Finished Pics! A little acoustic 6-string for little people

[Bizman62]

It never occurred to me that the hotpipe can be used horizontally!

Every time I've seen an electric hotpipe it has been upright. Yet I've also seen torch heated tubes and they're always more or less horizontal.

[ADFinlayson]

 

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

It never occurred to me that the hotpipe can be used horizontally!

Every time I've seen an electric hotpipe it has been upright. Yet I've also seen torch heated tubes and they're always more or less horizontal.

yes helps to keep things square with a bit of gravity, helps prevent bending a twist into it.  I stole that method from Andy, he must have pinched it back.

[Andyjr1515]

This morning, I cut and fitted the neck and tail mahogany blocks and fitted the kerfed lining:

 

In the photos it's hard to get a true feel of just how dinky this is! 

I'll be using the same radius dishes I use for the full-size ones - 25 feet rad for the top and 15 feet for the back.  And I have the top and back thicknessed...just got to decide on/get hold of some decent bracing woods and I can start on those two   

 

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

n the photos it's hard to get a true feel of just how dinky this is! 

Like the soprano ukulele someone recently built for his mom, your eyes made tricks believing it's a guitar until it sat on his palm.

The lining looks huge, though, so that gives some perspective.

Speaking about lining, I just looked at some of the "Umpteen impressive woodworking ideas" where they cut slots both sides of a slat which makes it even more flexible. Today I talked about it with Veijo but came to the conclusion that it would not improve anything. While discussing the matter I also brought up the solid lining and the theory about it allowing the sound flow more fluidly inside the body. You should've seen his face...

[Andyjr1515]

26 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

While discussing the matter I also brought up the solid lining

Interestingly, quite a few ukes - and mandolins too - use solid linings.  No idea what difference it makes to strength or sound but it does usually mean more bending to be done which is why I usually stick to kerfed 

[Andyjr1515]

35 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Like the soprano ukulele someone recently built for his mom, your eyes made tricks believing it's a guitar until it sat on his palm.

Yup - even this tenor is just a tad smaller than my LAG       :

[Andyjr1515]

For the mortise, I part drilled and then finished off with chisel and mallet:

Against normal practice, it actually fit quite well!

 

For the soundhole decoration I used the Dremel radius cutter.  I started with a 1mm cutter for the first purfling ring, cleaning it up with a scraper:

 

And then drilled a second hole for a second offset ring, and then a third hole in the middle of those two and used a 3mm bit for a rebate in between the two purfling rings for some abelone decoration.  Bit more cleaning up to do once everything has set solid, but you get the idea:

 

[ADFinlayson]

Wow that thing is small, is that a 2mm modelling chisel you used to cut the mortice?

[Andyjr1515]

5 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Wow that thing is small

It is indeed!

[ScottR]

On 9/16/2023 at 2:26 PM, Andyjr1515 said:

Yup - even this tenor is just a tad smaller than my LAG   

It makes the LAG look large enough for little people to sleep inside by comparison.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

After a few days child-minding the said little people, I'm back in the cellar

For the bracing, I am using my home-made 25 foot radius dish although, for this build, will dispense with the Go-bar deck - I should be able to get away with just clamps and cauls.

The bracing pattern is going to be pretty basic X-bracing with the standard-recommended tightly vertically-grained spruce.  I've taken a bit of a guess at how much to scale them down.

I started with the X-brace with gluing the cruciform and then sanding the bottom curve on the radius dish:

 

This was glued to the top with a long caul keeping the curved brace bottoms pressed against the radius dish while the glue cured :

After that was set, it was time to add the other braces and sound bars.  All of the braces will be  chiselled to create the nodes, etc, once it has dried overnight:

 

And here it is ready for tomorrow's chisel and tap-tuning work :

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Well, not overly sure just how thin to make stuff, but at least this is now ringing out with sub-harmonics and definite bass /treble tap notes from the upper and lower halves respectively.  Then the linings relieved where the main cross braces will go that will lock the main strength-critical braces to the sides:

 

Quick check fit, looking for gaps:

 

And the old adage that you can never have too many clamps 

 

[Andyjr1515]

And tidied up:

Next jobs will be fitting a bridge plate, doing the first rough-fit of the neck angle and pondering on whether to add a side sound hole or not.

 

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Turning my attention to the bridge plate, I only then remembered that, to minimise the stretch for little arms, I'm joining the neck at the 12th, as with a classical, and not at the 14th that the X-brace pattern is based on.  As such, my bridge will be further back than a standard steel string acoustic - and therefore one of the two diagonal braces is in the way!

Easily sorted - a hot iron along the length of the brace soon softened the glue enough to remove it:

 

With the bridge plate being where it will be, I don't think I need that extra brace repositioning - I'll just leave it out.  Paper template done and I'll use that to cut a slice of maple or similar for the plate in the morning:

 

[Bizman62]

48 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

With the bridge plate being where it will be, I don't think I need that extra brace repositioning - I'll just leave it out.  Paper template done and I'll use that to cut a slice of maple or similar for the plate in the morning:

I've let myself been convinced that padauk is a very good choice both tonally and strength wise. And I agree there's no room or need for the extra brace. The only place I could see one positioned is right behind the plate on the sound hole side but remembering the tiny size of that body the added strength might be more of a tone killer.

[Andyjr1515]

Progress is a bit stop start at the moment with life's many distractions, but a few steps forward this morning.

I got my 'I can't remember where I bought this and it's not perfect but actually does a pretty decent job' purfling/binding router jig out and attacked the top:

Both channels done and just waiting a razor-blade trim of the whiskers:

For both the purfling and binding I will use my preferred method - a la veneer - of PVA on both surfaces, left to dry and then iron them on with a small travel iron.

The purfling didn't need pre-bending and I just went ahead with ironing it on - I'll take photos of the method when I do the binding.

The binding is ebony (or was it rocklite?) with a teeny white stripe:

I won't actually fit it yet, but I have started pre-bending the binding for the top as the bending pipe was still handy:

I've also started sorting the end graft - it will be a simple one, really just joining the top and back binding and thin white lines.  I have sawn and chiselled the end graft slot:

The top and bottom binding won't be fitted until the back is on and channel routed.  Then, all being well, the end graft will tally up both sides something like this:

 

 

[mistermikev]

you got a gorrilla helpin' you out lol?  george the animal steel?

seriously tho.. that mahog with the ebony looks lovely.  did you black grain fill that mahog?  looks really great.

[Andyjr1515]

3 hours ago, mistermikev said:

seriously tho.. that mahog with the ebony looks lovely.  did you black grain fill that mahog?  looks really great

No - it's as it was cut from the tree.  I'm looking forward to see what it looks like when it's varnish is on

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

No - it's as it was cut from the tree.  I'm looking forward to see what it looks like when it's varnish is on

right on, it just looks like the pores are really black... looks good.

[Andyjr1515]

One of the jobs before I can put the back on is to sort the fit of the neck while I have easy access.  It will be a glued joint but I will also use a bolt and insert, for additional security and to ease these next steps.

Having got a 'starting' neck angle and fit, I double-sided-taped some emery cloth onto the body to improve the fit by loose-fitting the neck and raising it and lowering it a small distance to sand down any high spots.  The sanding marks show you where there is contact and whether all surfaces are level or not:

Next job was to fit a bolt hole in the neck block and an insert in the tenon:

Then, bolting the neck on, I could work out the neck angle fretboard alignments and fine tune with some 'flossing' strips of emery until:

- the neck angle lines the fretboard up OK with the bridge

- and the side fit lines up the fretboard dots with the centre line of the body:

A final bit of flossing for a decently tight fit:

 

And so, with that done, I could glue the fretboard onto the neck:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ADFinlayson]

Looking good, what size bolt are you using on the neck there? I've just switched down for the latest build from M8 on the previous to M6, I figured the difference in strength is probably negligible but the smaller inserts would lead to less stress on the heel. I'm tempted to try a pair M5 bolts if I can find inserts for them. 

[Andyjr1515]

50 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Looking good, what size bolt are you using on the neck there? I've just switched down for the latest build from M8 on the previous to M6, I figured the difference in strength is probably negligible but the smaller inserts would lead to less stress on the heel. I'm tempted to try a pair M5 bolts if I can find inserts for them. 

This is an M4!  But, then again, it is a tiny guitar.  I generally use M6 for a fullsize but I suspect an M4 A2 stainless would actually be fine strength-wise.  It's the inserts I'm not so sure about which is why I go for the M6.

[curtisa]

I don't post on here nearly as much as I should, but just wanted to note that this is a fascinating build, Andy. I have to constantly remind myself to look for references in your photos to verify that this thing is about the size of a box of matches. The little person is certainly lucky to be inheriting such an exquisite gift.

[Andyjr1515]

3 hours ago, curtisa said:

I don't post on here nearly as much as I should, but just wanted to note that this is a fascinating build, Andy. I have to constantly remind myself to look for references in your photos to verify that this thing is about the size of a box of matches. The little person is certainly lucky to be inheriting such an exquisite gift.

You are very kind, Andrew 

I've recently fitted the bridge plate.   I went searching for some thin, hard, sheet wood in my bits box for it and found the perfect thing.  It's a piece of Tasmanian hardwood given to me by a genuine Tasmanian whom I met, along with his delightful wife, in a pub in deep, dark rural UK a few years ago.  'Here!' he said, rummaging in his bag, 'I gift you these three magic talismans.  They will bring you joy - but you MUST secrete them into special objects.  If you do NOT, then over time you will go grey, wrinkled, start forgetting where you put your car keys and probably start dribbling a little!'

Well, I have so far only secreted two of them:

 

- and only just in the nick of time!  Because everything else is as was predicted.  But I don't think I'm dribbling    Hmmm.  Well, maybe not.   Well, maybe not yet. 

And there's still time.  Just one more talisman to secrete!!!

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Next job in the sequence is the bridge.  Usually, on an acoustic you fit the bridge once the top and back are both fitted.  But to do that, you have a special long-reach clamp that fits through the soundhole.  And this soundhole is just too small.  And so I will fit the bridge while the back is still off.

So to get that ready, I need to cut the saddle slot.  

On a nylon strung acoustic, you generally don't have the intonation issues to the same degree as steel string and so the bridges on classical guitars are generally square to the centre-line.  For good measure, though, I will use a 3mm thick piece of bone to give me at least a modicum of adjustment if my understanding is wrong! 

I made a small jig out of some scrap wood to use with my Dremel precision router base to cut the slot:

 

Yup - that will do

 

Next task is prepare the surfaces and glue it in place