ADFinlayson

A taller one is going to be stiffer in that direction so will certainly make a more effective stiffening rod. That being said, 3/8" is quite tall to be sat either side of a truss rod and I'd be concerned about carving a neck that isn't very girthy. the standard size for carbon fibre in UK seams to be 4mm x 7mm which I think definitely does the job. 

He's made a Chapman stick 

how are you defining dust collection? a dust collector on the tool is not enough in my experience as a lot of the dust will never make it to the extractor and the extractor might not be filtering small enough particles. The really tiny particles go straight though into the atmosphere in the basement. Have you got an air filter for the fine atmospheric dust? 

I think the best thing you could do (if possible) is to fit a decently sized extra that will send dust straight outside. Is there an exterior wall anywhere on the basement? An axial fan/grill on an external wall would be ideal, they're pretty quiet too.

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. 

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 

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.

ooof those are some serious woods. Looking forward to seeing this

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. 

Nice one Andy, it looks fab

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.

26 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Sounds lovely!  Very, very rich and even.

Ref the buzz - yes - that is possible.  The stretch of the bottom E from 6th fret to the nut (the 6th will be fretted as well as the 7th) is the same note (but different octave) that the A will be playing on the 5th fret and so yes, with a deep resonance of the guitar through the body, it could well resonate in unison.

Is your 6th string nut slot pretty low?  If so, you may be able to lift the slot a touch - enough for the resonance not to catch the 5th fret - without affecting the playing of it.  That way, the string section will still vibrate, but not buzz.

25 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

The following is just pondering, but: Is it possible that the slot for the E has its tallest point inside the slot, not at the very edge? That might make it buzz when the angle is just right i.e. when pressed on the 7th fret.

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

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? 

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

It might be down to the nature of the playing or the recording, but it has a nice intimate voicing if that makes sense? A detailed and in-person sort of sound rather than a big booming projector. I suspect that's the recorder.

I have to say, a gloss coat over the headstock would tie it together a little more. It seems out of place on some level. Call me crazy.

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. 

3 hours ago, henrim said:

Sounds good and looks very nice! All in all an inspiring thread. Makes me want to try building some kind of acoustic instrument. 

Thank you mate, appreciate that

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. 

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. 

Crikey it's 21ºC in England, I even mowed the lawn yesterday. 

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

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

That looks the dog's whatsits.  I look forward to sound clips!!    

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. 

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.

4 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Fleur-de-Lys. They're a very common motif.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis

and there was me thinking it was avant-garde