Juntunen Guitars

Missed the picture of the top going on. Photobucket messed up the order it uploaded pictures I think.

Leveled the top of the sides with a block plane first.

A few pictures I missed of the braces

I chalk fit the braces so the chalk was what showed me where the high spots were.

End graft being glued in.

Binding going on.

Bending the sides

Binding bent

F-Holes, I based these on some older Guild style F-holes

Braces glued

Long time no update so here we go.

Placing the kleets to hold the braces in place.

Cedar braces cut

You don't even need to wet sand. I use this stuff sometimes with an air sander http://www.amazon.com/3M-30667-Hookit-Purple-Finishing/dp/B0035QYZNO I only use 1000 and 1200 grit though before buffing. If you don't sand between coats you can level sand with p320 after about 6 coats and spray a few reduced coats and start with 1000 grit or 800 depending on how your reduced coats layed out.

If I wet sand I do the same thing but instead of the disks I use a felt block with 1000 and 1200 grits, for water I just use one of those bottles you get windex in with the triggers for squirting and fill it with distilled water. All it takes is a couple squirts a grit you don't want to douse the wood.

Maybe you aren't spraying lacquer enough on the tape or maybe it has small gaps when the tape goes over the frets and that's what is making the water get on the board.

How do you tigthen the tuner nuts, when they are recessed like that? I did that on my recent guitar because they werent long enough, but now i cant tighten them.

Stewmac also sells nut tighteners, basically a socket on the end of a handle. I just use a rachet set when I don't have my stewmac tighteners.

Sorry for not posting lately, I've been getting busy. I will put up more as soon as I get the pictures off my phone.

At least he's not bare foot in the shop. Pointy objects and body parts don't usually mix

I use Gotoh schaller style tuners from Stewmac and will be switching to actual Schaller style tuners soon. I would rather spend money on a good set of tuners than go with cheaper ones but that's just me, I used cheap tuners on my first two builds and they slipped out of tune quite a bit.

Usually when I carve out the inside I'll use a bigger, maybe like 13/32th, and then just whack a lot of material out with a chisel. But the particular piece of wood plays a huge factor in that. I started carving out the inside of the top I'm working on right now with a finger plane and it's such a fine-grained piece that I had to stop myself because I realized I was getting really thin. So I then used the frill press and found that I was right at 1/4", which is where I usually do my tops before I cut out f-holes.

But I like your recurve; it's really clean. That is something I tend to struggle with.

This is the first top I've carved out like this and I was told by an archtop and violin builder to use smaller bits when drilling because it avoids tear out and that most people who use bigger bits to hog out wood end up taking more than they want. I'm not sure though since I had never done it.

Thanks, the recurve was starting to get to me because the top and bottom half was scrapping cross grain the whole time so it came out really rough at first which dulled my scrappers a lot, once I burnished them again though it started working a lot better.

Pauliemc: Thanks I'm starting to fit the tone bars now.

More from carving. I used a gouge from cape forge. They are great and come sharp, I actually cut myself taking it out of the packaging because I wasn't expecting it to be so sharp.

Smoothing it out.

And the joys of carving are blisters.

Marking out the inside for carving. There are three different depths around the top. The thickest is in the middle and thins out as you work your way out. I did the first drilling a mm thicker than the thickest point all the way across the top then went back and marked everything out again and drilled to a half mm above the final thickness all he way around.

This is the tool I used for a depth stop. You can get them from violin tool suppliers.

Doing the recurve. I cut the recurve to 4mm and left the outside edge at 5mm. I didn't worry about the outer edge being so thick because the top is cut oversized and I will be cutting it back when I bind it as well.

Got photobucket to work today so here is some pictures of the last few weeks.

Blending the carve.

Pictures! Pictures!

Sorry for the late update I bought a new toy (78 F250 ) that has been taking up my time. I tried to get photobucket to work today but it's not liking me plus it has been deleting my pictures from the past page so I need to fix that as well. I will try again tonight.

Does anyone know where to find any information on the brace patterns for double neck acoustics? I found a cheap $200 one on ebay but I don't want to buy it just to blueprint it.

LMI has some information, other places to look is Pantheon guitars website, read the articles by Dana Bourgeois under the tonewoods and voicing section, There is some articles on voicing a top there, I found it useful. http://www.pantheonguitars.com/ Otherwise I liked the book by Cumpiano http://www.amazon.com/Guitarmaking-Tradition-Technology-Construction-Steel-String/dp/0811806405

You can look throught my Padauk Dreadnought build thread as well, I put up the whole build and tried to explain everything as it was done.

DPM99 Just go slowly the first time. My first attempt at these was not very good but I was trying to finish with the dark color instead of the yellow, wish I had known that at first now they are pretty easy.

So since the forum update I have not been getting any updates on threads I start. I have to go in manually and check all the time even if I click the "follow" button and set it to immediate response. Anyone else having this problem and what should I do about it?

another option for the OP:

made by Aldridge Empire.

those are the 2nd generation of that design, the first one was made for me only, I think

I got mine (7pcs) for around US$ 100, a lot more cheaper than ABM.

it's for top load string mounting, though.

you could ask for string thru body version like mine, but maybe you'll have to wait for a little longer.

and if you have your own design, he'll build them for you.

I'll look into those, they look interesting... and close to a third of the price of ABM.

I may just get some steel and bend it into a bridge plate and go with some strat style string saver saddles after seeing some of the previous ideas. I like the ebony plate one, may have to try that. Thanks.

Like Paulie,I have already done it myself.In fact,my first guitar was Plywood with incredibly cheap hardware.The only good thing about it was the bridge pickup.

It sounded like a guitar,but it did not sound as good as one made of quality wood with quality hardware.This has been done a hundred times even just on this site,and those who know that wood makes a difference will just assume you are tone deaf if you think otherwise.

Still worth doing it for your own knowledge.But you should realize it doesn't help your business to cry voodoo about tonewood.

Since I almost always use EMG or Duncan JB/59 in my guitars,I already know how they sound with maple,mahogany,alder,bubinga,and yes,plywood.

I stand in the middle of the argument. I've compared guitar like this between one made of mahogany and one of a 2x4 from home depot and they sounded the same mostly, The pickup was from a Gibson Les Paul. The only real difference was the sustain, the mahogany had way more. I've found mixing mahogany with an ash neck really brings out sustain too.

Using EMG's makes me laugh a little in my opinion any active will basically cancel out any effects the wood has on the tone, minus maybe some sutain, but that's because I've never been a fan of actives because I can't ever get them to be versitile enough for different tones. I think they are good if you are the type that has one tone that they want to always play with and not have any versitility in it.

So a quick search on the forum led to no help. Basically I am wondering about individual bridges for a multiscale build. I know of ABM's bridges that are supposed to be really good quality but at $36 a piece i'm going over other options first. Does anyone know of any other individual bridge pieces? I read somewhere online that people have used individual bass bridges for multiscale bridges but I figured the string would be sitting in a rather large space meant for a bass string or am I wrong? When I compared the two it looked like ABM's had a large space for a string like the bass ones but it looked like there was a little extension that went up in front of it for the string to sit on.

So any advice?

Seriously! And we could make an organized run on GOTM and flood it with archtops

Ha sounds like a plan And yes I have decided on my bracing, it's going to be a tone bar and not an X-brace, I also have multipe plane, not just the big one, I have two small ones and a bigger one. I haven't had to much problems with getting in the tighter areas but that's where the gouge comes in handy as well.

Dean, I have been using my scrapers now that the top is pretty close to its final arch.

I will have more pictures tonight.