brian d

Hey Chris, I'm not getting the background cycling... Google Chrome browser on a Mac. I'm getting a black background with a faded Marlin which is so subtle as to be barely noticeable. I'm also getting the issue with the back button always going to the "enter" page. I think it would be good to have the menu on that page as well, or get rid of it altogether as it has no other info. On the gallery page, the photos of guitars which were taken portrait but rotated to landscape look a bit weird because of the visual cues in the background that look wrong. Love the overall feel of the site, and the floating menu is very classy - doesn't interfere at all with text on the browser/res (1680x1050) I'm using. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that the guitars are gorgeous and the lutherie resources videos are terrific.

Here you go: nanomag fretboard end pickup

All stunners this month, and my fave was between Build #6 and Hellcat. I didn't particularly like the body shape of the Hellcat, but all the detail and the stunning timber pushed it just over the line for me after much vacillating between it and Madhattr's. Well done everyone.

FWIW, I'd say glue it, but still keep the screw away from the cracked part.

Thanks RAD, I'll check that.

Hi Chris, The down pressure bar is 43.5mm from the E saddle and 47.5mm from the e saddle. The bottom of the down pressure bar is about 8mm from the body (hard to measure exactly with the everything installed), and the e and E saddles are 16mm from the body. There is a 12" radius to the saddles so the others are progressively higher going to the centre. Of course the saddle height would change with different neck angle and action. Hope this gives you the info you wanted. Brian.

I'm sure it was Alex VDL's thread that I saw the technique...standing on the shoulders of giants. I tried solder first, but found hot glue easier.

Wez, thanks for the constructive feedback. I assume that your observations regarding being comfortable with the size fo the neck join are in terms of strength, not physical comfort - it's really comfortable to play up into the high frets. I certainly agree that it looks small from a mechanics point of view, but it's not moved after nearly 3 weeks being strung up with 14-67 strings, and touch wood will stay that way. That said, next time I would have the pocket extending further onto the neck. I'm not quite sure what you mean by making the bass side horn more prominent. If I move the centre point toward the treble at the neck, wouldn't that bing the bass horn in and make it less prominent? I'm at work at the moment, but I'll try to do a couple of mockups with changes to the visual balance of the horns. (better to post it here or start another thread?) I am honoured that you'd like to see how I did the pickups. It's not an original technique, and you'll be relieved to hear that it's not just installing them before glueing on the top. Because e body is hollowed, I could maneuver one end of the pickup into the cavity and then bring it into position. I glued the springs into position with hot glue first, then used gift wrapping ribbon around the pickup to have something to manipulate the pickup into position and to pull up on it while engaging the screws into the holes. Happy to do a tute if you think it will help. Looking forward to more comments.

Thanks for the reply Wes. I subscribe to the GOTM topic, get an e-mail when any reply is made including the reply that the thread is closed and it's time to vote. I didn't get that one this time. I haven't looked at the number of votes as I haven't voted - at this stage I'm more interested in the comments to get some feedback from the forum as I respect their opinions. Most months I find there are a lot more comments (there was only one when I started this topic), thus my question. I apologise if this thread has inconvenienced anyone, and I'm glad to hear that people are voting. Cheers.

I didn't get an e-mail about August's GOTM finishing and voting starting - judging by the lack of traffic on the voting thread, I'm wondering if I'm the only one. And, yes, having an entry in the competition is making me a bit more concerned about the issue than I may have otherwise been.

Thanks Workingman - it is comfortable to play. It balances well. It balances no hands on my knee in playing position. It has nice curves that the right arm just rest over without anything digging in. Ricky, good question about the neck joint. The distance between the screws is actually less than I originally planned - I had planned to extend the pocket further onto the neck like an AANJ, but made a mistake when cutting out the body. After a lot of thought, I decided to try it as it was. If you think of the system like a lever where the fulcrum is the body end of the neck, the load is the pull of the strings and the force required to resist the force is the screws furthest from the body. The closer the screws are to the fulcrum, the greater force they need to have. The greater force those screws have, the stronger and stiffer the body timber that is supporting them needs to be. So, of course it is better to have more distance there. In this case, however, I know the strength of the adjusting bolt in the threaded insert is plenty strong for the force needed. The wood supporting the base of the pocket is sufficiently thick and stiff especially after I laminated the base of it with veneers running at 90 degrees to each other (sort of exotic plywood). The truss rod and carbon reinforcement rods run all the way to the end of the neck, so there is plenty of strength and stiffness there and it won't bend at the fixture points. Like with anything that's not been done before there is a risk involved, but it's been strung up to full tension with 14-67 strings for over two weeks now with no sign of movement, so I'm feeling pretty satisfied with it. That said, there isn't enough benefit to do it like this again and I would do more of an AANJ shape pocket next time. Java is a reference to coffee and is the name I have given to this body shape. When I designed it about 6 years ago I was thinking that guitars are like coffee - the great timbers come from many of the same places as great coffee beans, the mixture of beans to get particular combinations of flavours is like combining timbers for different sounds, much of the potential is in the hands of the luthier as it is with the flavour of coffee in the hands of the coffee producer and the final result can be made or broken by the barrista or guitarist. I'm from Melbourne, so coffee is very important. The original Java guitar is still not finished....I keep getting distracted by other projects.

Beautiful work Chris. I actually thought I might have a chance with the GOTM this month until you entered- it's hard to beat blue quilted maple in any GOTM, and the Dragonfly is such a great body shape and your execution is immaculate (personally I would have liked to see it with the natural colour of the maple, but I know that I am in the minority there). Can we see some photos of the headstock - can't see it clearly in the photos. How thick did you leave the top plate? Thanks.

Thanks Our Souls. I have always wanted to build instruments that can't be found elsewhere, so not a "from the shelf" build is just what I like to hear. The tone is smooth on the neck pickup, with some twang on the bridge. It's generally brighter than the pickups I've used on previous builds, giving a bit more of an edge that suits the whole semi-hollow, bigsby style look. The word "rockabilly" comes to mind, but I'm not really a rockabilly fan, so I won't use that word. The coil splits make the sound thinner and of course with reduced output - not really my cup of tea as I've always liked the warmth and roundness of humbuckers, but I'm sure that some like that sound. I'll try to get some sound clips recorded of it.

And some more standard views of her. From frontal. full backal From the side Headstock from two sides showing scarf joint and rosewood veneer on back; and nut, accents and magnetic truss rod cover on front

After that it was all pretty straight forward. I'd love to answer any questions anyone has - I'm sure there's lots of detail I have missed. I know that there were frustrating parts that I think I have blocked from my memory, but I'm sure the memory can be triggered by questions and comments. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of the finished product.

Next it was putting the body together. To get extra thickness of the back, I added another piece to the back which would become the central core of the body, with a rosewood accent line in between the back and the centre. I laminated the top of the centre (if that makes sense) with gaboon and rosewood veneer. This was to become the faux purfling after the edges would be rounded. The centre/back/veneer now all glued together, I bandsawed and routed the body shape and hollowed the inside of it with a router. I didn't feel the need to have the inside of the back follow the outside shape as with the top, so routing was easier, taking care not to get thin where the belly cut would be. I carved the back - much less to do than the front. I glued the top to that and finalised the edge carve to reveal an outline of the veneers. I'm very happy with how that came out. It was at this point that I started working on the neck joint. This took lots of trial and error - more error than success and lots of time. This is unfortunately the stage that I stopped taking photos due to frustration, so I will try to describe the process. I wanted an adjustable neck angle. I had planned to put aluminium threaded cross-dowels at the end of the neck with bolts coming in from the back of the body. The dowels would then rotate as a third bolt with a threaded insert held the neck in position against the string tension. Loosening that bolt would allow the string tension to pull up on the neck, raising the action, and tightening it would bring the neck back which would lower the action. Originally that bolt was going to go through the heel of the neck into the body a la Stauffer neck joint, but the heel wasn't tall enough for that. Next was to put the adjusting bot from the back, but in practice the system didn't work. Suffice it to say that the threaded cross-dowels were very unstable in the end grain and a rethink and replan was needed. I ended up with a semi-adjustable neck. Regular bolts at the very end of the neck with ferrules and a third adjusting bolt with a threaded insert as far away from the body as I could. I could then adjust the neck angle by adjusting the third bolt , but the range of adjustment is much smaller than the original plan as there is no rotation at the other two. After I got the neck angle where I wanted it, I made shims to fit the space that formed. Theoretically, they may not be needed as the string tension would hold the neck up, but I didn't want things moving as the vibrato loosened the tension. I put a fourth bolt in also, just to be on the safe side. In the picture, you can see gaboon (the lighter timber) and rosewood laminations on the stacked heel, both at the top and bottom of the stack, as well as at the base of the pocket. The shim is the gaboon where the arrow is.

The next stage was to carve the inside of the top. I used Benedetto's technique from his archtop building book - setting the drill press to leave the desired thickness between the bit and a stopper on the drill press table. Lots of holes later, I was ready to start chiselling the waste out. It didn't take too long for me to feel like I needed a faster way to clear the waste, and I headed for my angle grinder with the flap wheel. Lots more dust, lots less time. In the photo you can see the areas that were left solid for the neck block and to support the tailpiece and bridge. Corresponding areas were left in the back. Once I had that done, the precut routes for the humbuckers and teardrop holes became open. And I could bind the holes - I used 1mm veneers of Gaboon and Rosewood. I did each layer separately, so it was very easy to bend. I used a soldering iron clamped in position as a bending iron - perfect for thin stock. Back to the neck for inlays.

This guitar is now finished, and I didn't stop much for photos and posting the build process. FWIW, here is a bit of the build process. First, the top and back timber (goncalo alves) was jointed and glued for two piece top and body. The top was bandsawed to shape, which was finalised with a router and template. The template was flipped to do the opposite teardrop not-f hole. The holes were not routed all the way through, knowing that once the internal was hollowed out, that would complete the hole. The top carving was done with a flap wheel in an angle grinder, then cleaned up with planes, scrapers and sandpaper. The glueing was going on at the same time. The neck was made with a two piece goncalo with a rosewood veneer central stripe (would you call that a three piece neck?) a 15 deg scarf joint was done for the headstock with gaboon and rosewood accents in the joint. Accents were also placed between the headstock and the goncalo headstock face and the rosewood backstrap. An LMI 2-way truss rod was placed with Carbon re-inforcement rods on either side. The fretboard was bound with goncalo and a veneer of gaboon placed between the neck and the fretboard when glued on. The final taper of the fretboard was used as the template for the final routing of the neck taper. Here's a few shots of the neck in progress. After the top was rough carved, I just had to put the pieces together to get an idea of the final look.

This is the Jazzy Java or Java SH-1 It's a semi-hollow Body is Goncalo Alves with Gaboon and Rosewood accent lines Teardrop holes bound with Gaboon and Rosewood Goncalo Alves neck with rosewood veneer central line, scarf joint with Gaboon and Rosewood accent LMI two way truss rod and carbon rods on either side of the truss rod. Headstock with same accents and rosewood backstrap. Cocobolo Rosewood fingerboard bound with Goncalo Alves with a Gaboon accent strip between it and the neck LMI EVO gold frets gold MOP fret position inlays as side dots Truss rod cover and cavity cover are held in with rare earth magnets. e-bay tuners GFS Dream 180 gold MOP pickups mounted without rings (not easy, but worth it) 1 self-made volume knob (goncalo alves with gaboon and rosewood accent lines and a rosewood dot) with push/pull which splits both HB's), 1 three-way switch. TOM bridge with String Saver saddles Black Tusq XL nut with gaboon and rosewood accents (After polishing the nut I roughed it a bit as it looked too much like plastic) bigsby style vibrato. LaBella flat black nylon wound strings (14-67...feel almost like bass strings but smoooooth in feel and sound) All timber finished with many, many coats of Tru-Oil (can't remember exactly, but probably around 20) and polished with Meguiar's No 7 Show Car Glaze, followed by Meguiar's Wet Look Cleaner Wax. Despite hollowing, it weighs in at about 4.2Kg (about 9.25lbs) and balances very well on the knee - no neck dive here. Very resonant unplugged, and has a warm but well defined sound on the neck with some twang in the bridge.

Isn't that a special feature... the "first position thumb rest"™ pat. pend. etc. :-)

Sorry, forgot to get back on this. Here's a drawing that clarifies how I figured the mount. The piece will be machined of steel. I'm not sure but probably there will be a cap to hide the screws. And the holes will be countersunk. Thanks for that, Henri. Looking forward to seeing how it works on the guitar.

I'm fascinated by your pickup mounting, Henri. Will the humbuckers be mounted before the top goes on? - I can't work out how else you can mount them

Depending on what other design features you plan, it may be worth considering putting a veneer/veneers between the halves to make a feature rather than looking like a patch-together job.

Very interesting - should I get a #7 plane first, or a holographic inferometer? :-) I was particularly interested seeing how inactive the upper bout is on the guitar. And how the nodal patterns continues through the soundhole of the vihuela as if it wasn't there. Cool stuff.

If you're on a budget, and the expensive badass bridge will be a compromise anyway, why not make you're own bridge with a flat radius. Build it like an acoustic bridge. Without the worry of weight and stiffness that will affect acoustic performance, you can build it at whatever thickness you want to get the action you need. Start by routing a 3mm wide slot in an offcut from your maple body wood and carve the offcut to a shape that compliments the body shape. A 3mm thick saddle blank can then be inserted and trimmed (even with some compensation if needed) to the flat radius that will be exactly what you want. Good luck with the build. Brian.