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ADFinlayson

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Posts posted by ADFinlayson

  1. 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

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    • Like 2
  2. 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.

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    • Like 2
  3. 7 hours ago, Prostheta said:

    I presume you saw the most recent Clickspring video on hand-engraving with a power engraver? Not so useful for wood applications, but interesting nonetheless.

    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. 

    4 hours ago, mistermikev said:

    some nice inlay work and really nice build.  cudos brutha

    Thanks Mike, appreciated.

    • Like 1
  4. 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.

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    • Like 1
  5. 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.

    image.thumb.png.5df522664706014a6b05540bb3bff498.png

    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.  

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    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. 

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    • Like 2
  6. I spent the morning on front binding, that was a high stress operation towards the end. I cut my channels and they seemed to come out pretty well. The binding channel was easy, the perfling channel was scary but seemed to manage it without hickup or noticable tearout.

    image.thumb.jpeg.34a9bec5091858f0cf7e854d487264b4.jpeg

    tested both pieces

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    You can see the inperfection in the channel I mentioned before, although it was only a couple of patches that was like this, most areas came out clean

    image.thumb.jpeg.4cd4bb42c294cdcd36b3cef5d7ca9135.jpeg

    So I had a go with my gramil, but it was fairly useless so I just went back to a sharp chisel 

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    Another test fit all round after tidying up the channels

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    And a couple of hours and some swearing later 

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    Touch wood it seams to have gone quite well though the oversized purfling does cast a bit of a shadow so it's difficult to see gaps.

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    I spent some time hand bending the binding prior to installing even though it was machine bent, that made the fit a lot better and not as much clamping force was needed. Will see what it looks like in a few hours. 

     

    • Like 2
  7. 1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

    That looks good. 

    I think I've mentioned in some of my build threads that after bending to shape, I use a hot iron to  actually glue the bindings.  I do it like I do my veneering - I apply a decent PVA to all relevant surfaces, let it dry and then use the iron to melt the joint progressively round, holding in position with a leather-gloved hand as it cools.  The advantage is that I know it's spot on before I move to the next inch or so and therefore don't suffer from accumulated positional error.  And it's quick...

    I remember you talking about that technique, but tbh that idea scared me a bit for binding. 

    • Like 1
  8. 3 hours ago, Prostheta said:

    Have you tried epoxy as a pore filler yet? Pacer Z-Poxy Finishing Resin is pretty amazing.

    Actually I ordered some z-poxy PT-40 last week. I was contemplating grain filling the other day - I don't want to do a coloured fill on this and the only clear stuff I've got is aqua coat which I don't like. I was also thinking about when I would do grainfillng, might make my life easier to do prior to routing the mortise

  9. Had a go with the iron, worked pretty well to soften the glue and I was able to push the binding into place, so I wrapped it up again and left it for a few hours. 

    image.thumb.jpeg.9a0c4e050c47984f3956a9914d5c24bb.jpeg

    Got it all scraped flush and it came out pretty good, I've still got a couple of hair lines which I've filled with blacklimba + titebond as woodfiller. I'm especially happy with the joint on the back. 

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    Will have a go at the front binding channels tomorrow. 

  10. Yeah I guess you could never really CNC cut a binding channel on an acoustic anyway because no matter how good you or your machines are at side bending, the sides will never be identical to what is in the CNCs path. A gramil is a good idea, I don't know why I didn't think of using that to tidy up, would have been a lot easier than a chisel, even with my gramil being made of chocolate metal - I could really do with getting a decent one. 

    I was keen to see what it looked like so I got the tape off first thing this morn

    image.thumb.jpeg.c30717156f19c8b8f93685f490394f43.jpeg

    It's not bad, probably my best effort at binding but I've chosen a pair of quite unforgiving woods - Gaps I was able to just fill on the mahogany one could do with some improvement. We're zoomed right in here so these gaps aren't anywhere near as bad to the naked eye but I can see them now and they're annoying me. I think I'll see if I can press them in a bit more with a hot iron before attempting to scape anything flush.

    if I was using a darker wood here I would absolutely be filling with dust and glue instead.

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    I probably could have avoided this if I had done more wraps but alas I ran out of rope. Time to invest in something more suitable than tow rope

  11. Well I didn't enjoy that much, fortunately I had some rope and wedges hanging around for a bit of reinforcement. I think 2.3mm for flame maple binding must be a bit too chunky - Even though I bent it in the bending machine, it still didn't really want to conform without some manhandling. Luckily I used titebond instead of superglue this time so I had time to mess with it. 

    image.thumb.jpeg.94c06a2ad33d6902151930b6f3bf3fc3.jpeg

    I have mixed feelings about this machine. I'll start by saying it's at least 10x better than my previous method. It does cut a perfectly parallel with sides channel and it does feel quite natural to use after a bit of playing around. It doesn't use traditional bearings but will cut any channel to the thickness of the binding/purflling so binding doens't have to be an exact thickness.

    The accuracy of the channel really relies on the guitar side riding on that back bearing farthest away from the cutter. The trouble with it is that once the first channel has been cut, the side is too thin by the neck block to ride on the back bearing, so I had to bind the back before I can route the channel for the front.

    Elevate do a an upgrade with a bigger bearing surface for thinner instruments so I might get that, pretty annoying it doesn't come with it as standard though.

    image.thumb.jpeg.e3f68a8882303324d872652595350c86.jpeg

    My other gripe is that although the channel is perfectly square with the sides, the channel seams to be imperfect with a little ridge in the bottom, Here's a little diagram of the profile so you can see what I mean.  

    image.thumb.png.ad024a389aef2f55d27adceef161876e.png

    So I had to spend an age with a small file and chisel to carefully remove that little ledge all the way round, then I sanded a small bevel into the underside of the back of the binding to help it sit flush. I'm sure this is probably down to how I've set the binding jig up, or perhaps I just need some more practice to get the knack, but it is annoying.

    I want to have a go at purfling along with maple binding on the front to tie in with the rosette, but I had such a pain in the butt getting the binding in on the back so I'm not sure if I want to add the extra complexity. I suppose I'm going to have to dive in and try purfling at some point.

  12. Got it out of the clamps and trimmed up this eve. Wiped some thinned down lacquer around the edge first to help protect the end grain from the router

    image.thumb.jpeg.c47d418b1e047b114908d87932a2630c.jpeg

    Then I had a play with one of my new toys

    image.thumb.jpeg.72ea82fa4fab1ec14ddb2c0d50d5e4ec.jpeg

    This thing is a real time saver, had the sides sanded flat in no time at all with 120g on the bobbin. Definitely a mask on kind of job though!

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    I also got some curly maple strips through the drum sander and down to 6.5mm x 2.3mm, they're ready to go in the bender, then it's on to the scary bit.

     

    • Like 1
  13. Thanks @Andyjr1515

    Had another go with the labels, tweaked the design a bit. I stained some parchment paper to yellow it up a bit with a wet tea bag, dried it with the mrs hair dryer and printed out the design. I wasn't expecting much from this, especially with my £30 HP printer but I think it came out ok. Stuck it down with some Titebond brushed on very sparingly. Installing the label on the mahogany one will not be quite so enjoyable, I expect.

    image.thumb.png.9bf65b98f706431e87d1ea1c45d6dcec.png

    and finally I closed the box tonight. Glued the back down first in the gobar deck, then after an hour I took the spreader out, flipped the dish and the guitar over and glued the top down. The cool thing about the dish is it makes the perfect caul for the back which remains under clamping pressure while the top is getting glued down, so it will stay like this over night.

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    • Like 1
  14. Got the 8th coat of lacquer on the mahgoany one at the weekend. Hopefully that is enough to start levelling it properly in a couple of days. 

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    The lacquer has really popped the tortoise shell

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    Made a good bit of progress on the next one. Thought a splash of colour inside would look cool so I stuck a maple veneer on the end block, dyed it red and gave it a coat of sealer. I made a special effort to get the linings glued in neatly this time with no gaps, particularly on the back linings as they're visible through the sound hole. I used small clamps to do a lot of it rather than relying on the rubber band reinforced clothing pegs.

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    The top and the back of the sides have been sanded on the dish, I just need to notch out the sides before I can close the box, but I might just plane down the neck block a bit, it's a bit chunky. 

    • Like 2
  15.  

    2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

    It never occurred to me that the hotpipe can be used horizontally! :facepalm:

    Every time I've seen an electric hotpipe it has been upright. Yet I've also seen torch heated tubes and they're always more or less horizontal.

    yes helps to keep things square with a bit of gravity, helps prevent bending a twist into it.  I stole that method from Andy, he must have pinched it back.

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
  16. I have actually found neck-through designs to be easier to build with no neck pocket to worry about. But as @Crusader put above, you definitely want to draw yourself a 1:1 plan of the side profile to get the headstock and body angles right, that really is the main critical part in a neck-through design IMO. you will probably find you need at least a 3" thick blank for your neck through piece. 

    Sounds like a fun project, good luck!

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