ADFinlayson

Had a wood delivery the other day, including my spruce bracing stock, African ebony fretboards, head plates and bridge blanks, also a couple of more tops, a german spruce and a sitka spruce. None of the above is particularly expensive wood. e.g the tops were around £15 each, bridge blanks £2 a go, head plates £2.80 and fret boards £8.50. But all good quality for the price, no defects, I've used a few of their fretboards now and can't fault them so highly recommend Maderas Barber for acoustic stuff, their electric tops and body blanks are a bit of a rip off IMO. The brace wood was nice and dry so after the better part of a week I started cutting some of it up to make my braces for the limba build. When I cut the lap joint for the x brace this time, I followed the Driftwood guitars method - marked them out against the template aligned them together in the vice and cut them both at the same time. The resulted joint was much better than the last - fitted together perfectly with no play and lined up with the template perfectly, Also cut up one of the face plates to make the bridge reinforcement. Cut to 2.5mm then radiused on the deck. Got that glued in at the same time as the x brace. My stewmac order hasn't arrived yet so I'm still waiting on the extra ebony binding which is holding up the walnut build.

Noice! Really like that stain job, what dye/colour are you using?

I often rough in the radius with a large hand plane which saves quite a bit of time (a no6 plane is a good size) and finish off with a radius block. Lately I've also tried clamping a long radius beam into the vice and taking the neck (with fretboard already glued on) and running that over the radius beam which works out a lot faster than a shorter block over the fretboard. Generally the longer the beam, the more accurate and faster the job is.

Well I got the last lamination on the mold, I ended up flush trimming the last couple with the plunge router from above, this thing has acquired quite a bit of mass and harder to slide around so I was getting concerned about pushing against the little makita trimmer in my makeshift router table. I made the template for the centre press block thingy bigger. It's now 120mm wide giving me a bit more contact area at the waist. I made it out of lams of waste 9mm ply that I had, glueing and screwing then flush trimming one at a time. I used up the 9mm because holding this little block of wood up to the router table was fairly scary and I didn't want to try taking too much in a single pass with my fingers that close to the bit. Highly tedious though with 17 pieces! The centre strip that I inlayed is an ebony offcut from a fretboard, it will serve as an alignment rod to make sure it is screwed down square during the bending process. I was about to route the channel for it and realised there is a (albeit small) possibility that I might hit one of the many screws that are in that block, decided that I'd rather ruin a chisel than risk hitting one of those screws with a router bit. so I used a 6mm chisel to hog out most of it, then the mini router plane to tidy it up - I got that very recently, it works amazingly well if you need to make a truss rod channel a hair deeper. Fortunately no hand tools were harmed in the making of this channel. You can see in the close up pick below that it looks like the centre section doesn't fit properly, that's because the shape is 4mm larger than the inner mold to account for the width of the side, the two pieces of spring steel and the heat blanket, hopefully that's going to work out. Next thing will be the frame but I think I'm going to wait until the heat blanket and press screw have arrived so I can be sure on dimensions..

I've renamed the thread as it was no longer appropriate to the situation I've found myself in. I've started working on building a Fox "ish" style bending machine this afternoon... Starting with the form. I needs to be min 6" wide to accommodate a 6" wide ceramic heat blanket that I've just ordered from ebay and side bending straps (6" wide 0.0012 / 0.3mm spring steel) that I've ordered from Rall online - I couldn't find generic spring steel that was thin enough unfortunately. It's mostly constructed out of chipboard because I recently got myself some standing desk legs for my home office and this chipboard made up the original legs for my desk, this saved me a job taking it to the tip and also saved me remortgaging to be able to buy enough ply or mdf. I still need to add one more lamination but it's a slow process. I made the first one by routing around half of my body template, then I used a rebate bit to make it 2.5mm smaller! to account for the sides and spring steel. roughed out a load more (borrowed my dad's jigsaw because the desk parts won't fit on the band saw), then glued and screwed on one laminate, then routed it to final shape, rinse and repeat. At this point I'm hoping the 2.5mm reduction is enough smaller for the bent sides to fit perfectly in the outer mold otherwise I'm going to have a pig of a time reducing it further - it is currently beautifully square. I've started working on a template for the centre press block thingy. I wondered if it might be a bit too narrow so I got a second opinion from a classical builder friend who suggested I make it wider to help spread the load which will help to reduce cracking - he has the LMI version but said he's made a couple of his own forms for it, so I'll be back to the drawing board on that tomorrow. I've got one more piece of desk left so that should be plenty to do my last for lamination and laminate a load of pieces for the centre press block thingy. I've ordered a 18" press screw, I suspect that is longer than necessary but the only other option (at a reasonable price) was 9" and I'd rather it be on the long side than too short - there needs to be enough clearance to get the bent sides out of the machine afterwards. The next part to build will be the frame, but more on that later!

Based on my limited experience of acoustic building and what I've seen of your builds, an acoustic is totally not out of your depth. But if it is, there is always @Andyjr1515 to step in and point you in the right direction like he has for me Besides, these two might still implode yet, they're far from finished

Speaking of jigs. I got fed up with Macgyvering sometihng on the workmate every time I wanted to join thin pieces so I've just made a plate joining jig similar to the LMI one, only a lot cheaper! I've found carve tops are fairly easy to clamp up due to thickness and lack of flex, acoustic backs and tops want to bend all over the place so need plenty of support and a flat surface to do the glue up on. I used a load of the cherry wood framing stock my neighbour gave me in the spring, Once I'd planed off the lip, it was about 50mm x 20mm by varying lengths. There are two vertical braces 80mm apart so I can see the centre seam on both sides of the glue joint then 3 horizontal braces that the rope is tied round. Not sure what the exact name for the join type is but it's essentially the same as an X brace for a soundboard and there are 6 of them so it took a little while by hand. I didn't follow any specific dimensions for this other than the largest and smallest tops from my stash and making it work with both. I tried it out with a 5mm ebony set, you may see the top isn't jointed, I was just testing it out but the bits that did make contact were clamped up nice and tight. I made the wedges out of the same stock, 50mm tapering town to zero. The double wedge at the bottom is way superior to just a single wedge so I think I'll cut a couple more. Got some braided rope which I tied and looped at one end and wrapped fairly tightly diagonally across and around each of the horizontal braces, then pushed the wedges in to pull it all together. The rope pulls the two pieces together and and the wedges tighten the rope and provide the downforce to keep the workpiece flat against the jig. Then on the back you can clearly see the joint too. Feeling a bit smug, I thought I'd try it out for real and see how thick a workpiece it could manage. so this is a 16mm maple top that I jointed and glued up. Another thing I noticed about this clamping method is there isn't really any slipping when tightening it up. Before the wedges go in, it's still just about loose enough to manipulate the joint, but when the wedges are pressed in, it doesn't really cause it to slip about - I guess this is because down pressure is being applying equality with pulling the joint together. It's a cool way to clamp, no wonder it's been used for hundreds of years! One last thing that I found quite cool, and a happy accident. The X and Y braces that make up the frame are not glued they're just a friction fit and the orientation of the joinery means that the rope holds them together, yet if need be I could take it all apart and stash it. HOWEVER my workshop is normally a mess and I'll end up losing bits of it so I think I'll glue them up.

Thanks Charlie I'm sure something like the stewmac kit where the sides and binding are pre bent would be a good starting point and certainly put off some of the jig making!

how much recess are we actually talking here? and what about the neck? if it's a bolt on you could just shim it, if it's a set neck and you haven't glued it yet, you could angle the neck a bit more. Even if it's glued in already you could unset it and adjust the angle a tad, unless of course it's a neckthrough.

the 120 grit roll for the sander showed up today so I got that setup and tidied up the rosette. The top is now sanded to 2.5mm I had to reduce it down quite a bit to tidy up the tearout. But was was pretty stiff anyway so I think it wanted to be around that thickness. I shall have to be careful what sanding I do and try and protect it as much as I can throughout the rest of the build. 120 grit has left it night and smooth though. In hindsight, the the black veneers between the segments didn't really do much, I think I would have been better off doing something like maple/bog oak/maple. Never mind. I decided I would go with walnut for the binding. Easier to bend than ebony but still fairly dark. And I have a spare set of walnut sides, So I thicknessed one of them down to 2.3mm, plained up both edges and started cutting binding strips from outside in. I used a marking gauge to mark out 6.5mm strips. As it's so thin the marking gauge would almost get through it but I just went over the groove a few times with a scalpel from either side and it cut up quite cleanly. Cut 6 strips but I think I should be able to get at least 16 from each side if need be. I shall use the same material to make the veneer that will cover the arm bevel so hopefully it should all blend in nicely.

hand is heeling up nicely thank you. Had the stitches out yesterday

Well it's cut out and inlayed, the veneer I used was a real pain to get in, paper thin and just wanted to fold over. Came out ok though apart for a little bit of tearout in the upper left corner on the outside, I'm hoping that bringing the whole lot down a hair or two will sort that out before I thickness from the back. Will keep it as is until Ive got some 120 grit. It's all quite subtle but the bookmatching is definitely visible I was hoping to be getting back on with the other one but I made the mistake of ordering my binding from stewmac on Labour weekend (or whatever that is called) so it's only just been dispatched. Can't do anymore on this one until my bracing material arrives from Spain, so I guess it's time for instead

Ah I missed part of your post. There is no mention of side braces, but I thicknessed my sides down to 2mm and there is a lot of fluf, burn marks and 80 grit scrates from the sander I still need to scrape off so small braces are there as a bit of caution. I don't know if the will contribute to "tone" at all

Probably a bit silly cracking this far on with number 2 before I've even finished number one, I know. The Grelier plans I have state 2.8mm for the top, But I was going by "flex" and at 2.8mm there just wast any, the top was really stiff, so I went down to around 2.1 - 2.2 although I've had to scrape the top quite a bit ti get my superglue mess out so there is a possibility that it might be too thin I'm hoping the hardwood braces and the fact that I tied more braces into the sides will work in my favour. I haven't decided how thick to go on this one yet, I'm not in a position to get it down to thicknessed until my 120 grit paper arrives for the sander anyway.

Guitar is looking great. Something I've been doing lately with sanding the radius is to put the beam in the vise and take the neck to the beam instead, you can get right over it and get a proper lunge in so it goes a lot quicker, the heel and headstock make for good handles too!

same here, I go to 5.5mm pre radius and end up at 5mm in the middle afterwards or there abouts. I like a thin ish neck with a bit more wood under the truss rod.

Hubba hubba, I wish I had a 1/10th of your finishing skills

Some modest progress this evening. Glue up went well on the top so I got that sanded down a bit and cut out, still way over thickness but I'll worry about that later. It's occurred to me that the 80 grit roll of paper that the drum sander is currently armed with is really not ideal for acoustic building, the scratches it leaves require a lot of work to sand out, it's more like the equivalent of 40 grit hand sanding. So I've ordered a roll of 120 for final sanding. Gave the inside of the sides a good sand and made some side braces which are now in. They're 5mm wide by 3.5mm deep and I've rounded them off, I went for 4 on the lower bout then 2 on the arm bevel side thinking that lump of limba is adding a lot of stability so they're probably not necessary passed the waist. I also carved the underside of the arm bevel. Very awkward to get to especially when the grain is working against you. I used a 20mm chisel bevel side down to do as much as it would reach, then thumb plane and finished up with a concave min scraper. Then got to work on rosette making! Carrying with the theme of using up those offcuts. I cut the last figured piece of limba out, marked some angles and cut it out on the band saw, which left me with the worlds tallest rough sawn trapeze inlay. Knowing what I know about my hand planing skills, I opted to sand the saw marks out, I'll just end up putting a twist in it with a plane. Didn't bother sanding top or bottom as its only the sides that will be kept. Then I cut it into slices on the bandsaw with the fence and cross cut sled, neither of which are very good on this saw. I had a diagonal pencil line across the back so that I could pile them back up in the right order Then I laid them out, flipping every other one so that each piece is bookmatched with the previous one (smug), then numbered them. I decided at this point that it was just a bit on the small side, I must have got my angles just a bit too tight and reduced the diameter slightly, so I glued them all up with a slither of bog oak veneer in between which should increase overall diameter by a couple of mm, I'll no doubt have to add a veneer around the edge of it anyway if my hole isn't bang on. Used superglue and accelerator. The band saw blade left a bit of fuzz so I did give all the edges a quick sand with 240 as I went. And now it's ready to be cut out. I kept the pieces on the thick side because the end grain is quite delicate, hopefully it survives the rest of the process. If I do this again, I'll glue it up on a backer to help maintain structural integrity. I'll also make the wedge taller so I've got more material to play with - I want the rosette to be fairly thin anyway but I don't have a huge amount of figuring choice. And a glam shot.

Hello my name is Ash and I'm addicted to making guitars.

Thanks Andy, I was chuffed with my output for a weekend, I didn't even get out there until gone midday on sat and I made a chilli and watched 2 Disney films with my 3 year old today. I think some of this stuff could go quicker though. I'm pretty much sold on making a side bending machine and I could do with making one of those LMI style plate joining jigs so I don't have to MacGyver something on the workmate or the floor every time I do a glue up. This was this evenings glue up of the top. And here's the arm bevel out of the clamps. Came out pretty good, just that spot right by the heel block it isn't perfect, but no worse than some of my kerfing. Speaking of which, that's something I could do with getting better at. I always manage to break it right at the waist and that's the one spot that it can be seen from the sound hole. Need to have a scrape around under the bevel to clean up and see if I can reduce some mass before I glue the vertical braces in.

Funny story, I was bending the last bit of ebony binding on Friday night (my last piece of binding) and it broke in 3 places, bollocks. So I ordered some more but it's going to be a 10 days at least before it arrives. Seeing as the mold was now free. I thought I'd strike while the iron was hot (pun intended) and practice bending some more sides. One thing led to another and I seem to have another OM build under way. Black limba back and sides this time, another German spruce top, again cheap stuff from Maderas Barber, and I have a sizable offcut from the neckthrough bass of last year that would serve for back and sides braces and the heel and end blocks. So I bent the sides, first one took well over an hour to get right and I was about to throw the towel in then it all just kind of smooshed into shape, second one took about 20 minutes and was much easier, probably because it had been soaking in the bath the entire time I was warring with the other one. Overall, much better result than the walnut, I had to cut these down to 13cm wide in order to fit them on the bending iron, but unlike last time, I didn't cut the taper, I kept them square which made it A LOT easier to bend them square. It was still hard work though, I've decided I don't like bending wood much. I cut them to length, put the whole thing in the vice and used their shape to sand the end block that I had just cut out of the limba offcut before glueing those in. Something I didn't do last time was pay any attention to grain direction. After a bit of research I opted to have the grain oriented so end grain was coming out of the side, so the sides are glued to face grain, the top and back and glued to side grain and the end grain is glued to nothing, I expect the reduces strength with bolting through them, but improves strength on the top and back. These are my blocks/braces - forgot to photograph the heel block, but I shaped it and drilled the bolt holes along the centreline prior to gluing up and made sure it was bang on centre with the mold on front and back, something I'm not convinced I did well on the walnut build, which could explain some of my later problems. The thin strips are my back braces, 15mm x 7mm, middle is the end block, and the piece on the left will be cut up to make 3mm side braces. I didn't much like the figure pattern on the back set, so I moved the joint around a bit. Made it more awkward to glue up but I like it. I moved some tools around and now have a copy of the plan on the wall, much easier to see those dimensions! Then I got all the back braces on, slightly different method this time - I cut the back into a wedge before glue up so I only had pieces of offcuts, I glued in the back braces first, then cut the perpendicular braces to their length and filled in the gaps With that lot drying, I got to dimensioning the sides. Borrowing @Andyjr1515's method, I put the mold top side down and slipped my side profile template in and scored round it with a pencil line. You can see I've got a bit of a scorch mark at the waste, I'm hoping that will scrape out without losing too much material. That was the first bend and the iron was too hot from where I'd been breaking ebony. I went from 290ºC down to about 250 and had much better results with the limba. Then I went at it with a chisel followed by a block plane. Quite satisfying! Glam shot I tried to remain just a hair above the line and blocks to account for the radius sanding Then I got to work on glueing in the kerfed lining. This is the back, one side glued and second side a dry run. It was at this point I realised I must have lost a kerfing strip and was one short, bollocks. So rather than wait a couple of weeks for some more and risk it looking different to the stuff I bought 18 months ago. I came up with a "work around". I've followed Driftwood Guitars method for cutting the bevel, drew the profile I wanted, notched it out close to depth on the spindle sander, but blind so had to check progress frequently. Then very carefully chiselled downhill from both sides until it looked right. This was a PITA to get right, I put the offcut under the side, drew round it, bandsawed as close to the line as I could then finessed on the spindle sander, this took a lot of back and forth checking the fit. It's not perfect but it's not bad, good enough! And now it's glued in. I don't know how this is going to go, I may well have bitten off more than I can chew luckily it's all cheap woods and offcuts I don't know what to do about binding material for this one. My taste tells me that nothing goes better with limba than ebony, but ebony is such a nightmare to bend. Flamed maple could be cool, but if the joints aren't much to much, there is no hiding it with dust and glue like ebony. Any suggestions?

Love that subtle blue burst, clearly a lot of time went into that stain job. Awesome.

I wouldn't go that far but it's on, I'll check at lunch time and see if it's actually still on there. I reread your limba dreadnaught build thread last night. If I'd have remembered your comments about binding, ebony and richlite, I will have made different material choices because it was a PITA to bend compared to other woods and horrible to true to glue up. I'm quite tempted to get make myself a LMI style bending jig with heat blanked for the next one. Certainly not buying one, not at nearly £500!

Made a start on binding this evening. After exhaustive research on how to do it, every video I watched involved a fancy binding jig that kept the body square and/or a binding trimmer jig where the router slide sup and down for perfectly square binding, or painstakingly by hand with a purfling cutter. I have none of these tools or jigs nor the patience, so I went at it with the Makita trimmer, I just carefully routed with a 2mm rebate bit from Radian tools. I don't know if it was down to the good quality bit, the careful climb cutting or the pre oiled wood, but the channels came out pretty much flawless I had a bit of fluff on the back, surprisingly more so than on the spruce so I carefully pulled back in from the edge with 220 on a block and that tidied it all up nicely. I routed the channels as deep as I could, just a hair under the binding height because I was a bit hap hazard with the height the transverse brace, just about managed to hide it Then I fired the bender up and had a go at bending some ebony. The strips from Stewmac weren't much longer than what I needed so I need to get the waist bend (first bend) in the right spot, so I stick a bit of masking tape round the channel and marked where he bends were, arrow direction denoting which way the bend needed to go. Then transferred the marks on to the binding strip. The first strip started off really well, the waste went in perfectly bending at 225ºC and spraying the strip with water, I thought I had this nailed then it snapped on the next bend so I superglued it back together for later, let the other 3 soak in the bath for 20 mins and jacked the iron up to 280º. The second one went fine, I broke the 3rd one so reused the first broken one which went fine then the next one went fine too. The taping up however did not go very well. I had them bent pretty close to the shape but struggled to get them to conform perfectly and the ebony is so damn hard that the tartan tape didn't want to hold it. I was thinking about using some garden twill to tie it on but I'd already routed both channels and didn't want to damage the other. So I just superglued it all on. Used some accelerator and medium thickness superglue to tack it on in places, then taped it up and wicked in a load of fine superglue. I don't know what the longevity of superglue will be like, but it certainly seems to have worked quite well, apart from the mess. I've got a few hairline gaps, but the beuty of ebony being that I can use the ol' dust and superglue trick. Got one more piece to get on there tomorrow, then I'll start scraping it all back. Starting to look like a real life acoustic!

Thanks Andy, I watched one of those Tips du jour videos you mentioned last night and he did just that. Seems I had the right Idea routing a bit of a chamber around the bolt area just didn't go as far as I could. Another thing I've learnt for the next one here, do that but also shape the heel prior to attempting to fit the thing!