Aakoo

This week was a bit short on guitar build terms.. My wife gave birth to our third child, a son on Friday evening. So been pretty occupied with the family business, but there is always a bit time for guitar build! Yesterday evening I glued the fret board on the neck + fixed the fret slots go though the maple binding. Made one ebony strip for the outer fret board binding. Next week should fix the outer binding and start shaping the neck. I will do the side markers on the outer binding so that I will saw a vertical slot on the strips, so that the slot almost cuts through the binding, and I will inlay a maple strip in the slot. This way the one marker will act as side marker, and will also be seen on front of the fret board. I will do this before gluing the binding to fret board and neck, so that I will attach the ebony strip to a base, so that it does not break when sawing.

I mixed Tubetown and musikding. Both are German, I think. But it's in EU and when have to rely on postal delivery, it really is not that much difference if the order is sent from Helsinki or Germany, the delivery time and price are somewhat the same regardless where the goods come from. To me it's matter of getting all the components I need that matter.

I don't have any at hand at the moment. I will buy when i order some electronic stuff from uraltone or tubetown. Been planning a tube amp project to start with. Also have a ross phaser pcb waiting for some components. Any suggestions what pots to use for guitar?

I was thinking about the electronics cavities. How much wood should there be for the pots? Is the 5mm maple top thick enough, or should I route the cavity from the back and leave some mahogany under the maple? If the top is enough, I plan to route from frontside of mahogany and make only a small access lid for the cavity.

Yes, I agree it's a bummer it didn't turn out as baritone. Next one i build will... Today was one of the more productive days. I fixed the split body. The split was exactly on glue line, so it was easy fix. I slightly sanded of old glue, added new glue and put some pressure. I also shaped the fretboard and glued maple binding on the sides. Next week I'll fix the outer ebony binding. Here's shot of todays situation.

Dammit, I am having hard time with this one. This week I saw the neck tenon, and routed the tenon to body. It become a bit too loose,so I glued a thin veneer to the tenons side on neck. Now it was very snug, but I was able to push the neck in to the body... then the body split ? I don't understand how.. the glueline was ok, not perfect, but ok. Well... next week I do some sanding and re-glue the body...

I didn't think it was really a problem, but a friend of mine has a self built 12 string which cracked, he says it's because of dry air. I haven't seen the guitar. Also few weeks ago , when we had the -20 degrees weather, there was a guy visiting at the course. He had built a really nice guitar as a present for his brother, the soundboard had cracked, just before giving the guitar away.

How do you guys keep your guitars in correct air humidity? Here up north the house air gets very dry on winter time, and that causes trouble for acoustic guitars. I've seen some cracked soundboards, and I don't want that to happen on my selfmade acoustic. When I had my guitar on building stage, unstrung (is that a real word?), I kept a holed plastic bag with a wet fabric inside the gutar, Now when the gutar is in use, I find it a bit un-userfriendly to pull out the bag from guitar when want to play and after being done put it back there. I know there are commercial products around in the market, but if I managed to build a somewhat complex acoustic instrument, I would imagine a simple user friendly DIY humidifier solution would be peace of cake Do you have any suggestions? Until that I keep using the bag...

Thanks for the reply, So basically the string break angle at bridge has more to do with how the bridge is pushed towards the top and how the bridge plays together with the top, rather than how the strings behave, right? That makes sense to me.

All here said is pretty much how I settled it in my head. How does archtop be an exception of the case?

So you have the workshop settled, that is good. Maybe we should meet for a day in the workshop sometime at summer? Before that I am pretty busy. I could bring the acoustic (for showing off) and the longhorn (for working), and let's see what we could do with these two ?

Last evening I ended up arguing about TOM bridge and stop bar height adjustments effect on string tension (or making strings feel more or less spagethi) with a friend of mine. I I don't see a way how the stop bar height would affect the tension, I also tested adjusting the height but did not notice any difference. I agree that in theory there is slight difference if having stop bar max up or max down, but it is more or less insignificant how it affects the feel of guitar. This is how I see the matter: The effective string length is the scale length of the guitar, or where the finger pushes the string to a fret. To play a certain note on a string the string needs to be tuned to certain tension. The tension for a note (frequency on which the string vibrates) stays the same as long as the scale length and string cauge stays the same. When bending a string, the total string length is added to equation, as the material stretches also on the area that is not playing (bridge - stop bar & heasstock). So the theoretical difference I see that stop bar adjustment would have, is that the string length changes slightly when moving stop bar up or down, but I think the length change is so small, it can't really make a difference on feel how strings are bent. I don't see how the angle on the bridge would affect the string stretching. Specially when the angle change here is not very dramatic. This started bugging me a bit and I thought that maybe people here would have more scientific aproach to describe the physics of spagetti strings on TOM bridge relation?

Some progress yesterday on the "long horn", I Cut the fret slots, and cut the top to rough shape with bandsaw. By accident I found a nice trick to see the measured fret positions, that I had made with a carpet knife. The saw I was using for sawing the slots got stuck very easily in the frame, that guides it going straight. I tried to add some chalk to the blade, so it'd glide better, and while I had the chalk in my hand I decided to rub it to the fretboard too, and wipe the excess off.. That left the white mostly in the marker lines leaving the lines very visible. That made my work much easier because I could see better the lines! Next week we have a break from the course, but then my plan is to shape the fretboard and add bindings to it. Will add a narrow, 1 mm or so thick maple stripe and then a thicker ebony stripe on the outer edge. No fret markers on fretboard, but for side markers I have plans cooking in my head. Currently thinking of doing square markers by sawing slots to the ebony binding, but will have to see what I come up with later.. I've now had a few weeks with the acoustic, I posted above. I switched over to thicker gauge string set after a week (053-0012), and I must say i love how it plays now. I've never been a huge fan of acoustic guitar sound, but I think I'm getting there.. Now I'm wondering if I should build one more starting next year

I really have no progress on the threads subject, the longhorn, but i've just stringed the acoustic. Next week i will do the final adjustments to the nut, change heavier cauge strings and put the strap buttons. Then its ready. It already sounds good, but i expect 012 strings to really make the guitar alive. Heres a link to instagram:

Thanks for the tips. The router I used was not mine but one from the school we have at the course, I am not sure what went wrong, but I assume it was the depth locking mechanism, it is very troublesome on this router. It could be also that the router bit was not tightened enough, and it gave up there, I had to have the bit pretty out on the tip, because I had to make a jig of the scrap wood at the school, to get the line right and I did not find a very thin board to support the router, so I used a bit too thick one.. Anyhow, the router did just a 3 mm deep 8mm wide round hole, so I plan to make a wooden dowel of 8mm of the same wood that the neck is of, and glue it in..and sand it to correct level. The spray gun leaking just slightly at the end of my previous lacquering session, so that the last coat made the surface pretty ugly, so instead of only fixing the drops, I sanded the back, so that it had a good surface with some 600 grit paper, and then applied the final coating.. Now I am happy with it..

...Slow progress... Been working on the Acoustic guitars lacquering it's been a pain, so no progress on the electric one. I've sanded the top at least twice back to wood, and I had the spray gun failing on me, dropping some nice drops on the back, just when the finish was just about perfect.. Well.. Now, I think the lacquer is good enough so I can start polsihing it, here's a few shots .. The longhorn I have cut the neck and body to raw shape, trussrod slot was made. Of course the router screwed on me here, but I managed to save the neck. the routers locking mechanism gave up, and there is a small area where the router took too much wood, But it's not deep enough that it would go through the neck when neck is in shape, so I just fill it. I also made a fretboard sawing box, to the template I had bought a few years back, and made marks where the frets go. Also the head stock veneer is cut, although not seen in the photo.

Continued my work yesterday, as I run out of lacquer so could not work with the acoustic guitar. I've had tons of problems when finishing the acoustic, so I have had to throw away quite amount of lacquer, and few coats I've sanded off.. I've always disliked that part on guitar build; I just can't work with lacquer... So, Yesterday I sawed and glued the headstock, to around 17 degrees angle, glued in the heel, split the neck and glued the splits back together with the veneer in between. Also made the fretboard to 6mm thickness, so it is ready to be shaped, and slotted. The neck - body joint will be set slightly back, I was planning to have it around 19th fret, but because I rushed gluing the heel piece, I glued it so that the heel part starts in between 18th and 19th fret. I have to consider if I just leave the heel piece from the neck, or if I start the body slightly more back, or if I could somehow build a nice looking neck heel of a excess of wood... Here's a few pics:

The neck is birch, not maple. I suppose it is Finnish, I guess it was bought from Puukeskus here in Kokkola, Finland. I got this one from the guy who suggested the neck build method. He had a raw roasted birch plank, from where he cut the neck wood for me and his forthcoming acoustic project. The maple top I bought some 5 years ago from Korpi instruments, I don't know where he had sourced it, but it has pretty nice flame figure, which is not seen in the photo so well.. Also the mahogany body is old plank I bought from puukeskus some 10 years ago, while I was visiting Seinäjoki as my dogs knee got operated... The ebony for fretboard and headstock veneer I got from the course leader... So, sorry, I can't really help you here.. This is kind of scratched together from old / spare parts and wood I have lying around, or get access to..

I got some wood! Ebony fretboard, flame maple top, roasted birch neck. This is where it starts and it turns out, this will not be a baritone, as the fret board I got is too short, but I am planning to have 25", instead of the 24-3/4. I think I will leave the fret board black, no fret markers, add ebony+maple veneer stripes on the sides of the fret board. So that the fret cuts are cut through the board+maple, and later on the ebony veneer is applied to cover the fret slots ends, somewhat the same way as Gibson does their binding, but I doubt I will be adding the ebony on the fret it self, only the fret slots. I've been working on this while waiting the lacquer to dry on my acoustic. I have glued the body and neck planks together, as you see I have 2 2-piece neck planks in the picture, one will be the neck, and the second one I will cut the heel of (if I just don't get cheap, and use some other wood for the heel, and use the second neck plank for later projects). I consulted a senior builder on the building course, and he suggested we work on the neck first, as following: Split the neck plank and glue together so that the grains go against each other, make the neck more stable. Saw the head stock and glue it,glue a heel for the neck to make the neck tenon slightly longer.Split the neck from the middle (along the same line, we already glued in the 1st step).Add a one piece maple veneer, and glue the neck back togetherThis way the neck will be stronger, and also, the veneer will absolutely go straight. Although there are a few extra steps along the way I asked a friend of mine to help out with the body outline drawing for the project. Until I get the drawing in somewhat 1:1 size on paper, I will just focus on the neck. Seems like this is turning to be a build diary. Should the topic be moved from design bar to in progress and finished work -area? If I knew how to do that, I'd do, but maybe a moderator can help me out with it?

I think Landola went out of business a couple of years ago? Are they back? We have a pretty well known gypsy guitar builder in my town called AJL guitars (http://www.ajl-guitars.com/), but I think he is more known abroad than in Finland. I hadn't heard of him before my colleague mentioned him, when she heard I was building this acoustic guitar. Turned out she had dated him back in the old days when the TV was black and white Yes, I know Finns are eager to run after cheap coffee.. Specially the elderly people. That's why markets often have coffee for sale

That's it exactly on both counts. We want to keep an open door with coffee on all the time! Your acoustic is stunning. Did you get the soundboard locally? I've been wanting to make a carved archtop bass for a long long time so getting materials locally would be damn useful. Sounds good, I will definitely be interested to drop by and see the place. Specially if free coffee! The acoustic woods I bought from the course teacher. I think he had pre-ordered the woods from Helsinki based luthier Juha Lottonen (http://lottonen.com/en/). The top is spruce, back and sides are Indian rosewood, neck is cedar. Fretboard wood I had from the past and it is grenadil.

Yes, I've heard some rumors about the Finnish language being difficult.. But I've learned it, so can't be that difficult You mean a workshop event for producing material for the site, or are you referring the workshop as a place where to build guitars and document builds for pg.com? Either way, sounds interesting. I can't really promise anything, but I am definitely interested. Always nice to see how more experienced people work and get perhaps some ideas for own builds. This baritone build I am planning to get started when I get my acoustic guitar, which I am building on a community college course (for a 4th year now ), in a state that I know I can finish it on the on going. I just started putting lacquer on it, so I assume the time is due pretty soon. Here's a pic about the guitar before the course summer break..and yes, I know the inlay should have had the first leaves on the 12th fret I didn't notice it, but now when you say, it is obvious. I don't like it anyhow, Gibson is far more classy.. I think I am one of those "guitarists", You know, only liking the traditional designs..

Thanks for the replys! I haven't done more than thinking of this project until this morning. I happened to bump into one of these Schecter Scropion baritones: http://stringsite.com/en/electric-15/schecter-scorpion-6-deluxe-baritone-black-p1574.I realized the body shape is pretty much similar to the longhorn, so I decided to compare using paint.net, a very very professional guitar designer tool Here is what I found: The guitars are very similar, The pickups are positioned the same, as is the bridge. Schecter has 26.5” scale and 24 frets, as Gibson has 24-3/4" scale and 21 frets. Neck joint on the Schecter is on 22nd fret as in Gibson it is on 19th (or even earlier, can't say so well from the photo I have). So my conclusion here is to do the body just as in from the Gibson, bridge and pickups positioned exactly as in the original, but just add scale length the same way is in Schecter. The schecter guitar is very nice, but the red-neck tribal fretboard and butt-ugly headstock, really screws it up Terve vain Prostheta! I am located in Kokkola, some 300 kilometers north from Pori. I was kind of aware you living on that area, because I followed this board pretty intensive around the time when you were moving to Finland Do I remember correctly, your origins are in GB?

Thanks for the reply, I really didn't get what you ment with the following sentence: " if the pickup originally is place at, say, exactly the 9th order flageolet you should place the pickup at the same place after extending the scale",Do You mean that I should calculate some relative measure where the pickups are positioned originally, and calculate the new position with this relative values, after changing the scale length?

Hello, I have been playing around with the idea of building Gibson Longhorn -type guitar for a while now for my self. I often play in low tuning, so I thought that it probably would be a nice to have a baritone scale guitar for such projects. Now, looking at the photo above, I think that adding length to neck would make the guitar slightly neck heavy. I wonder if the best way to balance the guitar would be to try to keep the 12th fret somewhat in place and split the added length to both ends; move the bridge and tailpiece slightly back,at the same time as the nut and head stock goes slightly further away from the body? Would you think this would balance the guitar, or would it be in balance if keep the hardware as is, but replace the neck with a longer one? How about the pickups, should I keep the position related to bridge, or should the neck pickup be placed just next to where the neck ends? I would appreciate any suggestions to design, thanks!