103801061982

Well its time for a tea break - when isn't it - and I sort of feel like I've got some things done this morning.

First things first, I built a block of wood. glued two recessed magnets to the end and set about slotting. Now this is the only board I've cut that I'm happy with. I think I put it down to using a pull saw - it takes wood off at an alarming rate so less faffing around in the slot and cutting on the pull just seems more intuitive. Either way it seemed to work with the only down side really being that it seems very easy to go too deep - though that's my fault for not putting a stop on it. Cue the look no hands shot of a saw demonstrating the magic of magnets.

I also glued the heel to the neck. Its now gone from a light piece of wood to a heavy piece of wood. Though both Limba, the density of the heel block is quite  bit higher. Pity the fool that has to carve that. Oh yeah, that's me.

Well a couple of weeks of night shifts later I've finally got a bit of bench time. These return to the bench sessions are usually followed by a bunch of cock ups....

Headstock time. Rosewood face from the backs leftovers. Binding channel cut and ebony glued. Tuner holes drilled. 4 a sided. Rock n roll.

For some reason I was a bit unnerved by string travel over the headstock so they are inline with the furthermost being about 1mm higher than the nearest. It may well look odd, but hey ho. Who was it that thought square ended slots would be cool? Probably the same idiot that decided to excavate using a chisel. Still didn't take too long and may clean up nice.

damn it, every time I see one of your pics I tell myself that I need to put some serious effort into jig making, but as soon as I hit the bench the will just dissipates. .

Neck No2 time. This Limba blank is wide. I think given a sensible build, this would provide 2 necks. After obsessing a bit about how long to leave the headstock piece I just jumped in and cut the thing in half. There will not be much wastage and I wont have any problems finding a piece of limba in the offcuts bin to build up the heel. This is a compound scarf as this is multiscale so everything is on the slant a bit, but not too much as I've been a bit conservative with the difference in scales (compared to some Ive seen). I've shot the centre line pretty much down the border between the dark and light woods - any further off centre on the blank and it wouldn't have fit in my scarf jig. I've decided to ditch the idea of making the sides of the headstock flush with the sides of the neck and added a small flare out. It should make drilling the tuner holes a bit easier.

I'm really sold on this for grain filling mainly because it's clean and goes on clear but you can also get away with minimal sanding if you're judicious with the amount used. The pores on this rosewood set were about as open as I can image getting and this stuff swallowed them right up. The last coat on this was with warmed components and a kitchen towel - decidedly low tech, but seemed to work.  though a bit of a leap in the dark, this one's definitely a keeper for me for future builds.

Not much to show for  the last couple of days toil, but we've gone from this goopy mess......

to this more shiny erm mess (complete with ghostly hand)

1 dollop coat and 2 thin coats have been knocked back. The first coat really got a good hammering into the pores with my trusty Ikea card (other Swedish furniture stores not available). The resin has been sanded back (400 and 800) pretty much to the wood and is flat enough apart from a few stubborn lows around the cracks in the sides - I think I'm OK with this as at the beginning I wasn't even sure they'd survive this far.

I don't know if its the thing to do, but after the final sand I've wiped on a very thin coat of resin with a towel to even out the colour - maybe it'll deepen the finish once sprayed -  who knows, but it does make the box look less horrific and seals things nicely.

The neck blank arrived so I can busy myself building a sensible neck. To the drawing board for that first though. Don't mind binning 1 blank for a project, 2 is foolhardy.

Hell, please take all this with a pinch of salt as I definitely feel like I'm making this up as I go along. There are certainly a couple of jobs that I would change the order on.

I've not touched this for a few days. Feels like weeks, but then that's what working nights does to your body clock.

In an effort to kill the production of rosewood dust I've sanded the back and sides to 400, rounded off the bindings and started on grain filling. z-poxy. Smells like a good way to destroy some DNA, so doors open. Pic below shows why I wasn't massively annoyed by the small gaps in the binding - everything goes very dark very quickly. This is the first coat on the back. I think the plan is to lightly take this back tomorrow with something like 320, then do another coat and see how flat we are. Slight amber tint to this epoxy, but to my thinking perhaps better than trying to match fillers. As always, we'll see.

Coming back to this after a week I decided I hated the neck, so a new blank is on its way. Didn't like the clumsy lamination and quite frankly the tuner holes were not the squarest ever drilled. I think I can do better. This blank is 120mm wide, so should be easily big enough.......... We'll see.

I love the way the multiscale and the body shape play together. Very cool.

Cheers gents

Oddly I've never had too much of a beef with ebony bindings, though I have found that when they they do start chipping / cracking it's pretty much game over. Haven't got a bad word to say about this Ebano stuff yet. With a hot iron its very pliable  - ended up overbending some sections due to this - and it seems to take a gluing better that Ebony.

Well this is when I'm leaving it for a couple of days. Not much further than yesterday, but the sides have been smoothed off somewhat and the back scraped down. there are still a couple of hairline gaps here and there, but as this thing will be covered in epoxy for grain filling anyway, nothing to be concerned about. The plan is to get all the messy rosewood stuff done before looking at the top (which is now looking a bit sorry for itself).

As always, thanks for reading.

getting there..........

The bending iron was on early this morning and the tops bindings were done by half 8, glued on by 9. For the bindings I used  water thinned titebond and taped with cheapo masking tape. As the bends were a good fit, not much pressure needed at all. There are a couple of gaps here and there, but nothing to be concerned about. The one thing I'm quite pleased about is the mitring around the wedge. A simple 3 ply purfling was added to the top and secured with super glue wicked into the channel from the outside edge. I could have done a much better job butting the white purfling together at the join, but again, I'm not crying over this and am reasonably happy for this as a first attempt. I'm halfway through scraping this down in the second picture - stopped for tea. This afternoon - binding the back. Whoop.

Too right. Rosewood and ebony dust seems to get everywhere. After thinning the back and sides for this thing the place looked like the red weed had descended.

Ironed out the issue with the binding channel. Turned out the sides weren't quite square enough and given the small margins, the small wonkiness translated to a noticeable difference in depth. To correct I've scraped down the sides to bring the depth down and also went all gung ho and routed the channel for the purfling.

I go to pieces when asked to play an acoustic. Part of the reason for getting into building them was to force me into learning a bit more. Its failed dismally.

So the wood-not-wood arrived. Looks good, well black, and sands nicely. Biggest + so far is that its square from the wrapping and uniform - not cracks/warps anywhere. With this build that needs quite a wide board, it means I can get a bit creative when it comes to laying out the board on the blank. Thumbs up so far.

Guitar wise, this is where is gets a bit fiddly and really in-nerving. I routed the binding channels and fitted the back thing. This is ebony. Hate the dust this stuff chucks out, so am sticking with scrapers. I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but I routed the binding channels first, fitted the ebony (nice snug fit after a couple of taps) then routed the top of the ebony 1.5mm up from the main channel to allow for the mitring of the fancy stuff. Final shaping will be with the scrapers. No dust. This is the new mantra, NO DUST.

First couple of screw ups today as well. Managed to pull the grain up on the top in a couple of places. it'll sand out, but god knows how thin this will take the top. The binding channel on the top is also a bit deep ( along the x axis)  again this'll scrap out and may even be a good thing as looking at things, it may square out the sides a bit. Every cloud..... Galling though as it wasn't on the plan.

Cheers Norris.

Well this ones going to be on hold while order some bindings, a fretboard and a bridge. I'm going to try rocklite ebano for this one. None more black, but more importantly slightly cheaper and a lot more sustainable. Aparently it also works nicer than ebony and glues better. We'll see.

I bluntened a chisel on the back strip this morning. I think I'll put it down at this point and practive routing binding and purfling channels.....

Don't know about positive reinforcement, a couple of beers maybe.

Andy, the necks going to be glues and clamped with the nuts. I figured theyd need tightening down the line, but wanted to see if this arrangement would work. Given the fretboard is going ontop of the neck and a good portion of the body, I don't think they'll be anything to be concerned by - think being the word. We'll see.

So last night was a bit of a late one. Top tuned - channelling mystical tap juju. Got three differently pitched clear bongs from different sections of the board before loosing my nerve and calling it a day. This is a practice thing that I need to work on. When done with that I thought I'd cut the kerfing for the back. That turned into why not glue the back when we're here. Easy you say. Piffle. next time I'll be cutting all mitres in the kerfing before either back or top gets glued. The second piffle was that the back had move quite a bit since I last looked at. I'm afraid this was sorted with brute strength during the gluing - body sandwiched between the two radius dished and clamped the living bejesus outa. We have a box.

It worked rather nicely as we're gap free. Today was spent waiting for MOTs and trimming the xs from the top and back.

Pulling up a chair for this one if I may Matt. This kind of build is on the to list

Matt

I think a lot of people would like to have you believe that this is a bit more complicated that it is. There is definitely still money in snake oil.

The gent who taught me how to build got me into these  dowel things and he thanked Ikea... Though much more forgiving, having played with this joint a bit, I think that given smaller inserts, I could have drilled accurately enough to negate the need for a bit of give. It is nice to have that bit of safety blanket though.

Here's a potatoey shot of where I landed with the heel. the bottom has been brought down to match the radius of the back. Plenty of meat yet to come off here, but I wanted to get the joint done. I'm sticking here. there are a couple of small hairline gaps toward to exteme top edges, but when cranked and glued + finished, I think it will be fine for my purposes.

Neck angle was the real concern. but we landed OK (able to balance a ruler) and with a quick tickle with some sandpaper will be dead flat.

This is where impatience kicks in - I just want to get this neck glued and cranked, but I guess I'm just going to have to knuckle down a build a sled so I can route binding channels.

Sir, I thank you.

This is what I was on about with the dowel bolts. 10mm holes sunk top and bottom just deep enough to hold the dowel in the right place and 8mm holes to receive the M6 bolts. Gives a nice bit of wiggle for any fitting indiscretions and the 'oles will be hidden by the fretboard and heel cap. Now that's done I can relax a bit and get back to shaping the heel.

It only seems fast because I spend a stupid amount of time pondering over what I'm going to do first, so when it comes time to make some dust, its all pretty quick.

Tap tuning, mmmm like a bounder and without reference to any form of common decency, I'm going to fit the neck first. I've always wondered why tops are voiced before attaching them to anything else, so I thought I'd see if it works with everything in situ. I also reckon a couple of cosmetic things may be easier with the neck attached first, then back. we'll see.

I took these halfway though. Firstly I nibbled out the centre portion of where the heel buts to the ribs using clumsiness, brute force, a chisel and a mallet. At an arbitrary depth I stopped and started working away at the joint with a bit of adhesive sandpaper stuck to the ribs with the feeling that this is probably cheating a bit. I'm confident that the chasm of despair a the bottom and top right edges will close up once the heels been shaped and clamping pressure is applied and for now, this'll do.

I wouldn't know where to start with that. Let me know if you come up with anything.

I'm downing tools for the day. All the internal braces etc are in, but not trimmed. Tomorrow shall be mostly sanding and shaving, unless as originally intended, a soundport finds its way onto the top forward edge of the lower bout.

@ScottR 8 individual strings - thinking high a, low b, but as with everything else, this is up for change...

I may know who you mean.....

Sure. It's noisy. On mine the spindle isn't true to the base, not off by much and there's no undue vibration - I've yet to tear mine apart. Did I mention it's noisy. All in all I wouldn't be without it, but this is the only one I've owned so I can't really comment on it's relative merits. Oh and it's noisy.

On reflection, for my needs I think a disc sander would have been better, but for the money, cautious thumbs up.

Well the gimbals were good this morning so I glued the top on using the go deck. Braces to follow this afternoon after a cuppa.

Fit was nice and tight with only one section at the waist needing further glue and clamp. Definitely a gluing, not a fit boo boo. At the moment the thing bongs like a drum. Feeling quite chuffed.

Stands up     My names Matt and I'm a secret chisel hoarder....................