Ash's acoustic rabbit hole

[ADFinlayson]

Well that went better than I could have expected

There are a few small issues - a couple of gaps and a couple of bits of tear out on the purfling channel that I hadn't noticed prior. 

The gaps in the binding were easy to fix with the iron, but I was a bit sad about the tearout. Then I made a discovery - spruce dust + lacquer makes an excellent filler!

I sanded the area next to the tearout with some 240, pushed it in to the space and drop filled some lacquer, repeated that a couple of times and sanded smooth, and it's practically invisible. If I'd have used titebond, that would have turned yellow. 

Glad I did the purfling after all that, ties in with the rosette really nicely without looking too bling. 

[Andyjr1515]

It looks splendid.  And yes - purfling makes all the difference Great job.

[ADFinlayson]

The red one has been levelled with 600 grit and I've since sprayed 4 coats of proper nitro, it's had.3 days to cure so far. I think I'll give it another day or 2 before levelling with 1200, then I'll leave it as long as my patience will allow before buffing. I'm assuming it's not going to need 4 weeks given that it's only a top coat.

On to the new one. I wasn't very happy with the joint on the top binding, where the two pieces butt up to each other is ok but the right hand piece had a hairline gap between the binding and the maple end graft I did. so I made a new piece to inlay with maple and some leftover purfling. It's not a perfect inlay, but I think it looks cooler than what was there before.  

I've been working on a rosewood fretboard with maple binding too. Here is a heartfelt tribute to the pain au chocolate I had for breakfast this morning. It was a bit fiddly to line all the pieces up together so I stuck them all together with some rosewood veneer between to keep the lines of separation. the inaly is 1.8mm thick and I'm putting a 12" radius on the board so I am undecided whether or not to inlay first or radius first - might be easier to cut the channel while the board is flat and finness after radius, I'm sure the wood will conform a little bit to the radius to help prevent me sanding through it. 

[Andyjr1515]

That tailpiece is very chic !  Lovely job all round 

[Prostheta]

I like it. When things overlap there is more interest and almost an implication of layering. It makes me wonder how the marquetry "sand shading" technique would look in these instances, even though of course it wouldn't be possible.

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

It's not a perfect inlay, but I think it looks cooler than what was there before.  

I didn't even know that leaving the end as a butt joint is an option. Or maybe I did, but only in cheapies!

 

3 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

the inlay is 1.8mm thick and I'm putting a 12" radius on the board so I am undecided

If memory serves me right that would be plenty thick enough. If uncertain, do the math in the following:

How coincidental: Just yesterday I was visiting a long time customer and as we sat in his kitchen I noticed those heraldic lilies being upside down in the back rests of their chairs.

[Prostheta]

Fleur-de-Lys. They're a very common motif.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis

[Bizman62]

40 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Fleur-de-Lys

Exactly. That's why it was so funny to see it upside down on the back rest.

 

[ADFinlayson]

4 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Fleur-de-Lys. They're a very common motif.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis

and there was me thinking it was avant-garde 

[Prostheta]

To be fair, I have zero idea any more. The motif is so common and in use beyond the context for which it bore specific meaning that it's almost like the Anglo-Saxon precursor to the "cool S".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S

[ADFinlayson]

Yes it is very common, probably because it looks cool but is made of fairly easy shapes to integrate into a carving. I'm sure I've seen it appear on english architecture and coats of arms too, probably from Norman influence, we are after all just a mashup of various European invaders. 

I'd like to attempt a proper coat of arms style inlay at some point but they're so intricate, it would be difficult to cut anything like that out by hand.

My lineage goes back to the highland clan Farquharson from the 11th century although most Finlaysons today are around Fife and Edinburgh, the coat of arms would certainly be a final boss to inlay.

[Prostheta]

I presume you saw the most recent Clickspring video on hand-engraving with a power engraver? Not so useful for wood applications, but interesting nonetheless.

[mistermikev]

some nice inlay work and really nice build.  cudos brutha

[ADFinlayson]

7 hours ago, Prostheta said:

I presume you saw the most recent Clickspring video on hand-engraving with a power engraver? Not so useful for wood applications, but interesting nonetheless.

No I didn't, my youtube searches only really consist of making stuff out of wood. I do have some little burrs for carving with the dremel but I haven't really had much of a use for them in the guitar work I've done to date. 

4 hours ago, mistermikev said:

some nice inlay work and really nice build.  cudos brutha

Thanks Mike, appreciated.

[ADFinlayson]

I cut out a few more random inlays today. I was doing a bit of research into fancy old Martins for which frets to put the bigger inlays on and I can't find any consistency for 14 fret models. Some just start at the 5th fret, some have an inlay on the first fret, some have 5, 9 and 12 as the big inlays and some do or don't have a 15th fret inlay. So I think I'll go with this plus add one more small inlay at the 15th fret, I never really play above 15th fret on an acoustic and even then, rarely. But it does look a bit empty in the upper register without a 15th fret inlay. I'm sure I will cut that out and decide in needs a 17 and 19 inlay too.

[ADFinlayson]

A working guitar! I still need to do a few things - finish shaping and polish the nut, saddle could do with coming down a tiny bit more - currently have 2mm action on the bass side with a set of 12s on though I will go down to 11s anyway, I need to notch the slots for the strings a bit more on the bridge and it needs buffing before I attempt to check the finish.

I'm very happy with how it sounds, the sustain is excellent, although I don't think I've ever actually played an all mahogany acoustic before. It's bright and punchy, perhaps not as much projection as no2, I will have to compare them tomorrow. There are too many variables to compare really, firstly I've used rosewood for the bridge and fretboard this time which I'm sure is going to be impactful, ebony bridge pegs instead of cheap plastic ones. Also this one is 25" scale instead of 25.5" - I think that technically makes this a 000 and not an OM - I didn't realise previously that they have the same body shape and that the only tangible difference is the scale length, sound hole and bridge location

[Prostheta]

It's very satisfying and important experience to figure out exactly how various contributions have altered and influenced the final instrument. All the buzzwords and repeated falsehoods on the Internet become meaningless by comparison. I look forward to how the comparison works out.

[Andyjr1515]

That looks the dog's whatsits.  I look forward to sound clips!!    

[ADFinlayson]

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

That looks the dog's whatsits.  I look forward to sound clips!!    

Thanks Andy, I'll have to see if I can come up with a way to record it that actually sounds good, maybe my zoom recorder might work if it's close enough to the sound hole. 

[ADFinlayson]

I got it buffed today and the rest of the setup bits, done also had a go at checking the finish which had mixed results, some areas checked wonderfully and some not at all. Heating the lacquer up had the affect of shrinking the lacquer into the grain a bit, but I'm ok with that given it's part of the aging process. I think I perhaps need to leave the lacquer for longer before attempting to check as it's only been a couple of weeks since I sprayed the top coats, or it's possible I could have levelled and buffed through the top nitro into the precat in places, though I'd have thought I'd see some ghosting if that was the case.

It's playing really nicely now that the nut and saddle have been polished up. It has 11s on now and action is 1.75mm on the bass side which I think is about right for an acoustic. 

I haven't done any compensation on the saddle but it doesn't seem to need any according to my strobe tuner app

Here's a closeup of the checking 

and a few glam shots

[ADFinlayson]

Here's a finger pickin' demo recorded on my Zoom H1 voice recorder, about 6" from the sound hole. There is quite a bit of harmonic resonance from this guitar, but given the limitation of my recording capabilities, you can only really hear it with headphones. 

 

[henrim]

Sounds good and looks very nice! All in all an inspiring thread. Makes me want to try building some kind of acoustic instrument. 

[Prostheta]

It might be down to the nature of the playing or the recording, but it has a nice intimate voicing if that makes sense? A detailed and in-person sort of sound rather than a big booming projector. I suspect that's the recorder.

I have to say, a gloss coat over the headstock would tie it together a little more. It seems out of place on some level. Call me crazy.

[ADFinlayson]

3 hours ago, henrim said:

Sounds good and looks very nice! All in all an inspiring thread. Makes me want to try building some kind of acoustic instrument. 

Thank you mate, appreciate that

[ADFinlayson]

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

It might be down to the nature of the playing or the recording, but it has a nice intimate voicing if that makes sense? A detailed and in-person sort of sound rather than a big booming projector. I suspect that's the recorder.

I have to say, a gloss coat over the headstock would tie it together a little more. It seems out of place on some level. Call me crazy.

You're crazy. 

It's all subjective but I like to use headstock veneers that match the fretboard, or as close to the same grain as I can get, then I give the headstock veneer the same treatment as fretboard so they visually match. I'm all for putting gloss the headstock if I'm matching the body, but otherwise I feel like introducing a different finish gives the veneer a slightly different look that doesn't tie in with anything else, arguable that in this case it would tie in with the back strap, but you can never see the two things at the same time.