ADFinlayson

When I'm levelling frets, I don't use a notched straight edge - I only use a notched straight edge when I'm building the guitar and working with frets that have never been levelled. The reason for is that you want the frets to be level with each other and the fretboard itself doesn't matter. So if you're doing a bog-standard fret level on a guitar, just use your regularly trust-worthy straight edge and adjust your trussrod the the frets are as close to level (with each other) as you can get them, then do your level and you should find that you remove much less material from the frets than if you get the fretboard itself perfectly flat with a notched edge because frets are often not hammered or pushed in evenly and fretboards were not always flattened properly before frets were installed.

I'm not convinced it was the cut direction because I cut in quadrants as the pic above. Could well be the bits - When I was cutting the rosette I used a couple of very fine, 0.8mm (ish) down cut bits and they cut beautifully but I managed to break them both, so I switched to the larger bit that the dremel circle cutter came with and did the rest of the rosette and the spruce with that. I may very well have tried to take too much depth in each cut, I ended up cutting 2mm deep because that circle cutter was very awkward to set depth and the set screw seemed to force the dremel off square and kept taking nicks out of the circle. I found that out when I was taking initial cuts in the centre of the cavity so got to full depth and started taking tiny parses at full depth to gradually increase the width of the cavity. The outer cut was absolutely fine, it was just that inner cut that kept tearing out. This is it after some dust and glue to fill some seams and tearout, a bit of 120 sanding to clean up the filler and wiped with some thinners. i can see a bit of discolouration where the tearout was filled that became visible with the thinners, doesn't look as bad as I thought though. For the binding channels I was planning to use the trim router and I've got the Radian rebate cutter set which has excellent quality blades, obviously I still have the same risk on the end-grain that I had here. I was planning to use a flush trim bit to route the excess to get the top and the back flush with the sides first and see how it behaves before attempting the binding cut. In terms of the dremel cutting speed, I'm not sure what speeds it works at - there is no reference to speed, just notches 1 - 5. I'm assuming 17,000rpm is as fast as it goes?

The rods are an easy way of glueing down the braces that are otherwise awkward to clamp, the gobar deck has a floor and a ceiling, the gobars (rods) are wedged between the work and the ceiling to create clamping pressure, each rod creates a few pounds of pressure so the combination of lots of rods creates even pressure along the braces. I'm tempted tp try this when glueing down the top on the next solid body electric because it's a much nicer way to glue that scewing down a load of clamps. So this is the rosette finished, getting there was a pain in the arse the golden phoebe I mentioned above wasn't large enough to make a rossete (on the figured area) so I went with some walnut. I routed out a couple of circles using the dremel and circle cutter, then roughed it out on the bandsaw then I ran it through the drum sander to reveal my rosette. Then after lots of measuring I carefully place and scored around it and used the dremel to route out the area Then even after carefully routing in quadrants I had a nice fitting hole but with a shit-tone of tearout So I used a combination of maple and bog oak veneers to make some purfling strips and made the cavity slightly larger. I had to cut the walnut to get it to fit with the purfling but wedged everything in place and flooded it with fine super glue. After all the router tearout I decided to have a go with my DIY circle cutter and I'm not sure wtf happened with that because the circle just isn't circular. Trouble here is the centre pin for my circle cutter is 1/4" and the dremel circle cutter is 1/8" so I drilled the centre hole larger and the dremel was no longer an option. At this point I should have walked away, but I decided to get fast and loose withe a forstner bit, then thought "what have you done you moron" Then after sleeping on it I carefully shaped the sound hole on the bobbin sander and it seems to be successful. I need to fill a couple of gaps with walnut dust and glue, I also still have a small amount of tearout in the spruce which I hope I can fix with spruce dust and glue, I guess I need to potentially tape over the sound hole when routing or ceil with it some shellac to help prevent tearout because I don't think I could have been any more careful when routing Anyways, on to bracing the top!

Thanks Andy, I will get those braces trimmed down before glueing it all together. Those sanding discs aren't included but G&W sell them too

Seeing as I got a shoeing by Scotts burl beauty last month, I thought I'd enter Adrians singlecut that I was working on along side the bass build. Specs Chambered construction with PRS style f-hole, Bosnian maple top, African mahogany body and neck, Ziricote fretboard with maple binding and mop inlays. My usual Schaller Signum bridge and Sperzel trimlock tuners, bone nut (the first nut I've cut myself) PRS 85/15 pickups 1 vol, 1 tone and 2 mini toggle switches for coil splitting. The finish was done with Angelus purple and rose leather dyes, chestnut cellulose sealer, walnut grainfiller (on the mahog) and Morrells nitrocellulose clearcoat. The build thread is included as part of the billy bongo bass build

So I got myself the dremel circle cutter as recommended by @Andyjr1515 which I'm looking forward to trying out. I also got myself some new bits for the dremel which should give me some options on the rosette design, I also got them as a quick and easy way to clean out/deepen bound fret slots which was something Christopher at Crimson did when I was doing a refret course there last year. I've got my kerfed linings in, still need to do a bit of sanding between them and glue clean up. You will notice a couple of small gaps - Areas where the kerfed lining didn't want to bend without breaking, I decided to pre break them prior to glueing. I can't remember if I mentioned before but I sanded the back on the 15' radius dish prior to glueing on the linings, glued the linings just proud of the side and blocks, then sanded again until everything was flush. I followed the same process with the front just with the 28' side of the dish, and I know I've become massively unfit over the last couple of years, but steering the bus on the radius dish is a serious ab workout And some context I've taken a 25mm forstner bit to the end block to make sure I can Now a small issue I have here - my plans states the width of braces B3 and B4 should be 19mm wide, but doesn't include height. I was advised that those braces are normally 14-18mm high so I went in the middle at 16mm high and 18mm wide. But they seem massive, did some more digging and it looks like old martin braces are much lower more like 8mm high so I need to carve them down a bit. I got this absolute beastie of a Record No8 on Sunday, with a few other planes from the same workshop clearance that the Bestcombi came from. Completely covered in rust as it hand't been used for years, but I scrubbed base and sides, blade and chipper with wirewool and salt and vinegar and got 99% of the rust off, gave the screws etc some oil, honed the blade and buffed it all with machine wax My god it's a good plane, jointing that spruce took 4 strokes. I know nothing about spruce, but that whiter strip on the outside of each piece, looks to me like sap wood so I decided to glue that up on the waste side. Now that the top is all glued up, I shall be having a go with the dremel circle cutter and attempting to make a rosette. I was going to go for walnut but when I was rummaging around in the offcuts, I found some of that golden pheobe leftover from Snuffy's bass, so I'm tempted to use pheobe for the rosette and inlays as a nice touch, and it has nothing to do with the fact that all my walnut offcuts are 1-2" thick and the pheobe is 4mm.

Thanks Jeff, I was thinking about something like that, but it feels like overkill and potentially harder to control for such a small circle like a rosette. I've now got the little dremel circle cutter that Andy recommended and will be having a go with that soon.

In my experience, burning happens when the blade does a poor job of clearing away the dust during the cut which causes the work to get hot and I've had this happen when I bought a couple of the cheap screwfix bandsaw blades. I only use the axminster premium blades now and I haven't noticed the work getting burnt lately and I cut everything from dry mahog/maple to wet pallet wood. I would spend some time getting the bearings right first as calibration makes a huge difference to quality of cut, then try a good quality blade. While your saw hasn't got much of a motor I doubt that's a factor - my 10" Axminster saw is only about 400W.

I finally got wood today - Spare walnut sides (now obsolete), a cheep ebony back and and sides (on the off chance this build is successful) and a couple of B grade spruce tops. I steered the bus to put the 15 feet radius on the back of the sides, there is a spot at the very end of the heel block that I didn't get, but it's a very small area so I'm thinking I'm just going to leave it instead of making the sides too thin. and I've carved the back braces. I wish I took a page out of your book @Andyjr1515 and rough shaped them prior to glue up because it was a lot of effort to carve them with chisels in situ. Tapering them was easy though, I just used thumb planes and they happily rode over the the centre bar without scuffing anything they shouldn't I need to start thinking about rosette mate, I'm struggling to come to terms with prospect of paying for the stumac dremel base and rosette cutter as it's a lot of money. So I made this crude offering out of odds and sods in the garage - it does work at marking out the circles but it's a bit shit to be honest. So I need a better solution.

Huzzah! braces are in. The radius dishes were both slightly warped, cupping in at the edges which was a bit annoying as that will have been reducing the radius, so I glued and clamped them back to back which will hopefully stabilise them, if not it certainly wont help my case for a return. Anyway, I put the braces in the dish and used a pencil to make the radius on them, roughed them out on the band saw and sanded them in the dish and go them glued up. 30 go bars felt a lot more when I cut them, only 4 left after sticking those braces down.

This is good to know, I am planning to make my build slightly shorter scale at 25" instead of 25.4 or close to that as the plans say, instead of shifting the bridge enforcement forward, I was thinking of just making it a few mm longer to cover the area. Thanks for all the info Andy, a really useful read

Talk to me about this flex Andy, how much flex should there be in the top? I understand this is a balance between freedom to vibrate and strength, it looks like there is almost no material at all at the end of those finger braces. Oh and I notice you haven't got any braces around the sound hole at the moment, are you planning not to bother with those given the shape of the sound hole on this one? I'm sat patiently waiting for my radius dishes to arrive so I can shape my back braces, according to tracking they are 15 miles away

I'll definitely be making another one, I've invested too much time and money into tools/jigs. Hopefully it will be acoustic #2 and not a remake of this one when it implodes under string tension

Glue up went well and I got got the brace carved with a thumb plane and a scraper Once I got the other braces cut out, I marked round them with a scalpel then used a razor saw to cut away the waist material on the bigger two, but I managed to lightly scuff the back in a couple of places with the saw to I switch to chisels and got on much better I've marked a centre line and where the carving will start on each of the braces. Then I offered up the sides to I could mark where I needed to cut the long brace short, scored it a few times with a scalpel then managed to work a big chisel underneath and carefully popped it off fairly cleanly. And I found a razor blade works really well for getting rid of the excess glue Fits quite nicely Still waiting for kerfed linings, but radius dish is coming tomorrow so I can start on shaping the braces and perhaps get them glued on.

More acoustic shenanigans! my ebay fibreglass rods showed up a couple of days ago, 5x 3 metre lengths meant I got 30x 500mm rods out of them, however the rods actually tuned out to be 3010mm in total length, so the last one of each rod, instead of cutting the last of each rod down to 500mm I left them at 510mm, the rationale behind that is that if I precarve any of the braces (where the finger braces meet the x braces for example), I can use the slightly longer ones to give more clamping pressure on the carved areas - we'll see how that goes... Did a dry clamp, they work really well, very impressed! and brace yourself... first brace glued on Now you probably can't see from the photo but the grain direction of the brace is apparently supposed to be perpendicular to the grain direction of the back. I haven't done that because I don't have any wood that is wide enough, however the joint on the back is very good, I've also got the maple binding strip on the other side so I think this area "should" be strong enough... we'll see. I'm expecting the radius dishes to arrive by the end of the week, so that's when I'll be working on the curved braces. So exciting

I agree, spoke to Matt yesterday and he's really happy with it, good choices were made! Yeah I think oil is definitely the way go go with this one, I'm also looking forward to doing an oil finish for a change as I haven't done one 5 guitars ago. also much less work than lacquer! I've never used any plans for any PRS style builds, just acrylic templates from G&W. In fact the only time I've ever used bought plans is for the current acoustic build I think it must depend on the tele, Matt has a mexican 72 walnut duluxe, but it's not walnut at all other than a paper thin veneer on the top and back, the body is alder and it's fairly light weight, just tinted to look more walnutty. Yeah I am most definitely not a tele man, I'd have one made out of a piece of walnut like that, but then if I had another piece like that, I'd probably make something with carved top out of it Got the angle grinder out earlier, needs some finessing but it fits my rotund belly nicely. I put the template on the back and drew round so I could see where the chambers are, did not want to make any rear facing sound holes

I've been doing a bit more work on Matt's tele, this is where it's at now I have fallen out with this piece of walnut several times so far: 1). When it arrived it was HEAVY. So back in Jan I hand sawed the top off, then it became apparent that the inside of the blank was not dry enough. So it's been stacked at the bottom of the wood pile under a lot of weight for nearly 7 months. 2). Got it out of the pile 10 days ago and even with the weight, it moved A LOT. The top was 15mm thick when I stacked it and after flattening it out It was down to 6mm, same situation with the body, 45mm thick down to 33mm after flattening and now no longer thick enough for a tele and a total of 39mm So I decided I would have to do some pancaking, found a bit of cheap maple in the cupboard that I wasn't doing anything with that was 5mm after flattening. glued that up and onto the body left it 24 hours to see what it was going to do, then did some heavy chambering. I went for a thinline style route on the treble side then just a couple of deep chambers on the bass side as it's getting a belly carve on the back, Then I got the top glued on, left it another 24 hours and it remained flat so I did a bit of routing. it's now 44mm thick with about 5mm on the top and 6mm on the bottom under the chambers so weight has reduced significantly. I haven't weight it yet but when I held it with the neck and the parts, it didn't seem to bad. Matt want's an oil finish on this one so hopefully that won't increase weight as much as lacquering would. And there was me thinking a tele build was going to be easy!

parallel cuts with the router... got a track fence? my ryobi has a track with quite a long reach, I expect it will be wide enough for a cab. If that's no good, make your self one of those marker stick things with a long stick, a stopper and a nail in one end to score your perfectly parallel line, then put a fence along the score to around against.

Congrats Scott, couldn't have lost to a nicer axe!

Thanks for the tips @Andyjr1515, I followed the dimensions on the plans for the ned block not considering that but I'll see if I can take a forsnter bit to the centre of the end block. I have tentatively agreed that a friend can have this guitar if it comes off and he asked me to put a Fishman preamp in it although I said I would build the guitar then retrofit the fishman if it's a success (I don't want to put £200 in it of it's going to implode), so you may have saved the day with the tip on end block thickness

Thanks Mike, but save your congrats for the day I strum a chord without the body imploding

Thanks for stepping in Andy, so my research has found 2 methods of doing this and I'm not sure if either is easier than the other: 1). As you mentioned, radius the lateral braces and glue them in on the dish to get the radial shape in the back, then cut the centre brace to fit between. 2). Glue in the centre brace flat (it has a lot of flex), shape it, then cut intersections and glue in the lateral braces on the dish. I woke up all excited and ran down and took the clamps off, look at that! There is just one area, that bottom front bend where I didn't manage to keep the bend perfectly square, if you look close it's a probably .25mm out. I'm hoping that given the binding is much thicker (2mm) than the amount it's off square that I might just get away with it. But I obviously need some practice - I've got some limba sides in the cupboard so I might try bending those t0o.

You said you left it 2 weeks then assembled, what about levelling and buffing? If you didn't do any sanding then I reckon theres a chance that you've got a lot of finish on there with some trapped solvents, so it stands to reason that it didn't cure for long enough. Even after levelling I think you need to leave it a while before buffing so the newly exposed lacquer has time to harden. I see all over the internet that lacquer must be left for a month before buffing, I don't leave it that long but I'm so crap at spraying that I end up sanding at least half the finish off so there is a lot less finish on there to cure, the precat stuff definitely doesn't need as long to cure either - When I spoke to Morrells (the lacquer I use) they reckoned 3 or 4 days should be enough cure time but I still leave it a couple of weeks between final wet sanding at buffing. I doubt any of the above actually helps your current situation but I think ultimately you just didn't leave it long enough.

made an end block from another walnut offcut and got it glued in I've made the centre brace for the back out of the quarter sawn maple, the plans say 20mm wide by 2mm thick and curved, I've got it down to 2.5mm so far but I'm not sure how to curve the thing and get the matching profile in the cross braces, so that still needs some working out. I've started marking out the locations of the braces from the template too, I've just cut out a little corner at each intersection in the template so I can mark on the wood where the braces are going to go. Using up some more offcuts

And it's glued I've left my self a couple of mm to play with on the back (the above pic is bottom up) to account for the tighter radius of the back, I'll probably have to rough it in with a file. Once I released the spreaders to tape off the glueing area, I noticed that the front doesn't spring back in at all, it's the force of the spreaders being done up too tight that's affecting the curves, the spreaders fit perfectly into the mould without the sides which makes me think that the shape of the spreaders doesn't account the 2mm of the sides so the radius doesn't quite butt up. Or it could be a crap luthier blaming his tools. A few things I'm really enjoying about this project - Making the tools to do the project (gobar etc), I'm getting that rush that I got on my very first build, and I'm using wood out of the offcuts bin.