Baritone Acoustic On Steroids

[Juntunen Guitars]

Neck extension height. I'll edit this post later and add the equation I use to figure this out. You need to find the extension height then sand a flat spot onto the top that matches the angle then take the angle you sanded and find the angle of the neck in relation to the body that will work with the extension height. A lot easier than it sounds. The shim taped to the top is the exention height. One thing I didn't think about was my rossette was so thin to begin with (around .070"-.075") and I used a smaller radius with the top that I almost sanded through the rossette. There was maybe .010" left of height where I was sanding. Even if I went through though it would have been covered by the fingerboard.

Glued in the spacer for the truss rod.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Cutting the tennon. This is done with a table saw and the miter gauge. Once you get your neck extension height angle you transfer that to the neck heel and set the miter gauge to that angle on the table saw. The difference with a mortise and tennon neck joint over a dovetail is that you have basically no wood touching where as with a dovetail everything is tight so set the table saw blade slightly deeper than than the thickness of your tennon (5/8" in my case)

Here's how it should look. This was a little excessive but it will still work. I would have liked the gap to be a little smaller but it's an oak center strip so it will be plenty strong.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Finding a flamed claro walnut cap for this was impossible unless I bought a big block of it for a lot of money so I went with a sheet of black walnut. I figured I'd give the CNC a go for these inlays. I think I will do it all by hand from now on. I'm getting tired of setting up tool paths and watching a machine do everything hoping it doesn't decide to cut a line I didn't want to. The inlays are gold and white MOP

[Juntunen Guitars]

I had a bit of an adventure with this thing this last week. I got to setting the neck but got set back two days due to having to plug holes and issues with the threaded inserts I bought.

These little spikes are for working with dowels. They fit in the holes I drilled in the head block so to mark where to drill the holes into the tenon I can just line it up and push it into the spikes.

These are the inserts I had issues with. I tried screwing them in with a screwdriver and just destroyed the slots. No matter what you did they were junk.

I had to screw them in by locking a bolt to them with a nut and threading them that way but after the whole screw driver thing I was able to just pull the inserts right out so I had to plug the holes with a dowel and wait again.

[Juntunen Guitars]

After re-drilling for te inserts and epoxying in the brass inserts I went to tighten up the neck to the body and the top one ripped out but the bottom one stayed solid so I got to again drill out the top one and plug it. This time I went and got an oak dowel to plug the hole with because I didn't want to go through that again. I also got some new inserts with a deeper thread and they are tapered so they wedge and screw in, hopefully it works better this time.

The cam clamp is there because the sides of the tennon were able to flex a little so I clamped it to avoid it spliting or tearing out when I was drilling.

New insert compared to the old.

I didn't screw up drilling here. The offset inserts are how the little pins marked it and I've got the center line just about set right with the neck set so everything is good. I thought something was wrong when I saw it at first.

First time having the neck bolted on. It gets a little exciting to hold that since you realize you are getting close at this point.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Shaping the heel before the neck set. Get it as close as you can in rough form, it just makes setting the neck easier.

And then make the undercut. Setting a bolt on is similar to a dovetail except you only worry about the up and down angle and the center line. Otherwise it's all the same as a dovetail. The angle should be close after you figure out and sand the neck extension height in. The necks heel will be off a bit so I start fitting the neck with a chisel and then when it's close I switch to 80 grit sandpaper and slide it between the body and heel to take wood off one side at a time to set the center line.

Here's the neck bolted on. Almost done with the neck set.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Glueing on the headcap.

Glueing on the extension for the headcap. I didn't want to do some crazy angle at the headstock angle so this was put in to square everything up.

When I drilled the holes for the tuners I had some tear out on the back so when I was superglueing it back in I wicked some thin superglue into the tear out, well I wasn't expecting the superglue to wick all the way through the headstock and the headcap and attach my finger to it. Fun stuff. It was about the whole side of my finger that got glued on so I had to skin my finger off the headstock with an x-acto knife like I was skinning a deer. Oh the joys of superglue

[Prostheta]

Most inserts are designed for chip boards and other soft wood composites. The best way I found of fitting them is to do what you did, threading them up and locking on a nut, but using a pillar drill as a press and turning the chuck by hand. It is near impossible to get these straight into hard woods reliably since the threads would rather throw the insert out of the perpendicular than cut the threads. I'll have to post a tutorial on how I modify these at some point.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Most inserts are designed for chip boards and other soft wood composites. The best way I found of fitting them is to do what you did, threading them up and locking on a nut, but using a pillar drill as a press and turning the chuck by hand. It is near impossible to get these straight into hard woods reliably since the threads would rather throw the insert out of the perpendicular than cut the threads. I'll have to post a tutorial on how I modify these at some point.

I found it pretty easy with the silver inserts to just thread them in with an allen wrench. It went in pretty easy and I stopped halfway to see if it was straight and they were so I think I'm going to use those from now on. Those brass ones must be for what you mentioned because they wouldn't bite into the oak at all and they were not very strong either.

The guitar is almost done. I'll have it playable tomorrow. I've been to busy for updates so I'll try to get some more pictures up tomorrow.

[Mattia]

Very nice work! The inlay theme is very similar to one I've had drawn out on paper for a few years now, probably one of the next guitars I'll build (spalt maple back/sides and redwood top is the plan for that one).

A note on the inserts: I usually use the 'tapered' silver type inserts you have installed there because they're easier to find locally and a little easier to install, but I would like to note that you were installing the brass inserts incorrectly. The 'slit' is NOT for a screwdriver, that's the end of the insert that goes into the wood first and is designed to cut into the wood. Install them with a bolt and a pair of washers and you're good to go.

This video explains it better than I can:

[Geoff St. Germaine]

The snakewood looks great. I've wanted to use some, as I think it's one of the best looking and most unique woods for fretboards. I have read about issues with checking and cracks in snakewood. Have you had any issues?

[RestorationAD]

This one turned out well. I like it.

[Juntunen Guitars]

The snakewood looks great. I've wanted to use some, as I think it's one of the best looking and most unique woods for fretboards. I have read about issues with checking and cracks in snakewood. Have you had any issues?

I've had few issues. It chipped a little with the bridge pin holes but it's easy to fix snakewood with some superglue and dust. It ends up looking like the figure spots.

[Juntunen Guitars]

So now that the guitar is playing I will get this updated.

I had a bunch of issues with the neck, mainly because for some reason the CNC only cut the fret slots about 1/32" deep so I spent a lot of time making them deeper by hand and grinding tang off the frets and super gluing them in. I also somehow managed to clamp up bow into the neck when I glued the fingerboard on so I had to heat up the neck to slip the glue joint and flatten it out. I pull and re-installed different sections of the fingerboard several times in-between all these fixes as well.

Here's fixing chips from pulling frets. Even using a soldering iron to heat the frets and make them come out easier makes the snakewood chip a little bit. I'm just using Teflon as a dam for the superglue so it doesn't get in the slot.

To slip the glue joint I used a heating blanket for bending mandolin sides. I heated it until the back of the neck was slightly warm before I shut it off. I probably went a little longer than I should have but it didn't scorch the wood so I was pretty happy with that.

Then I had to re-fret the first few frets.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Pore filling was an experiment with the guitar. I used a dry wall compound dyed black with a water based pigment from stewmac. The advantage to this stuff is it's cheap ($4 for that whole jug), it's fully dry in 5 hours and it sands like a dream. The down side is that dust gets EVERYWHERE. Do it in a ventilated area for sure.

Making a masking tape bridge template to go on the top during finishing.

[Juntunen Guitars]

I sprayed nitrocellulose lacquer on this guitar. I did non reduced lacquer until I got up to about 8 dry mills then level sanded and sprayed four 35% reduced coats. I'm using cardinal nitro lacquer.

[Juntunen Guitars]

Finished up the bridge and got it glued on.

Radiused the bottom of the bridge to 20'.

The tape dam to keep it held in place while gluing.

[Juntunen Guitars]

End pin in.

Marking the saddle location.

Bridge pin fitment takes a good amount of time actually. It's not just reaming the holes to fit the pins, you also need to fit the strings into a slot that's cut into the bridge pin hole and make it so it comes out of the bridge with the right amount of clearance. I start by using a small saw after I fit the bridge pin with the reamer, I cut a slot then use different needle files to make the slot wider and fit the string.

I'll have pictures of the completed guitar tomorrow.

[ScottR]

I'm using cardinal nitro lacquer.

I used this on my last one. It seemed to be more susceptible to humidity than others I'ved used. I fought blush more often and also tiny pinhole making bubbles. Granted all nitro hates humidity and a garage in Houston ain't exactly dry....but this seemed less forgiving than what I am used to. I did maybe cure a little faster and a little harder......

SR

[Juntunen Guitars]

I'm using cardinal nitro lacquer.

I used this on my last one. It seemed to be more susceptible to humidity than others I'ved used. I fought blush more often and also tiny pinhole making bubbles. Granted all nitro hates humidity and a garage in Houston ain't exactly dry....but this seemed less forgiving than what I am used to. I did maybe cure a little faster and a little harder......

SR

I haven't had any issues yet thankfully. It laid down just fine and smooth for me at least. What are you using to spray it with?

[ScottR]

Just a regular old paint gun, Cambell Housfeld probably.

SR