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ADFinlayson

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Everything posted by ADFinlayson

  1. To be completely honest, I didn't have high expectations when it came to sound based on other small guitars and yukes I've heard. Really pleasantly surprised though, you've obviously managed to get everything out that that little sound board has offer, sustain sounds really good too. Amazing work Andy.
  2. I'm crap at gluing on neck-through wings, I always end up with a hair line gap somewhere on the body. This method is just snazzy
  3. I'm pretty sure that's a Framus Humingbird knockoff - They made a wide range of budget classical, steel strings, archtops and hollow electrics between the mid 40s and 70s in Bavaria. Lots of different pickguard designs that seamed to spill over into different models, no consistency to headstock shapes, some with intricate headstock inlay work and some with nothing at all, not even a decal. But they nearly all have the 0 fret and that design of truss rod cover. Here's 2 I've got in the shop right now. I must have had at least 10 in this year to work on and I remember seeing that identical headstock shape on an archtop although I don't have a photo to prove it. They made a lot of very cool guitars, but IMO not great guitars, they were all budget instruments after all. Over here they tend to go for max £300 in good condition, everyone I've seen has not been in playable condition - the zero fret is normally worn down to nothing causing a lot of buzz and insanely high action, knackered tuners. All of the later ones have beautiful finish checking though as they were all finished with nitro.
  4. ooof those are some serious woods. Looking forward to seeing this
  5. NIce one, I need to carve some relief into the back of the bridge on my second build too because I had to sand the saddle down so far to get decent action.
  6. It was a low nut on both the bottom E and A strings. Filled the slots with thin CA and baking powder before filing them back down a hair higher and the back buzz has completely gone away, even after flattening the neck back out. Funny because there was about a fag paper gap between the string and first fret when pressing down on the third which is where I normally go on electric guitars. Perhaps it's the acoustic properties of the acoustic guitar that make the buzzing noticeable or maybe it's down to the higher string gauge of acoustics.
  7. thank you both, I think filling in that slot and recutting it is definitely the best route to go down to start with. I hope it's that, I don't want to have to resort to adding relief to resolve it because it plays just right as is. I do find it quite difficult to diagnose these little noises on acoustics some times, no matter where the buzz is, it always sounds like it's coming from the sound hole
  8. I've just discovered something interesting any annoying - if I fret the 7th on the bottom E and the 5th on the A string, but I only play the A string, the bottom E string buzzes... behind the fretted note (wtf). I've never came across an issue like this before. After a bit of research I see it being referred to as back buzz, with some references to a low nut or high fret or back bow. - The neck was v close to flat but not back bowing, so I introduced some relief, no joy - The nut isn't buzzing on the open E string so I am not convinced that the nut is low - The frets are level. Anyone else experienced this?
  9. You're crazy. It's all subjective but I like to use headstock veneers that match the fretboard, or as close to the same grain as I can get, then I give the headstock veneer the same treatment as fretboard so they visually match. I'm all for putting gloss the headstock if I'm matching the body, but otherwise I feel like introducing a different finish gives the veneer a slightly different look that doesn't tie in with anything else, arguable that in this case it would tie in with the back strap, but you can never see the two things at the same time.
  10. Here's a finger pickin' demo recorded on my Zoom H1 voice recorder, about 6" from the sound hole. There is quite a bit of harmonic resonance from this guitar, but given the limitation of my recording capabilities, you can only really hear it with headphones.
  11. Thanks for the explainer Andy, that method looks pretty good. I did actually do similar to repair a gappy joint on my latest one - pressed the protruding binding down with the iron until it stayed put. I think I'll give this method a try to do the whole job next time.
  12. Crikey it's 21ºC in England, I even mowed the lawn yesterday.
  13. I got it buffed today and the rest of the setup bits, done also had a go at checking the finish which had mixed results, some areas checked wonderfully and some not at all. Heating the lacquer up had the affect of shrinking the lacquer into the grain a bit, but I'm ok with that given it's part of the aging process. I think I perhaps need to leave the lacquer for longer before attempting to check as it's only been a couple of weeks since I sprayed the top coats, or it's possible I could have levelled and buffed through the top nitro into the precat in places, though I'd have thought I'd see some ghosting if that was the case. It's playing really nicely now that the nut and saddle have been polished up. It has 11s on now and action is 1.75mm on the bass side which I think is about right for an acoustic. I haven't done any compensation on the saddle but it doesn't seem to need any according to my strobe tuner app Here's a closeup of the checking and a few glam shots
  14. Thanks Andy, I'll have to see if I can come up with a way to record it that actually sounds good, maybe my zoom recorder might work if it's close enough to the sound hole.
  15. A working guitar! I still need to do a few things - finish shaping and polish the nut, saddle could do with coming down a tiny bit more - currently have 2mm action on the bass side with a set of 12s on though I will go down to 11s anyway, I need to notch the slots for the strings a bit more on the bridge and it needs buffing before I attempt to check the finish. I'm very happy with how it sounds, the sustain is excellent, although I don't think I've ever actually played an all mahogany acoustic before. It's bright and punchy, perhaps not as much projection as no2, I will have to compare them tomorrow. There are too many variables to compare really, firstly I've used rosewood for the bridge and fretboard this time which I'm sure is going to be impactful, ebony bridge pegs instead of cheap plastic ones. Also this one is 25" scale instead of 25.5" - I think that technically makes this a 000 and not an OM - I didn't realise previously that they have the same body shape and that the only tangible difference is the scale length, sound hole and bridge location
  16. Looking good, what size bolt are you using on the neck there? I've just switched down for the latest build from M8 on the previous to M6, I figured the difference in strength is probably negligible but the smaller inserts would lead to less stress on the heel. I'm tempted to try a pair M5 bolts if I can find inserts for them.
  17. I cut out a few more random inlays today. I was doing a bit of research into fancy old Martins for which frets to put the bigger inlays on and I can't find any consistency for 14 fret models. Some just start at the 5th fret, some have an inlay on the first fret, some have 5, 9 and 12 as the big inlays and some do or don't have a 15th fret inlay. So I think I'll go with this plus add one more small inlay at the 15th fret, I never really play above 15th fret on an acoustic and even then, rarely. But it does look a bit empty in the upper register without a 15th fret inlay. I'm sure I will cut that out and decide in needs a 17 and 19 inlay too.
  18. No I didn't, my youtube searches only really consist of making stuff out of wood. I do have some little burrs for carving with the dremel but I haven't really had much of a use for them in the guitar work I've done to date. Thanks Mike, appreciated.
  19. Yes it is very common, probably because it looks cool but is made of fairly easy shapes to integrate into a carving. I'm sure I've seen it appear on english architecture and coats of arms too, probably from Norman influence, we are after all just a mashup of various European invaders. I'd like to attempt a proper coat of arms style inlay at some point but they're so intricate, it would be difficult to cut anything like that out by hand. My lineage goes back to the highland clan Farquharson from the 11th century although most Finlaysons today are around Fife and Edinburgh, the coat of arms would certainly be a final boss to inlay.
  20. The red one has been levelled with 600 grit and I've since sprayed 4 coats of proper nitro, it's had.3 days to cure so far. I think I'll give it another day or 2 before levelling with 1200, then I'll leave it as long as my patience will allow before buffing. I'm assuming it's not going to need 4 weeks given that it's only a top coat. On to the new one. I wasn't very happy with the joint on the top binding, where the two pieces butt up to each other is ok but the right hand piece had a hairline gap between the binding and the maple end graft I did. so I made a new piece to inlay with maple and some leftover purfling. It's not a perfect inlay, but I think it looks cooler than what was there before. I've been working on a rosewood fretboard with maple binding too. Here is a heartfelt tribute to the pain au chocolate I had for breakfast this morning. It was a bit fiddly to line all the pieces up together so I stuck them all together with some rosewood veneer between to keep the lines of separation. the inaly is 1.8mm thick and I'm putting a 12" radius on the board so I am undecided whether or not to inlay first or radius first - might be easier to cut the channel while the board is flat and finness after radius, I'm sure the wood will conform a little bit to the radius to help prevent me sanding through it.
  21. That's is plenty long enough IMO, particularly if it's a junior - no pesky pickup cavity to rob you of glueing surface.
  22. Well that went better than I could have expected There are a few small issues - a couple of gaps and a couple of bits of tear out on the purfling channel that I hadn't noticed prior. The gaps in the binding were easy to fix with the iron, but I was a bit sad about the tearout. Then I made a discovery - spruce dust + lacquer makes an excellent filler! I sanded the area next to the tearout with some 240, pushed it in to the space and drop filled some lacquer, repeated that a couple of times and sanded smooth, and it's practically invisible. If I'd have used titebond, that would have turned yellow. Glad I did the purfling after all that, ties in with the rosette really nicely without looking too bling.
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