ScottR

Don't you just hate that? "Work" totally kills my groove. Like today, I was in the zone and then *brakes screeching to a halt* it was time to go to work. *sigh* I love your carving stuff. Carving is very enjoyable to me. It is the closest thing in lutherie to drawing IMO, which I quite enjoy. I love feeling something just shape up right under your hands. Amen Brother. SR

I'd say price is the main reason for that. There is no significant tonal advantage to doing so. SR

Depends on the day. During the week, I've got this regular job type thing that gets in the way of everything i'd rather be doing. I may get an hour or two in a day after work. On the weekends, it's an all day event, and when I'm in the groove, I'll set up lights and work on into the night. It would probably take me two 10 hour stints to carve this top though. SR

That's beautiful Paulie. How difficult was it to keep the masked binding line clean? SR

The entire guitar was stained black to accent the heavy grain in that billet. So there was a fairly heavy black dye put right into the timber. Then cut back leaving some of the black in the hearier grain areas. All I did for the black burst was not sand the edges. I used alcohol based dye that flashed off fairly quickly to avoid putting moisture into the timber. The fade is easy if you just take it slow. I typicaly leav the dye heavy where I want the fade to be, then sand away the colour in a circular motion. work from the centre out & do an entire lap of the body outline in a single pass - dont stop to concentrate in any area. I would not use anything courser than 320. Get it to where you are just about done, Then run over it with 000 wirewool to blend everything. Job done. Just be sure the dye you use is not soluable with the finish you will be applying or it will change the fade when applied. Thanks, I thought it was dye, but wasn't totally sure, as you gots so many trickes ups your sleeves. I'll probably use a combination of that and an airbrush, plus a little additional bursting with a tint in the lacquer. That is the very one. Gorgeous! I presume the customer was totally thrilled with it? SR

Most of the items in this shot are for keeping an edge. I use various whet stones, india slipstones, ceramic stones etc. to put the intitial edge on by holding the beveled edge (the bottom) at the desired angle and working it side to side across the face of the curve. These days I use little diamond sharpeners in three grades. I next to never touch the inside of the curve with a stone, that angle should be flat. The finishing touches are put on with a strop loaded with jeweler's rouge or aluminum oxide powder. Strop is kind of a generic term here. That block with various angles and curves in it is a strop as is the flat thing with a silicon surface. The grinder has a wheel made of pressed fiber board and is lioaded with white jewelers rouge. It gets most of the work and polishes the edges quickly, which is what all the strops are for. The gouges get a few strokes on the strop every 15 minutes or so to keep them razor sharp. I test the edge on my leg hairs.....I'll have a bald spot before this carve is done. SR

I never thought of that, but I can see exactly what you mean. I never messed with any flat headstocks, but the strings do come off the posts at an angle don't they? I believe I'll just stick to angled headstocks. SR

So cool Thanks Muzz. SR

Nicely done, but I hear you man. SR

I use a modified pillar drill for that. Changed out the pulley wheels that came in it to mess with the gearing from the motor to the drill head. Max speed is approx 10,000 rpm. I just use it like a pin router. But gotta be carefull to always clamp the piece to a heavy base before putting it near the tool, & only take off light shavings. Otherwise you have to replace the window accross the workshop & wait till your wrist comes out of the cast before you can do anything else Looking realy good. I think this needs a blue burst. so it can hammer everyone in GOTM 10,000 rpm is blazing for a pillar drill. Unless the guitar tells me different, I plan to extend the slope of the carve into that rabbet, so the lip will change a bit when I get to sanding. A little tearout would not have caused a huge problem. The ledge is a great way to start a recurve, which is what I normally do. Blue burst huh? This one wants to be red with a black burst and black shaded edges. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to ask what you used to do a black burst on the edges of that walnut lotus you posted last year. The one that you feathered black on the neck join, hiding the fact that it didn't actually have a neck joint. Or am I thinking of the purplish black quilted JS? Did you spray black dye; tint the lacquer; both? Or paint? SR

Why or how would too much drop be a problem on a non angled headstock? Looking good Muzz, this is fun to watch. SR

Excellent warranty......can't wait to hear them. The carve will take a minute or so....but I will love every last one of them. In the mean time.....soup. SR

Dude, when you update, YOU UPDATE! What's with the cribbage board? I was going to ask about the black dye, but I apparently got to the party late. Was the 60/40 mix before or after wiping? I'm thinking some of the 40 got sidetracked. SR

Hell....I forgot where I was. So these two are my favorite to use. I prefer the use the bigger one most of the time....but when the wood is tricky, meaning highly figured, the smaller one often get the job done quicker.The smaller cutting surface takes less effort to push through the wood. More of the arsenal. You must keep these razor sharp for them to be the most effective. Touch up the edges every 15 minutes or so with a few strokes on the appropriate strop. Must be quitting time. SR

It's a secret. SR

There has been some interest in methods of carving tops lately.I prefer to use palm gouges and actually carve the carved top. Do any of you have a grandfather that used to whittle? He probably sat outside the feed store in a one horse town and whittled with his Case pocket knife all day long....chewing tobacco and and spitting it at his old hound dog. The dog was named Bubba and only moved if the juice got in his eye.... He was so lazy he layed down to eat, and sometimes took a nap in the middle of his meal.. (Oh wait, that was my brother's coon dog, Bill). It took a good boot to move Bubba...or a skunk. Granddad whittled and drank moonshine out of a fired clay jug with xxxx's across the front of it. i don't know why they put xxx's on the jug...maybe that was how you could tell the corn from the peach. Anyway do y'all remember your granddad's whittling...great granddad was it?.... Mine didn't either. But my buddy across the street's granddad died and he found a box of whittled treasures in his basement. There were chains and balls in cages whittled from stick and tree limbs that just fascinated me. He gave me a walking stick carved from oak with spirals and curlicues and a hooked end that made me think I had Gandolf's staff. And I took my Queen steel pocket knife and started to cut up sticks. I graduated to buck knives and making walking sticks and wizard's staffs and whistles. I like to carve. I could probably get this top carved a week sooner by using a flap disk and an angle grinder but I LIKE to carve. Carving figured hardwoods can be tricky. Most of the time you will find yourself cutting across the grain. With sharp tools this will give you a clean cut across the fibers with no splitting. Cutting with the grain can give you longer cuts, removing more wood, but will also often lead to splits and a cut taking more wood than you intended. When using palm gouges, use leverage. make cuts that start a scoop and use the blade like a lever to cut across the grain crating cuts like this. This shot reminds me of the dunes at Quintana beach. SR

One more advantage to having a floor standing drill press. I did get the control cavity ledges cleaned up. Now to begin my favorite part of the build; carving the top. SR

Routed and ready for these. Control cavity routed and rabbeted. I wasn't going to rabbet the edge of the top to provide a carve line because every route I had made into that maple so far had tear out....but I tried it anyway. You can see the steps and where the fretboard got in the way. SR

So, here we go! laying out bridge and pick up routes. I started drilling the bridge screw pilots and thought, damn I sure miss being able to us my cross slide vise..... Never-mind I figured out how to make it work.Then I took a tip straight from one of RAD's most recent posts. SR

Well played Alessander. That fretboard is going to look hot when you get it finished up. SR

There was a build here about a year ago, where the dude cut the body parts out with a coping saw. SR

It is better to shape the neck after the fretboard is attached. When you are slotting you want to insure your slots are perfectly square to the centerline, unless you are doing a multiscale. Normally one uses one flat edge of his freatboard to establish a plane to square to. In simple terms this would rest against the edge of your miter box and your cuts are 90 degrees to that edge. Adding a neck blank to the mix just adds oportunity to get out of square. If your neck blank edge and fret board edge have been squared up together and the back of your neck blank is parallel to the top of your fret board, and the neck with fretboard fits into your miterbox, then go for it. Cutting fret slots accurately is one of the most important parts of the build, so IMO it is best to illiminate as many variables as possible. FWIW, I square up the fretboard first, then slot it using the StewMac template and miterbox glue that to the trussrod installed neck blank (before radiusing, so you have a flat surface to clamp with), then radius, then rough shape the neck. Obviously there are many ways to get the job done.....but you did ask. SR

There have been several posts detailing exactly that....one that comes to mind first was by Drak......but damned if I can find them. The jist is you glue on the top first everywhere but the fore arm contour. Then apply hot water or steam to the point of the bend for a while to soften the fibers and apply a line of glue to the contact point. Clamp the portion of the top that's hanging out in the air. Apply a little pressure and just barely start to bend the top. Let it set a few minutes and repeat. Keep the bend point moist keep adding a new line of glue and keep adding a little pressure at a time. Take whatever time it takes....could be up to an hour or more. Some people add kerf lines to the back of the top where the bend will be, but they don't extend them to the edge so they will not be visible. Now, I have not done this, I'm just repeating what I remember reading... keep searching, maybe you'll have better luck or maore patience than I. SR

Saw first and then radius is best, but it's not the end of the world to go the other way. It is pretty important to slot before you attach it to the neck though. I hope that's not what you meant by "fret board is attached". What method are you using to layout and cut your slots? Indexing template? Miter box? Something more (or less) elaborate? SR

Not really. I don't guess I take myself seriously enough to beat myself up over mistakes. Don't get me wrong, I have a healthy ego, and plenty of self confidence, and a competitive nature that makes me want everything I do to be the best. And there have been plenty of occasions, where I've said, way to go, Riffle, that was stooopid. I don't guess I'll be doing it that way again. Then I get right to figuring out how to put it right. So far my builds have been to my specs (except one commission and even it had some room for me to indulge in a little freedom of expression) and my specs leave room for creative adjustment as I go. I'm doing a bit of that on my current build in fact. So I'm not trying to meet exact dimensions (except in the playability areas--scale related and setup related)as dictated by existing models. That helps. I know I'm not going to build a flawless instrument. But I think I get as much or more satisfaction out of making one that looks flawless to everyone else because I did a good job of overcoming boneheaded mistakes--or material flaws. So far I haven't buggered up something so badly it needed to be burned. Probably that means I just haven't built enough guitars yet. SR