat up a little bit, and so there were little chipped out areas underneath where the fingerboard will go. I could try filling that space with superglue and sawdust, but it would look real sloppy and it's in a real visible spot.

I had two options:
A.) Make a new, narrower fingerboard. This one already has a 1-7/8" nut width, which is pretty wide. I could make a new one with 1-3/4" width and that would give me enough clearance that the chipped area would get removed.
B.) Sand the side down flat and splice in a piece of mahogany. Luckily, I kept the neck cutoffs so I had the exact piece to match that side of the neck.

I chose option B. The thing is, if this fails, I can go back and do option A.

So, I planed down the side flat until the chipped out areas were gone.

And here it is with the splice clamped on. Hopefully this will make a nearly invisible glue joint.

Lessons learned in all this:
1. Don't trim the neck so close to final shape, leave a little extra for situations like this.
2. Apply clamp pressure more gradually and evenly across all the clamps, and check often to make sure everything's still aligned.
3. Find better alignment pins.
4. Don't get hasty when you're separating glue seams because you can damage the wood and make more repairs for yourself.

Dot dot dot

2010-03-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's my little jig for drilling holes for the side dot fret markers on the fingerboard. This makes it so the dots will be lined up correctly.

These pearl dots are 3/32" in diameter, and are superglued into place. If I could go back and do it over I would use black plastic dots so it would contrast better against the light maple binding. I'm pretty sure it'll look better under a finish.

After the dots were dry, I epoxied the fingerboard to the neck. Then I'll be able to finish shaping the neck.

I've become the world's laziest blogger now that I've figured out that I can upload from Picasa to Blogger, but I haven't quite figured out the whole formatting thing to get the text and photos arranged in a pleasing way. Which is fine, since I use one of the Blogspot templates from 1989.

I shaved my back.

2010-03-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Long term followers of my blog may remember the Granadillo guitar I was working on, this one actually made it the closest to being finished. I had it nearly to completion but a mistake on the neck stopped me in my tracks.

I set it aside and the following winter it got pretty dry in my house, which makes wood shrink. The center seam started to split and then a part in the upper bout started to crack. I learned an expensive lesson that I can't put the box together when the humidity is really high (say, in the hottest week of August, which is when I did this one). Anyway, I could try to humidify the guitar and glue the cracks, but the truth is it would always have humidity problems. So I routed off the bindings and removed the top and back from the sides. The top is toast, but I can salvage the back. But I have to take the old braces off and redo it at a lower humidity so it can handle the drier times of a year a bit better.

This thing I'm building is shaped like a guitar.

2010-03-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

Special K - part 3

2010-02-26T07:02:00.001-08:00

Special K - part 2

2010-02-20T17:08:00.000-08:00

Last night I glued in the K inlay with a mix of ebony dust and epoxy. Sanded it flat to 220-grit this afternoon, and got out the headstock slot routing jig from luthiertool to route the slots and drill the holes in the side for tuners.

I'm pretty happy with how the inlay turned out. There is definite room for improvement (smoother edges on the pearl, better routing technique so less filler is required, placement of K would look better a little to the left and angled back a bit), but I didn't just completely botch it and it will be usable so I feel like it's a success.

Special K - part 1

2010-02-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a bit of what I've been working on this week. This will be my first attempt at inlay. My buddy is a graphic designer and was teaching a class at the local university and had a student design a logo for me as part of a project. I'm not sure if I really want to use it as a logo, but figured it gives me something to work with for my first inlay attempt. The logo was my whole last name, I dropped it into Autocad and just traced the K. I had to alter some aspects of it to make it easier to cut without breaking. I'll post more pics later of my set-up for cutting the shell.

Bandwidth

2010-01-25T07:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry, had to disable most of the pics for a while as my bandwidth was unusually high this month and I'm too cheap to move up to the next level of hosting.

I'm back ya'll, and that's a fact ya'll.

2009-12-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

Anybody still out there?

Here's a guitar I started a while back, it's based on a 20's Martin 00 12-fret. The back and sides are bubinga.

And while I was waiting for the glue to dry on linings on the bubinga guitar, I resurrected this project. It's an OM with a Florentine cutaway ("Florentine" means it comes to a sharp corner instead of being curved). I set it aside a few years ago mainly because I thought the cutaway was beyond my ability. It still is but I'm going to move ahead anyway. Back and sides are East Indian Rosewood and the top will be cedar. I had bent these on older forms based on a different OM plan, and the curves had relaxed a bit over the years, so I touched these up on a hot pipe to get the correct shape.

Well that's it for me... See you all in 2011!

Vacation Day 5

2007-08-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

I didn't quite spend as much time in the shop yesterday, it was time for some much needed relaxing with my wife.

I leveled the frets. I marked the top of each fret with a Sharpie, then lightly sanded with sandpaper on a straightedge. When all the marks are gone, the frets should be level. It leveled up quickly and evenly.

I did have a few stubborn frets on the upper part of the board, the ends weren't staying down. I made a makeshift fret press and used superglue to hold down those frets.

Vacation Day 4

2007-08-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

French polishing supplies...

A couple French polish sessions on the top just to seal it so it won't get stained by pore filler.

Pore filler on the back and sides, looks like a mess now but when I sand it back the wood will be nice and smooth.

The heel cap glued on, same wood as back and sides.

I tapped in some frets and started filing the excess off the sides.

My custom made fret-bender.

Vacation Day 3

2007-08-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Vacation Day 2

2007-08-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from yesterday.

The fingerboard is only attached with double stick tape at this point, to give me a guide to cut out the rough shape of the neck.

I roughed out the shape a bit, now it's starting to look like a guitar neck.

Now I have to make ramps into the slot so the strings have clearance to get to the tuners.

Working on getting the neck fit properly to the body, which involves a lot of attaching and detaching the neck as I make adjustments.

I sand to make a flat surface so the fingerboard can lay flat and true.

And at 1:30am last night I glued on the fingerboard to the neck with epoxy and called it a night.

Vacation Day 1b

2007-07-30T20:13:00.001-07:00

Vacation Day 1

2007-07-30T07:25:00.001-07:00

I've got this week off of work, and the goal is to finish this guitar. The deadline for the luthierforum contest is Friday, so expect lots of updates with very little text description this week.

Wedge and bindings

2007-07-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

Less talk and more rock:

A little bit mo mo mo

2007-07-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

It's lonely at the top:

Brace yourself:

Back to it:

Epoxying in the neck reinforcement:

Attaching the top, closing up the box:

Banding, Bending and Binding: (Also bonding, bunding, and sometimes bynding.)

Still More on the 00 12-fret

2007-07-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

Dial-uppers are going to hate me. I apologize for the lack of text.

And I'll end the night with a mistake... I drilled this hole in the top slightly off center. So I filled it with glue and sawdust, and I'll try again.

More on the 12-fret 00

2007-07-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

More work on the 2nd Buildoff guitar...

These pics are a couple days old, I haven't uploaded the latest photos yet. I bought a dehumidifier yesterday because it won't stop raining here so I can't keep the humidity down in my shop. If I brace the top and back and close up the box in high humidity, things will shrink and crack when the air does dry up.

The cedar top I prepared had water stains on one half that would not sand out on either side, so I joined a spruce top.

Preparing the neck blank.

Here's my jig for cutting the scarf joint at 15 degrees.

I clamp together the neck shaft and headstock pieces, and drill two holes. Then I use two toothpicks as alignment pins so they don't shift around when I'm gluing this important joint.

Preparing the macassar ebony fretboard.

Profiling the rim assembly.

I started another one for some reason

2007-06-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I still haven't even finished one guitar yet, and I'm starting another. I'm actually shooting for having this done by the beginning of August. There are several reasons/excuses.

First of all, I got a back and side set of Granadillo for a very very good price from Hibdon Hardwood with the understanding that I would build with it soon and post pictures on a guitar making forum. It really is nice stuff to work with so far, and attractive to the eye.

B. I'm in this guitar building contest at luthierforum.com that ends at the beginning of August, and to be eligible for any prizes at all, I need to complete the instrument.

III. I'm attending a family reunion in August and it'd be nice to be able to bring a guitar I made.

This one is based on a Martin 00 12-fret. I'm going for a minimalist look on this one, partly for time reasons and I also just like the aesthetics of the idea. I think it'll have a cedar top, but the last pictures show some sort of staining or discoloration, so I may have to use a spruce set from my stash if that doesn't sand out.

Lowden Guitars - shop tour

2007-03-07T03:16:00.000-08:00

My favorite woman and I eloped to Northern Ireland last week, there'll be more posts about that here on my other blog.

While we were there, we got the chance to meet George Lowden and tour his small guitar building facility in Downpatrick. I also ordered a guitar from him, it will be a custom S-25 made with a "Lucky Strike" LS redwood top. That should be ready in six months or so.

I apologize if you're on dial-up, I'm about to post a lot of pictures. Most are self-explanatory, I may add a few notes under some of the pics.

Here's a table display in the Lowden Guitar office.

This is the outside of the office located in a business park north of Downpatrick. The shop is across the parking lot.

George and I at his office.

David Pierce at the workbench, he was fun to chat with. You can tell these guys really love what they do.

This is Wes Grierson, he actually just arrived last night in Northwest Arkansas to play some shows at the university where Joy works and maybe at a local church.

I thought this was brilliant. It's a bicycle innertube sewn to a piece of plywood. They use this to attach the back and top to the side assembly, it keeps even pressure all around. You can see it in use in one of the previous pictures.

This is George's fret slotting machine, it's been in service since the late 70's.

Two motorized radius dishes for sanding the profile to the side assembly.

He uses washing machine motors and pulleys for the motorized sanding dishes.

George at his bench.

George at his bench again, I think he was working on a pickup installation.

Buildoff - Rosewood Fretboard

2007-01-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

I've been working all weekend at my day job, but I've taken a few short breaks to get some shop time.

In my last post, I had slotted the fretboard with my fret slotting jig on the table saw. The next step was to taper the fretboard with this table saw jig.

I didn't take a lot of pics for the next step, binding the fretboard with flamed maple. It was a challenge for me to get a nice tight mitered corner where the maple wraps around the end of the fretboard. I used a very sharp chisel to cut the miter. It took a lot of practice to get the angle right and to get a good straight vertical cut. You can see I went through five little pieces of maple, I kept cutting them a little too short which would make a gap at one of the corners.

Here it is sanded to a 16" radius with a Stewmac aluminum sanding block. I'll include another view from the end so you can see the radius.

It's not a great pic, but here's a closeup of the end of the fingerboard so you can see the mitered corners. I feel pretty good about it since that's the first one I've done.

Slots

2006-12-31T15:19:00.000-08:00

I got my new Stewmac Fret Scale Rules in the mail yesterday so I cut the slots on a couple fretboards with my new fret slotting jig. I just tape the scale to the back of the fret board, and then I align it with the reference line on the jig. I use magnifying reading glasses so I can get everything lined up accurately. The second photo is the view from above when I'm aligning everything before I make the cut.

The lighter colored one is East Indian Rosewood, and it'll go on the rosewood parlor guitar (the "build off" guitar). The darker one is ebony and it will go on the cocobolo parlor.

Getting Jiggy With It

2006-12-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the title. I've been making jigs tonight.

This first one is the fret slotting jig for my table saw. It has a UHMW track on the bottom of it that rides in the miter slot on the table saw to keep everything aligned properly with the blade. I've got Fret Scale Rules on the way from Stewart-McDonald so I'll know where to locate the slots. I tested on a piece of plywood. I'll post a more detailed description of it when I do an actual fretboard.

This other one is for routing out the tail of the guitar for the end graft, or tail wedge. The guitar shown in the pic already has the end graft installed, but I'll be removing it and redoing it because I wasn't very satisfied with the job I did on it. I'll use a router or laminate trimmer with a pattern guide to rout out the channel for the wedge. I haven't actually put this one to use yet, I'll post a more detailed description of the process later on. Right now I'm just using odds-and-ends wingnuts and so forth as the hardware store was out of the knobs I wanted to use.

Buildoff - In a bind

2006-12-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

On to the koa binding. I've already prebent it to shape in my side bender. There will also be a piece of black/white/black purfling along the side below the binding.

Here it is taped in place dry. There's no glue yet, I'm just making sure everything fits.

I leave the binding too long so I can trim the ends exactly where I need them to be.

With it taped in place, I use a small Exacto saw and a file to get the end of the binding to line up with the centerline of the back.

So here it is with the binding and purfling all sized up.

Now it's time to get ready for glue. I remove the tape from the neck end to just past the waist.

So I have the binding glued in from the waist to the neck end. I use an old bicycle innertube to apply pressure at the waist, as that's the most likely place for a gap between the purfling and binding. Then I remove the tape from the waist to the tail end so I can get that end glued in place.

And here it is all glued up and taped in place. Next time I'll install the binding on the other side.

Buildoff Channel Surfing

2006-12-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

So I temporarily gave up on cutting the binding channels by hand, so I bought a jig from Luthiertool. It's a handheld jig that uses a laminate trimmer/router. I can't fully recommend it yet, I'm still getting used to it. It uses two bearings to register against the side to keep the tool right side up. If it accidentally tips inward, it cuts the channel too deep and can make a divot. I had to add more purfling trim and cut a deeper channel because this happened a few times.

So here's the tool and the channel around the edge that I just cut.

And here's another view after I'm done.

You can see it's sort of a "stair step" channel, the black & white purfling trim will go on the upper inside step, and the koa binding will go on the bottom outer step.

I haven't been very good about taking pics lately. I had a number of screwups trying to install the purfling around the back edge of the guitar. Twice I glued the purfling in and then routed it off to redo it.

So here it is with purfling installed on that inside step of the channel.

Buildoff Tail Wedge

2006-12-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished up the tail wedge. It ended up quite a bit wider than I originally intended, because I kept screwing up the edge. I may build a router jig to do this in the future, but using a chisel is pretty fun.

Wedgies and Chisels and Gramils

2006-09-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

Lesson #1 about cutting the binding channel on your guitar:
Do not cut out the tail wedge until after you've cut the binding and purfling channels... Now that I've cut a wedge, I don't have the sides in place to act as a guide for cutting the binding. I'm still figuring out the best way to scribe a line, and chisel right up to it while keeping the edge of the channel sharp. So the wedge is quite a bit wider than originally intended. But I'm not afraid to post mistakes here, I'm still learning all this stuff.

On to the binding.

I'm using a tool called a gramil to scribe a line around the perimeter of the guitar to mark where I'll be cutting out for the binding and purfling around the edge. It has a little sharp blade and I can set it for the width of my binding. Most people do this with a router and a guide bearing, so this is sort of the antiquated way of doing it, but it's a skill I want to learn.

Here's a gramil, purchased from LMI.

And here I am scribing to mark the edge of the binding channel. I use a pulling motion as that seems to allow much better control than trying to push it through the wood. I start with a light cut and then go over it a few more times to deepen and define the mark.

And here's part of the upper bout. Up near the top where the neck will go on, I didn't make a deep enough mark, and I wasn't working with enough light, so I accidentally got a little tearout. Luckily, since this is my first attempt, I only cut the channel sized for the binding itself. The channel will actually be a little deeper along the side, and there will be a smaller stepped channel for the purfling on top, so it's okay if I don't get it perfect this go around.

Vise

2006-09-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hey blogosphere, remember me?

I've got a new job now that should allow for a normal amount of free time, so I hope to be posting more often.

Here's a jig I threw together this evening. It's ugly but I think it's going to do the trick. It's a vise that I clamp onto the edge of my workbench, and it clamps a guitar body in place.

The edges that grip the guitar body are curved so that when the clamps are gently tightened, it only grips at the outer edge of the guitar body. I do need to add some insulation or something to cover the exposed steel pipe. I also need to rig up some sort of safety net so the guitar won't fall through and hit the floor if the clamps are accidentally loosened. I think a bungee cord strung between the two pipes will take care of that.

As you can see, it features the finest 2x4 construction and premium pipe clamps from Harbor Freight. I may decide to make a nicer one someday, but for now I just wanted to get it together so I can get to work.

I've got a problem.

2006-06-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

I can't stop buying wood. It's hard to pass up a good deal, though, and the good stuff's only getting more expensive.

I bought three sets of Ziricote from Allied Lutherie. These are only big enough to do small parlor size guitars, which is what I want to build anyway, so they were considerably cheaper than pieces big enough for a regular dreadnought. $80 instead of $250.

Tasmanian Devil

2006-05-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

Still no action in the shop as of late... I'll finally get a break from the crazy work hours in a couple weeks, then hopefully there will be a flurry of guitar-building posts.

In the meantime, I'm buying a slab of Tasmanian Blackwood like this. (Though I'm not sure if this is the exact chunk of wood I'm getting, mine will be from the same part of the tree.) It's coming from Australia via Canada, then to Arkansas via Minnesota. It'll be a couple months before it arrives. And at my rate, it'll be eighteen years before I start to build guitars from it.

It'll be a 40"x13"x3" slab of wood, should make several nice guitar back and side sets once it's all sliced up.

Messy Shop

2006-04-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

So my day job has turned into a day, night, weekend and holiday job, so I haven't been up in the shop at all lately. There was a thread over at the OLF forum where people were posting pics of their messy shops, so I snapped a couple pics so I could participate before I head off to work on this beautiful Saturday.

Buildoff: Closing Up The Box

2006-03-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Buildoff: Top Braced

2006-02-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

Here's the finished top. I was going to try to close up the box yesterday, but I'm having trouble getting the humidity up in my shop. It's been some of the coldest days we've had this winter, and the heater is running often. My humidifier's trying to keep up, but I'm barely keeping it above 30% humidity, and I want it to be up at 45% when I close up the box.

Here's the rest of the box, I think I forgot to post pics of this before.

Buildoff: Don't Fear the Ryoba

2006-02-19T06:19:00.000-08:00

(The ryoba is a type of Japanese handsaw I used below)

I wanted to get started on building the neck for the buildoff guitar, but I had the last bits of the top bracing getting glued on in the go-bar deck sitting on top of my tablesaw. I had big plans of building a tablesaw jig to assist me in cutting the scarf joint on the neck, which you'll see me make below with a japanese handsaw.

Buildoff: Bracing the top

2006-02-04T19:43:00.000-08:00

Buildoff - Rejoining the back

2006-02-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

I skipped a whole important step on the buildoff guitar, so this is out of order. The whole point of removing the back was to rebrace it, because I wasn't happy with the job I had done on it. And the back had started to separate along the glue seam, so I took it all the way apart. I had to add some "wings" onto the lower bout since I had to remove material from the center joint, and also I had cut a little too close when I cut the outside perimeter of the back.

Top bracing and closing up the box

2006-02-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry again for the lack of description...

The build-off's back

2006-02-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts, and the following lack of description...

Buildoff: Lining Transplant

2005-12-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

When I pulled the back off of the side assembly, there were a few spots where it took decent size chunks of the lining out. The rest of the linings are pretty good, so instead of sanding down to the lowest common point, I'll just replace a section of lining and sand that back down even with the rest.

This little razor saw is used to mark the ends of the section I'll be removing.

Then I carefully chisel away the bulk of the lining...

...till there's just a thin sliver of the lining material left.

Then I finish up with a bit of sanding with 120. I'm using a white Staeder eraser as a sanding block, being careful not to round over the edge of the side.

Now it's all clean.

And I cut a new piece of lining to fit in the empty spot, glued it and clamped it.

You can see a spot where a little chunk of the mahogany neck block broke off when I removed the back. Note to self: Always keep the little splintered pieces if something breaks. So I superglued the little splintered chunk back in and sanded it back even.

Buildoff: I Take It Back

2005-12-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

Cliffs Note version: I messed up and now I'm going to undo and redo some stuff.

This is what I get for working too late when I have my mind on too much other stuff. At lunch today, I took all the tape off and had a look at the inside of the box. I think I must have accidentally shifted the top when I was tracing the perimeter of it, my braces were off center, and one end of the middle brace was even tucked under the lining a little bit. They're supposed to taper to nothing right before the lining. Anyway, I got home from work and removed the back. I used a paint scraper that I've ground thin, and sat next to my gas stove and heated the scraper in the flame. I'd put the scraper into the glue joint and slowly move around the back, separating it from the sides. I ended up separating the seam down the center of the back just a little bit because of the heat, I don't think that'll be too hard to fix. I'll likely end up removing all three braces and installing new ones. It's good practice anyway.

I likely won't have time to return to this till after Christmas.

Buildoff Back Bracing

2005-12-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

This is an old mahogany table top section my friend Chris gave me to use for this buildoff guitar. I may use this wood for the neck. I need to do some scraping and sanding to really get a good look at what's there.

FlushThe Evidence

2005-12-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

I used a flush trim bit in my laminate trimmer to trim off the excess of the back that's hanging over the sides.

New Tops - Soundhole Rings

2005-12-05T09:05:00.000-08:00

Here are the two new tops with soundhole rings inlaid... I've already described my method and tools for that in earlier posts. The only difference is that I put them in the right place this time. It's hard to see in this pic, but they're the same black/white/black rings as I put in the other two tops. I need to get better lighting in my shop for taking pictures at night.

New Top for Cocobolo Parlor, and Neck Stuff

2005-11-29T19:31:00.000-08:00

This is a neck I started about 2-1/2 years ago, back before I had even taken the Fleishman class. I cut the scarf joint with a Japanese hand saw and cleaned it up with a plane. Here I'm touching up the face of the headstock with a hand plane so that everything's squared up.

Here's the stacked heel getting glued up.

New Buildoff Top

2005-11-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

Excuse me, I seem to have misplaced my soundhole

2005-11-28T18:11:00.000-08:00

The top on the left was to be for the cocobolo guitar, the one on the right was to be for the rosewood buildoff guitar. Somehow I mislocated the soundhole on both of them, almost an inch too high. I have no idea how that happened, it was months ago when I did that. I think I must have accidentally picked up the wrong blueprint and took the measurement off of it without double checking which plan I was holding. Anyway, I guess these will get to be on other smaller guitars, and I get to make some new tops. And it was all going so well.

It's Back

2005-11-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

Lotsa pics on this one, I apologize if you're on dial-up.

I made quite a bit of progress on the back today. Here's how it went.

Now I'm starting to shape the braces on the back. I rough out most of it with a chisel, "rough" being the operative word. Then I finish up with a curved sanding block to smooth out the curve.

Then I use this small plane to profile the sides of the brace like so. I also finish that up with a bit of sandpaper to smooth everything out.

Rinse and repeat...

Then I place the back on the side assembly, it won't rest all the way down because the braces are still too long. Then I had my helper monkey take a small stubby pencil to get the outline of the guitar onto the back.

I took it to the bandsaw and cut almost up to that outline I had drawn. It's hard to attach the back to the sides if there's too much overhang, it rips the tape.

The braces won't come out to the edge of the sides, they'll stop just short of the lining on the inside. So I chisel and sand away at the brace so it stops just shy of where the lining will be.

So here's the back ready to go.

I use masking tape from Stew-Mac to clamp it to the sides.

After the glue had dried and I removed the tape, I noticed that the neckblock hadn't been firmly glued against the surface of the back. So I worked some glue into the gap with a piece of posterboard, and then clamped it like so.

So here's the back all braced up and attached.

If you'll remember a few posts back, I had made some center joint reinforcement strips to go down the center seam of the back. I decided not to do it. It's really only necessary for guitars that have a centerstrip inlaid in the back that weakens the joint. I kind of like the clean minimalist look, too.

Back Bracing

2005-11-25T21:07:00.000-08:00

Got the back braces glued in this evening, the one on the upper bout is still in the gobar deck. Tomorrow I hope to taper and shape the braces and then I'll glue the back onto the side assembly.

Misc Thanksgiving Day Activities

2005-11-24T19:52:00.000-08:00

I finished profile sanding the top of the side assembly on the buildoff guitar.

I cut some PVC for the gobar deck. Now it's pretty solid and seems to work like a charm so far. It's so much more stable than without the PVC.

Here I'm beveling the ends of the tail block so that it's the same width as the linings. I had originally started doing this by hand with various rasps and a file and it was taking forever. Then I spotted this little belt sander sitting on my shelf and gave it a shot. It makes quick work of it, but it's pretty easy to wreck it. I'll still finish off with a sanding block, but this removes material in a jiffy.

Buildoff Back Linings

2005-11-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

Go Bar Go!

2005-11-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

With the linings all glued in, I sanded the cylindrical profile into the top and the spherical profile into the back. Here's the spherical back linings.

On to bracing the back. This is my new gobar deck that I made this afternoon. The deck is just four pieces of 3/8" all-thread and two pieces of 24"x24"x3/4" plywood. For the gobars, I bought 48" fiberglass rods from Into The Wind, a kite making supply company, cut them in half and put rubber tips on the end. The general idea is that you flex the gobars and wedge them between whatever you're gluing and the top of the gobar deck.

I set up a dry run using six gobars to clamp this back brace to the back. I set the timer on my camera, and with three seconds left to go the brace tipped over and sent go bars flying everywhere. Eye protection's really important with this sort of stuff. Luckily, I was standing back behind the camera.

Back That Thing Up

2005-11-12T05:58:00.000-08:00

Here's the last piece of lining to be glued into this one. I just barely had enough. If one section of this little piece had been missing, it wouldn't have been long enough. I had bought basswood linings like this, and another set of mahogany linings for the buildoff guitar. But I accidentally started lining the buildoff guitar with basswood also, which I didn't realize until after I had already glued a few pieces in... I was going to order more from Stew Mac, but I had to cancel my credit card two weeks ago because of fraudulent activity on my account, and the new one hasn't arrived yet. Apparently, "three or four business days" is longer than two weeks. Anywho...

The linings aren't perfect, I didn't always get them well aligned since I was gluing in several pieces on each side. But it's much better than it was before and I'm real happy I went through the trouble of redoing it.

So after I get these linings profiled with the sanding dish, the next step will be getting the back bracing glued to the back, and then gluing the back to the sides.

I use the radius dish to sand the curved profile into the spruce bracing, which will hold the back into a more-or-less spherical shape once it's glued up to the sides (which you may remember, will be sanded with this same dish).

Here's how these will be laid out on the back.

These pieces are going to be the center strip on the back running between the braces. These are trimmed from the ends of the spruce plates I used to make the top. You can see my little sanding block I made for profiling these. One side has 80 grit sandpaper glued to it and the other side has 120 grit.

Lining success

2005-11-07T20:07:00.000-08:00

I finally figured out a method that works well for me for gluing in the linings. I install about 4" at a time. This gives me much better control over the glue spread, and allows me to pay more careful attention to getting a tight glue joint all around. So far I'm satisified with the results, and glad I went through the trouble to redo it.

Buildoff - profiling top

2005-11-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

Unlining Again

2005-11-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

I think it's funny that all the stuff I thought was going to be hard wasn't that difficult, and the stuff I thought would be a snap (like clamping and gluing things) turns into a major source of frustration.

If you go a couple posts back, you'll see where I figured out a decent method for removing the linings since I wanted to redo them. Honestly, the guitar probably would have held together fine, but it would have bugged me every time I looked in the soundhole. Also, the way I figure it, if I have to redo it four times on this first guitar, that's better than not really figuring it out until the fourth guitar.

So I had removed those linings, and glued another set of linings in... Only to have the same problem with gaps. And also my linings got all dented up because I clamped things harder this time, used extra windings on the rubber bands on the clothes pins, used a spring clamp at the waist, etc... So last night I grabbed the heat gun and removed all the linings I had installed.

So tonight I decided to switch to the more traditional non-reversed linings which should be a bit more forgiving. I glued in one side and thought everything was going swimmingly. After I took the clothes pins off, more gaps. Uggh.

On the positive side, while I'm very slowly learning how to build guitars, I'm quickly becoming quite the expert in unbuilding them.

So I got out the heat gun again and started over. This time, I cut the lining into about 4" sections. I think this will be much easier as I don't have to bend one long lining into the profile shape. And at least now there's less to undo when I screw it up.

Buildoff - Profiling Sides for Back

2005-11-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Sanders

2005-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Funny how all my plans for custom plywood tool stands with all kinds of nifty storage get thrown out the window when Harbor Freight puts their workstations on sale for $13 each.

Buildoff Bending Distaster

2005-10-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Did you ever hear the story about the lady that accidentally backed into an airplane's propeller? Disaster.

I noticed a big screwup that I did when I was bending one of these sides, and I didn't catch on until after I glued in the neck and tail blocks. One of my metal slats had a curious bend in it that I noticed after I pulled one of the sides out of the sidebender. I thought it was probably from me wrangling stuff around to get the side out after it was bent. Turns out that weird bend or crease in the metal slat was in the side I had bent, too.

Here's a view with a straight edge on it so you can sort of see what's happening.

If I had noticed this right away after I took it out of the bender, I would have used a new metal slat and put the side back in the sidebender and it probably would have turned out as brand as new. But I had just glued in the neck and tail blocks this afternoon. So I dug out my old hot-pipe bender and started working the sides trying to get that dip out of the side.

It turned out pretty well. It's not perfect, but the dip will be even less pronounced once I taper and profile the sides.

That's all for today.

More Buildoff Action on the Side

2005-10-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Build Off Sides

2005-10-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

This is pretty redundant to the stuff I've done before, so I'll just post these pics of the "build off" guitar for the contest over at luthierforum.com.

Lining it Out

2005-10-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Last night I figured out a good way to remove the linings that I had poorly installed before. I had been frustrated trying to figure out a good way to remove them without damaging the sides.

I had tried using my heat gun (like you'd find at Walmart for removing paint) and pulling on the lining, but it seemed like I couldn't get the glue to soften up enough, and I didn't want to badly scorch the wood.

I tried heating up a putty knife that I had grinded thin, and then trying to insert that thin hot edge right into the glue line. I've removed the back from a guitar this way, and it worked pretty well. I wasn't having any luck with this. That's a great method for separating long smooth joints, but this is a series of many small gluing surfaces that I'm trying to break. There's also the danger that the putty knife will dive in to the grain of the sides.

So I had been trying the heat gun method last night and once again it wasn't working well. So I was about to give up, when I decided to stick a tiny screwdriver right into the slot (or kerf) of the lining. I lightly twisted the screwdriver, and it popped off the little section of the kerf next to it. It turned out easier to break the glue joint in shear (sideways) than in tension (pulling away).

So I just moved the heat gun back and forth over a 4" section at a time (that orange blur in the photo), and put a light twisting force on the screwdriver. I got a good sense for when the glue was about to break it's bond, so it got quicker as I went along. In no time I had the linings on both sides cleanly removed. A little sanding removed the remaining glue residue on the sides. Last night I glued new linings into each side, and put extra clamps over the clothespins at the waist to make sure I didn't have to redo it yet again.

Mulligan Man

2005-09-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

No pics yet, just a small update.

I need to start checking my work closer. I should have inspected to make sure my linings were properly glued to the sides before I started sanding the profile into them. On the back linings, the ones I sanded with a round spherical dish, there's a big gap around the waist on one side, right on the part that will be most visible through the soundhole. It looked fine from the outside when I sanded, but I had never taken it out of the form to check things out. So I'll be removing both sides of the lining and replacing those. The other side is fine, but I don't think I'll be able to sand it evenly with one side already sanded. I'll post pics of all this soon, as I want to document the screwups.

In the meantime, I've been going to rock concerts, tearing out shoddily constructed built-in desks in my house, trying to keep the squalor I live in at acceptable levels, and working a little more than usual.

Added 10/02/05:
Here's a pic of the problem...

Doing the Dishes

2005-09-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've worked on over the last couple days...

When we last left the cocobolo guitar, the sides had been profiled to the spherical 15-foot radius and the linings had been glued in place. So the next step is to line the spherical dish with sandpaper, and sand that shape into the linings and sides so that everything is flush and ready for the back to be glued on.

I've attached a flange and short pipe to the base, the dish will rotate around this pipe as it sands.

Here's the dish, I've lined it was sandpaper and drilled a hole in the middle.

Here's the dish sitting on the rib assembly. I've attached a crank handle to it so it's easy to crank the dish round and round to sand the spherical shape into the sides and the lining. I don't have to provide any downward pressure as the dish is already pretty heavy.

Here it is after sanding. It only took a couple minutes to get it sanded. The idea is to sand until the dish has sanded the entire top surface into a sphere. Since I did a lot of profiling with the hand plane before I glued the linings in, there wasn't much sanding to do.

You can kind of see the spherical profile now, and that everything is flush.

Now it's time to flip the rib assembly over and do the same thing to the top. Only this time the top will be cylindrical.

Just like I did with the dish before, I place some blocks on the neck and tail blocks to hold the cylindrical form above the rib assembly.

So I use the compass to transfer the cylindrical profile to the sides so that I can trim them with a hand plane and then glue in the linings.

I didn't take pictures of every step since it's so similar to what I've already done before. So here I've already trimmed the sides with a handplane and glued in one side of the linings, and the other side has just been glued and clamped up with clothespins.

While I'm waiting for the glue on the linings to dry, I started locating where the back braces will go.

That's it for now. Hopefully, before the weekend is done, I'll get a chance to sand the cylindrical profile in the sides and linings. Once that's done, the next step is bracing the back and top and then closing up the box.

Since there are not enough pictures in this post, here's a recent non-guitar-but-music-related distraction... I just picked it up on eBay, a late 60's Wurlitzer electric piano. I'll be taking it apart soon to get it all adjusted up, it has some sticking keys. Sounds pretty dang cool, though.

French Polish Class

2005-08-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

This update is long overdue.

A few weeks ago I drove to Evanston IL to take a three-evening class in learning the French Polish method of finishing guitars at R.E. Brune's shop. His son Marshall taught the class. He's a pretty young guy, still in college, but he's been french polishing probably since he was a toddler. He really knew his stuff and was an excellent teacher and was very knowledgable about guitar finishing and construction, as well as the history behind the guitars in their collection. There were only two students in the class, me and Robby O'Brien who flew in from Denver. Robby made the steel string and classical building instructional DVD's that Luthier's Mercantile sells with their guitar kits.

What's French polishing? It's a hand rubbed finish technique that's been in use for centuries, and it involves the use of shellac, which is actually some kind of residue left in trees by bugs.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the shop for insurance reasons, they have quite a collection of historically important guitars, and they do a lot of restoration work on priceless instruments, so it's understandable they don't want a lot of pictures out detailing what's in there. Here's a pic from Richard Brune's website showing the workshop that we used for the class.

I'll give some more pointers on the French Polishing method we learned when I can show some photos of the process in action when I start finishing a guitar. French polishing has a reputation for being a very time consuming and complicated process. One of the videos I have that details a FP method says to plan on 40hrs of labor over six weeks to complete a finish on one guitar. Brune had claimed that with their method they can do a complete guitar in one day if they're in a hurry, though they usually like to take a little longer. That was what piqued my interest in this class in the first place.

We also got to look through Brune's personal collection/museum of instruments and that was a highlight of the class. It's kind of like being able to go into the Smithsonian and take stuff off of the walls to look at it closer. I wish I knew more about the history of the classical guitar, this experience has certainly piqued my interest.

One in particular that I remember was a Torres from 1860. He is considered to be the "Father of the Modern Guitar." They had also just gotten in a Torres to be restored. An elderly man in Spain had passed away and his relatives found this old guitar in the attic. It was all cracked up and not playable, they almost threw it in the dumpster. They remembered a relative living in New York that played the guitar and decided to send it to him. It's amazing how close they came to tossing a valuable piece of history into the dumpster. Richard and Marshall will likely spend hundreds of hours carefully restoring it, they are one of the few places in the US qualified to do that level of restoration work.

Also, in their collection they had a guitar that Brune had made that was owned by Andres Segovia, probably the most famous classical guitar player ever.

I also saw guitars by Hauser, Fleta, Ramirez, and others. While I knew the instruments I was looking at were very special, much of it was probably lost on me since I'm pretty ignorant of the classical guitar world.

That's about it. I'll explain more about the actual finishing technique later on when I can show pictures of what I'm doing. I can highly recommend Marshall's class to anyone interested in learning this type of finish.

Pain in the Back

2005-06-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to fix up my Toyota Camry so I can take that to the French polishing class in Chicago. It's been sitting on the side of my house for a year needing some work. I've been driving the really cool light blue '91 Dodge minivan my Grandpa gave me. I was unemployed and only needed one drivable car, so I drove the one I didn't have to spend any money on. Anyway, I'm trying to put new front axles and struts on my Camry now, and I hurt my back trying to pull one of the old axles out (and I still don't actually have the axle pulled out, ugh).

So anyway, my lower back is actually glowing red. Luckily, it only hurts when I try to move. When I take a lot of ibuprofin it turns into a soothing blue color which is nice.

So needless to say, this is why I haven't posted much these last few days, haven't felt like hunching over a workbench. And when my back does feel better, I'll be fooling with my stupid car. So I may not post again till I get back from the class. Try to be strong.

Buildoff: Soundhole Rings Rides Again

2005-06-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

A little lunchtime scraping...

Buildoff: Soundhole rings

2005-06-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

This is a rerun, except with a redwood top.

Buildoff: Thicknessed Top and Back

2005-06-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

I got my drum sander all adjusted so I can sand wider pieces. The drum is only 10" wide so I have to make two passes to sand anything wider than that.

Here's the back, you can see what the wood looks like a little better since the saw marks are sanded off.

Here's the redwood top. Two years ago I ordered about half a dozen really nice redwood tops from a guy. He had put extra pieces on the top and bottom to protect the rest of the stack. One was chewed up pretty bad, the other was okay and was marked "sample" but was kind of narrow. So I decided since I'm using "second grade" and scrap type stuff for this guitar, these pieces would make a good top for this particular guitar. I'll take a better picture on a sunnier day when I can get some good natural light to get a good closeup shot of the grain. It's really pretty stuff.

I Have Class

2005-06-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

No pics today, but some exciting news. Actually, it's not really exciting to anyone but me, but still... I mean, seriously folks, anyone that has a blog has to be a little self-absorbed to even have a blog, am I right people?

I just signed up to take a 3-evening guitar finishing class in July in Evanston IL (northwest Chicago) taught by Marshall Brune in his dad Richard's shop. I'll be learning a technique called French Polishing which is sort of the "old world" way of finishing a guitarthat involves hand rubbing shellac to form a smooth thin finish over the wood. These guys are among the best in the business, so it's a really neat opportunity to learn from a master and I'm really looking forward to it. And I'll have a couple days free to hang out in the Chicago area, so that should be fun, too.

Buildoff: Back and Sides

2005-06-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the rosewood back cut to shape.

And here are the sides, I trued up one edge. Then I'll cut it to width on the table saw so I know the edges are parallel.

I also found out yesterday that my Performax drum sander is temporarily out of commission. One of the little clips inside the drum that holds the sandpaper tight is broke. So I'll have to call tomorrow and see if I can get a replacement for that.

Cocobolo Parlor: Spruce top and soundhole

2005-06-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

This post has a lot of pictures, you people on dial-up are going to hate me.

For a long time now I had planned on using a nice redwood top, I'd already joined it and cut it to shape and posted pics of it here months ago. But I started noticing that visually it didn't seem to me that the color matched well with the cocobolo sides. I asked the opinion of a graphic designer friend and he agreed, so I decided to go with a spruce top and save the other redwood top for something else.

So here's the new spruce top, I joined it and cut it to shape last night.

Now it's time to inlay the decorative ring around the soundhole. It's going to consist of two 1/32"-wide strips of thin black/white/black purfling. Here's my soundhole cutter attachment and dremel router jig from Stewmac. The thumbscrew used to lock in the adjustment wasn't tight enough, so I used some spray adhesive to stick some 600 grit sandpaper so everything would stay solidly in place.

Here's the first channel routed out. I'm using a 1/32" downcut spiral bit.

Here's right after the second one is done so you can see how the circle cutting jig works. It pivots around a 3/16" pin which goes into the workboard underneath. Since it's a downcut bit, it tends to leave sawdust in the channel, so it might be hard to see the second ring.

I ran superglue in the channels, worked the purfling into the channels, and clamped everything down.

Here it is after the glue is dry and ready for scraping.

And after the soundhole is cut out.

Build off: Joined the back

2005-06-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

I'll try to label the Build Off specific posts so they're easier to sort through later. At some point I'd like to make an index/table of contents page that makes it easier to sort through stuff and find old posts.

Here's a rosewood back I joined last night. This is from an $18 "opportunity-grade" back and side set from Allied Lutherie.

Let the Build Off begin!

2005-06-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in a "Build-off" over at luthierforum.com. We have one year to complete a guitar (actually till March 2006, I joined late) and we'll compete for wonderful prizes and notoriety. Mostly it sounded like fun and will encourage me to keep building. I won't post very much text about that build here, because it would be repetitious and I am lazy. I'll post pics though, since I'm already putting them on The Internets on my build-off thread over at that forum.

My gimmick for this guitar is that it's going to made of cosmetically second-grade cast-off type stuff. Here's the top I joined tonight, made of 2 non-matching redwood plates which were on the top and bottom of a stack of redwood I ordered a couple years ago.

Two Toned Linings

2005-06-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

I took the clamps off the other side and realized that my linings are different colors. They were from the same batch, so I didn't even look close. You can especially tell where I patched in pieces at the very end by the tail block, on each side I used the opposite color. I doubt it'll end up being noticable when the guitar's done. Especially the part at the tail block, when the guitar's done you'd have to use a flashlight and a mirror to see it. Still, something to note for the next build.

Kerfed

2005-06-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is reversed kerfed lining. It'll go around the edge of the sides, and this is what's used to connect the top and back to the sides. It gets glued just slightly proud of the sides, as it will get sanded later by the radiused dish. Other than that, I think the pictures explain it. I need to buy more clothespins so I can do both sides at the same time.

The Profiler

2005-06-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

So now that both the neck block and tail block are both glued in, it's time to start profiling the sides in order to prepare for fitting the back on. Right now the sides are the same depth, about 4" deep, all the way around. The tail end of the guitar will be about 3/8" to 1/2" deeper than the end where the neck attaches. So on the back side there will be a taper from end to end. Also, the back will be slightly spherical, with a 15 foot radius. So I need to mark the sides so that I can cut them to the right shape, spherical and tapered end to end. Remember the radius dish I made a couple months ago? Here's where I start to use that.

It may help you to visualize this as if the guitar were complete, it would be face down with the soundhole towards the table.

So I start off with my sides in the form. I've made two small blocks that are the same thickness and set them on the neck and tail blocks. Ignore the pencil line around the sides, I went a little out of order on the pics.

Then I set my radius dish on top of the blocks. If you look at the picture above, you'll notice the neck block is not as tall as the tail block. This is how I'm accounting for the taper from the neck end up to the tail end.

Here's what I'm going to use to mark the sides. It's a Berol brand silver pencil, which leaves marks that are easy to see on dark wood. I put it in a cheapo compass, and use a nut and bolt to lock it in place.

So now I'm transferring the spherical shape from the dish to the sides. It doesn't seem like a precision operation, and it's not. It doesn't need to be, it just needs to get close. So I mark all the way around the guitar. I can't make a continuous line all the way around because the blocks from the form are in the way, which is fine.

Here it is with the profile marked, and I begin to remove everything above the line with a small block plane.

It's almost done, I just bring it to the line and then stop. It doesn't have to be perfect, just close.

Here's a view from the front, if you stare at it long enough you can see the spherical shape, how it's a little higher at the narrow waist. It doesn't have to be perfect right now because I'll finish up by lining the radius dish with sandpaper, and then sand the final profile into the sides and then it'll be perfectly spherical.

And a view from the side.

Tail block

2005-06-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

After I finished up my last blog post, I glued up the tail block. I took it apart over lunch today, looks like I didn't screw it up this time.

Gluing the neck block

2005-06-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

The other day I attempted to glue in my neck block, and I glued it on crooked. I meant to take pictures of the screwup and the fix, but I got caught up in fixing it, so I forgot about getting out the camera. My intention is to document my screwups here as well as the stuff I do right. It's a little embarrassing, but the screwups are where you learn the most.

The very general reason that I screwed it up was that I was in a hurry. The specific reason I screwed up is that I didn't do a dry run. A dry run is where you get all the parts together and clamped as if you were gluing it together to make sure everything will go as planned, except there's no glue (thus, dry). I didn't realize until I had glue on the block and had everything partly clamped that I didn't have clamps with deep enough reach to get at the bottom of the block. I also let the block slip a little bit and it went crooked without me knowing it until I went to take the clamps off.

To fix it, I bought a Wagner heat gun from Walmart. They sell it in the paint department, it's used to soften up paint to be scraped off. I heated the neck block and slowly pried through with a paint scraper that I've ground extra thin at the edge. It mostly went well except for I got a few little cracks in the sides. I fixed the cracks with thin superglue and they should be invisible when everything gets sanded. When the neck is on, they won't be visible anyway.

So today I acquired a couple deeper clamps and did a dry run to make sure everything would go together correctly. Here's everything glued and clamped up.

Here's a top view. Be sure to note the waxed paper that keeps the glue away from things that aren't supposed to get glued together. Also, notice I've knocked off a block on my building form to make room for the clamps. I'll glue that back on later.

And here it is with the clamps off. On the inside I used a chunk of plywood as a caul. For the outside I made a flexible caul by slitting some mdf on the table saw. When I clamp it up, it flexes to the shape of what I'm clamping. The cauls help distribute the pressure of the clamps, and also keep you from damaging the actual guitar parts with the clamps.

Neck Block Jig

2005-05-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

Today, I got the dust collector connected up to the disc sander, and I went about finishing up my neck/tailblock jig. This is what I meant when I said that the metal lip was so that I could do pattern sanding. There is a base for the neck end and one for the tail end. Of course, these will only work for an 0-size guitar, and if I do a different guitar size, I'll have to make a new base for the jig. Normally I wouldn't go through the trouble of making a jig for this, but I plan on making several 0-size guitars, so this jig will make it a quick operation. I did both of the blocks that I had cut out on the bandsaw the other day.

I think the pictures are pretty self-explanatory:

More Disc Sander Fun

2005-05-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Today I finished making the replacement table for my new disc sander. The new table is a little bigger, and also has a metal lip sticking up in front of the disc as you can see pictured here before I installed it to the table.

And here it is installed on the disc sander.

The purpose of the metal lip is so I can do pattern sanding, which I'll demonstrate some other time. I still need to hook up the dust collector to this. It has a 2" dust port on it, which is a pain because it's not a standard size. I found a 2" hose and an adapter to hook it up to the dust collector, but I need to move some stuff around before I can get it all hooked up. I need to build a dedicated stand for this, too.

Organize

2005-05-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting tired of going upstairs to the shop to do some guitar-related thing, and not having any horizontal space to work. I end up shuffling junk back and forth between the top of my tablesaw and my temporary workbench. So I bought some shelving material last night at Home Depot and put it up. That room is a long way from getting organized, but it's getting a whole lot better.

The filebox on the top shelf now contains all the product instruction manuals and warranty info and stuff for all my power tools. These had been scattered all over the place and I didn't want to lose that stuff. On the second shelf you can see an expanding file thing, this is my sandpaper box. I've got it all filed by grit so it's easy to find, and easy to put away. It is not my nature to be that organized, but if I don't do stuff like this, I'll never have room to work and I'll constantly be looking for things.

Here's my new bandsaw from Grizzly that I haven't had time to set up. This seems to be one of the best small bandsaws you can buy. It weighs at least three times as much as my little Ryobi saw, even though it's the same size. I need to build a rolling cabinet stand for it. I picked up plywood for this last night, though it may be a while before I get more time to build it.

And here's the new disc sander from Grizzly. I've made a newer bigger table for it out of mdf, which is right to the left of the sander. It'll have a metal lip so I can do pattern sanding with it. That probably doesn't make sense, though it will before long. I'm also going to make a rolling stand that will be for this sander and my Ridgid oscillating spindle sander.

Building Blocks

2005-05-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

So after a long week of work involving little sleep and lots of drafting, I decided I needed to take a break from it today. The next step for the cocobolo parlor is the neck and tail blocks. Once I get those ready, I can glue up the side assembly and start preparing the top and back to be braced. But to make the neck block, I need a bandsaw that will slice through three inch thick mahogany.

A friend of mine has loaned me his old Delta bandsaw that had been sitting in his shed for sometime. Over the last several month's I've basically overhauled the thing, taken it down to the nuts and bolts and rebuilt it. This is a great saw, built like a tank in 1943. I don't really trust the second floor of my house to support the weight of this thing, so I'm trading a few computer tech support hours every month for some shop space out in the country.

I just finished the bandsaw today, this was the first time I've been able to use it. I had to order a replacement for a broken upper bearing guide bracket from Delta a couple weeks ago when I thought I was done working on it. Luckily, they still use a lot of the same parts as they did 62 years ago, so it wasn't difficult or expensive to get a replacement.

I drew up my neck block in Autocad and printed out a full size copy of it. I used some 3m spray adhesive to stick it to the block, then I can use that as a guide while I cut out the shape with the bandsaw. I figured I'd go ahead and make two of them while I was at it.

I didn't quite make the tight inside corners on either block, but I believe they will still be usable.

I've also started building my jig to sand the curved profile into the neck and tail blocks where they will be glued to the sides. It may not make much sense now, I'll explain it better when it's done and I can show it being used. It's an idea I stole from my class with Harry Fleishman.

All in all, it was a pretty nice day off.

Have you got the time?

2005-05-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Ahh, time flies when you're working 70 hours a week. I'm still waiting for a free day to go pick up some plywood so I can make tool stands for my new 12" disc sander and new benchtop bandsaw, both from Grizzly. I need both of these tools to make the neck and tail blocks so I can start putting together the rib (sides) assembly. Anyway, this free day will probably not happen for a few weeks.

I just wanted to check in so noone thinks I'm neglecting the blog, which I am.

The Other Side

2005-03-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

Today, on my lunch break, I bent and trimmed the other side for the cocobolo parlor guitar. I've clamped both sides in the mold so they don't relax out of shape before I get the neck and tail blocks glued in. I've got to finish setting up my friend's old 1943 Delta band saw before I can make the blocks. I don't trust my little Ryobi band saw to cut through three inch thick mahogany.

And here it is stored under the drum sander. When I build a workbench I'm going to incorporate the same type of storage.

Taking Sides

2005-03-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

Hey, look, I finally made a guitar shaped thing! I bent a side tonight in my fox bender with heating blanket. I probably should have taken more pictures of all the steps in getting everything set for this, maybe I'll do it when I bend the other side.

The sides look noticably darker than before I bent them. I believe this is because cocobolo is a very oily wood, so the heat and moisture probably drove a bunch of oil to the surface. It should lighten up with sanding.

The side was a little too long on each end, which is on purpose. I used the centerline on the form to mark where the ends of the sides should be and then trimmed each end with a japanese dozuki saw.

On the tail end I cut the side slightly too short. It really won't matter if the ends don't meet, I'm going to put in an ebony wedge at the tail anyway, so I'll be chiseling out the ends anyway.

Look, it's a working drum sander.

2005-03-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

I got the drum sander stand stained and screwed in some shelf brackets on the inside. Last night I bolted the drum sander to the top and got it all set up and adjusted. This morning I assembled my new dust collector and got everything all hooked up and ready to go. I sanded two sets of sides, one cocobolo for the parlor guitar I'm working on, and a set of rosewood sides just because I wanted to keep using the thing. Works like a charm.

The Performax is a great machine, and it's very heavy, it's designation as a "benchtop" model betrays the quality and sturdiness of it. One poor aspect of it's design, though , is that the dust collection portcomes out over the exit side of the drum. So if the dust collection hose is unsupported, it will hit whatever you're sanding as it leaves the backside of the drum. So I whipped together a little plywood bracket so that the hose is supported and won't hit the work piece as it comes out. It would have been nice if there was some sort of attachment on the actual sander to hold the hose in place.

Drum (Sander) Roll Please

2005-03-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

So I've had my drum sander for a while now and I still haven't used it once yet. I've been working a ton lately so I can afford to pay Uncle Sam the taxes I owe and haven't spent much time on the guitar making, which is driving me nuts. So tonight I decided that I needed to do something, so I did.

At least a month ago I had bought plywood and some locking casters with the idea of making a rolling stand for my new Performax drum sander. So tonight I hastily drew up a plan (in 3d because I'm fancy like that) and cut up the plywood to the needed sizes and started screwing the thing together. It's not pretty but it should work fine.

It's still not quite complete. I need to put in shelf rails so I can have removable shelves that slide in and out as needed. At the last minute, I had the idea of sizing the box so that my building form (as seen in a previous post) would be able to essentially become a shelf. Then I can store the body assembly out of the way when I'm working on the guitar top, and vice versa. In the pic it's sitting at the bottom of the box to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I didn't have the right size screws to install the shelf rails, so that will have to wait for another day. I'll probably also stain it or something so it looks a little less thrown together.

Out with the old, in with the new

2005-02-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

I went on an eBay spree this last week and sold off almost all my recording gear that I don't use much at all anymore. This has nothing to do with guitar building, except for that it funded my recent purchase of the Performax 10-20 drum sander (which I posted about before), a Delta dust collector (which is still on backorder), and a Ryobi BT3100 table saw.

I'm about to build a stand with locking wheels for the Performax, so I can roll it out of the way when I'm not using it. That may be my big project for the weekend. I can't really use the sander anyway until I get the dust collector.

Once I get all that stuff set up and ready to go, things should move along at a quicker clip. My shop is slowly getting more organized, mostly out of necessity as I add stuff to it. I started working out a floor plan for how the shop will be laid out. Right now it's set up in a temporary fashion as I need to finish stripping paint from the hardwood floors, fill in the many nail holes, sand it all flat, and then refinish it. My "shop" is a spare upstairs bedroom in my house, in case I haven't mentioned that before.

Making Radiused Dishes

2005-02-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

I don't think "radiused" is a word, but I use it anyhow. In my last post I showed a pictured of the rails I made for the router to ride on to make spherical and cylindrical sanding boards out of mdf.

Here's a pic of one dish that is almost finished. Those are two 24" diameter, 3/4" thick pieces of mdf glued together. I did this to add stiffness and prevent warpage, otherwise it gets pretty thin towards the center with the 15' radius. I still had a couple inches to go on this one.

I'll explain the Captain Safety getup in a little bit.

I started at the outer edge, and worked my my way towards the center in kind of a spiral pattern as I spun the dish. Often the bit would take hold and would actually start spinning the disc for me, though it quickly would get too fast to where I didn't feel like I was in control. Anytime you're handling a 1/2" wide 2" long bit with a supersharp edge spinning at 21,000 RPM's, it's a good idea if you feel in control the whole time.

Here's a finished dish. I decided to make two of them since I had gone through the trouble of setting this all up.

The next one is cylindrical instead of a spherical dish, so it uses rectangular pieces of mdf. I added the second set of rails to the base, and clamped on straight pieces on each side to guide it under the router rails. Then I would move the router back and forth along the rails, taking about a 1/4" wide swipe at the board each time. The boards are 24" long, so that's 96 times of pushing the router along the rails per board. I made two of them and I was a little worn out.

I had read warnings about how much dust will be generated making these things, but I didn't quite wrap my brain around the concept till yesterday. I really wish I would have made a vacuum attachment for my router jig so a vacuum would be running the whole time. The first two pictures were taken after I had vacuumed away piles of dust. The third picture illustrates that a little better, though keep in mind that amount of dust pictured was generated only buy routing out a couple inches of the 24" length of the sanding board. There was dust everywhere.

Here are some tips for those considering making these yourself:
1.) If you don't need a cylindrical one, and most people don't, you can buy these dishes on eBay for about $40 or so each. Do that.
2.) Get a good respirator. There were times when the wind would shift a bit and I'd have dust blowing up into my face. Those cheap little dust masks don't really do it.
3.) Use goggles. Every once in a while, I'd feel some little chip of something graze my forehead, and I know there were things hitting my goggles that would have not felt comfortable in my eye.
4.) Use ear protection. That router is loud and you'll be running it for long periods of time with your head close to it. I'm sure my neighbors were just loving me yesterday.
5.) Move anything within a ten foot radius of your set up, as it will be covered with dust. I had a bunch of tools on a nearby ledge, and had to clean everything up before I brought it back in. That mdf dust is nasty and sticks to everything.
6.) For real, if you don't need a cylindrical one, and most people don't, you can buy these dishes on eBay for about $40 or so each. Do that.

You still might be confused about why I'm making these things. You'll find out what the deal is later on when I start using them.

The Latest Dish

2005-02-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

I'm having to go through a lot of extra steps on this first guitar that I'm making on my own, simply because with every step it seems I need to make or buy some sort of tool or jig. I spent the afternoon making the latest set of jigs which will give me a 24" diameter piece of mdf with a 15 foot radius dish cut out of it, and a 24" long and 19" wide piece of mdf with a cylindrical 25 foot radius cut out of it. It'll be more clear after I actually get done making them.

The fun thing about building guitars is that not only do you get to make neat jigs, you get to make jigs that are used to make other jigs. And occasionally you'll make a jig to make a jig to make a jig. You can see in the picture that I've made a rails for my router to ride on. The one shown has a 15 foot radius along the top of the rails. You can't really see it from the picture, but there is a plywood block fastened to the bottom of the router so it stays centered between the rails. I'll use this to cut the cylindrical and spherical shapes into the mdf. It got dark this evening before I could start routing those out. It has to be done outside because it creates an awful lot of nasty mdf dust.

Why am I making these things? The back of the guitar will have a 15 foot spherical radius, and the top will have a 25 foot cylindrical radius. I'll line these dishes with sandpaper and use them to profile the sides after they are bent, and also to sand the bottoms of the braces. I'll also use them when I'm gluing the braces onto the top and back, to hold everything in the right position. If this sounds confusing, it's only because I'm not explaining it very well.

p.s. I almost forgot to mention, I ordered the Performax 10-20 drum sander this afternoon (the one I pictured a couple posts ago), and a Delta dust collector to use with it... Thank goodness for eBay and all the expensive stuff I had that I don't use anymore.

Bandwidth

2005-01-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry about most of the pictures being gone, they will be back up at the beginning of February... I exceeded my bandwidth this month.

In Fine Form

2005-01-18T21:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight I glued up my form which will be used for assembling the main body of the guitar. A lot of people use solid forms made from plywood, but this is the kind I used in Harry Fleishman's class. It works well and it seems like such an easy way to do it. Also, it's adjustable so that when I build my next guitar that's a different shape, I just knock these blocks off and reglue them in the right position.

I still haven't made the blocks that will support the waist, they have to be curved since they'll be supporting an inside curve. I'll have to get the oscillating spindle sander set up to make those blocks. I also need to make blocks for the inside of the form. There will be three spreaders that push the sides against the form from the inside. These will be located at the widest parts of the upper and lower bout, and at the waist. These will ensure that everything is stiff and square when I'm assembling the body.

That's what I did in the few spare minutes I had tonight. After I get the sides scraped smooth, I can bend them, trim the extra off each end, and glue in the head and tail blocks.

Scraping By

2005-01-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty busy lately, but still catch some time to work on this parlor guitar. Right now I'm perfecting my skills with a cabinet scraper. It's ending up being a lot of work scraping all the swirls from the Saf-t-planer. I finally started putting bandaids on my fingers before I start a scraping session to avoid blisters.

Anyway, I have the back almost scraped smooth, and then I get to scrape the sides smooth before I bend them.

So what I'm lusting over now is the Performax 10-20 drum sander, then I wouldn't have to mess with the Saf-t-planer. The 10-20 is a benchtop model, and the drum is 10" wide. But it's open on one end, so I could do up to 20" wide with two passes. So it's time to go through my house and see what I can auction off on eBay to raise some funds. These go for about $500.

P.S. About that crack in my last post. I asked about it on mimf.com, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was a windcheck, which is where the tree may have been damaged or stressed while it was growing. It should be stable, and it's more cosmetic than anything. I'll locate a brace under it just to make sure.

Trouble?

2005-01-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

Tonight I started scraping the swirl marks out of the back, and I noticed a line going across the grain, I thought it was a scratch or gouge of some sort, but I couldn't scrape it away. I noticed it's on both sides. Here's pics of each side.

I posted to mimf.com seeing if one of the helpful people over there can offer me some expertise... I'm hoping it's not actually a break or crack, but my hopes may get dashed.

Thicknessing the back and sides

2005-01-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finished getting the back and sides almost to the final thickness. The final thickness will be about 0.090", but I left it a few thousandths thicker than that, as I will need to scrape out the swirl marks with a scraper.

I used the Wagner Saf-T-Planer in my drill press. It has three little blades on it that mill off the wood as it passes underneath. Normally, if this is done by machine it's done with a drum sander which leaves a nice smooth flat surface on the wood. These are pretty pricy, so I don't have one. The Saf-T-planer works pretty well, and it will be easy to make the surface smooth by hand with a cabinet scraper. It's kind of nerve-wracking, though, because it wouldn't take much of a slip up to ruin the wood or worse.

Parlor guitar - Redwood top and braces

2004-12-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

So this morning I picked out a nice redwood top for the parlor guitar, joined the edges, and cut it to shape. I also sawed off some pieces at the end as they will be used for the back graft that strengthens the center seam on the back.

I also took a sitka spruce billet that was about 1" x 4" and resawed it into 5/16" wide pieces which will be used for bracing.

I used my $87 Ryobi bandsaw to do this. It was a pain in the butt to set it up. All of the bolts with philips heads on them were loctited in there so tight that I had to destroy the bolts to remove them. I had to use a dremel cutting wheel to cut a slot in them so I could turn them loose with a regular screw driver. I tossed the blade that came with it and replaced it with a decent Olson blade. Mark Duginske's Band Saw Handbook is a must if you own a bandsaw, even a piece of work like this one. I followed his instructions and got this saw adjusted and tuned the best that I could. It really doesn't do a terrible job, at least not for $87.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to post the pics of the cocobolo back after it was joined, and I also snapped a pic of the sides.

More Christmas Eve fun

2004-12-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one day, this is crazy.

So after I got the cocobolo back joined, I decided to start on the neck. I had started the neck joint last year in November, before I even took the class. That's November 2003, I'm sorta slow.

I cut the joint by hand with a Japanese handsaw. I didn't have a tremendous amount of experience when I made the 15deg cut through the neck blank, so the cut wandered quite a bit. This is obvious in the photo, though at this point I had already started planing it flat with my smoother plane.

When I drew the initial line to make the cut, I hadn't planned on cutting so badly, so I did not leave near enough room on the headstock end. There is enough room for the headstock now, but just barely. So in this picture you can see where I've clamped the headstock to the neck blank so I can plane the whole surface smooth. They have to be at exactly the right angle so that the surfaces line up correctly in the next photo.

Fast-forward 13 months to today and now I've drilled alignment holes with toothpicks as the alignment pins, and everything's glued and clamped together, just like I learned to do in class. And I even remembered to use waxed paper so I didn't glue the clamps or the cauls to the neck blank.