ADFinlayson

Nice job, looks like a well loved plane now. I've got a couple here that are in a sorry state too. Lots of time involved in bringing one of those back to life!

6 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I - want - a - workshop!

That said, despite having tickets to four lotteries weekly I've still paid more than the few wins I've got. But as long as there's a 50% chance to win the main prize there's hope. One day the coin may flip my way.

I'm looking forward to pictures of your snowy workshop. Could you make it out of ice like in Die Another Day? I bet it would be cheaper

Looks great, love the little Wenge embellishment 

3rd and final workstation in place. A home for the drill press and a couple of sanders, the little belt sander has never had a permanent residence before but then I only really use it for nut shaping. A good tidy up then back to work.

23 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Looks like one could go crazy over a weekend in there and end up with a bunch of unfinished projects

Any problems from those pesky neighbours of yours, still?

No mate, I moved house in Feb 2021. There are more than a few unfinished projects.

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

And, oh yeah, did I mention my new bandsaw?

SR

Oooh yeah that thing looks like a beast, your hardwood stash just got a lot softer. 

10 hours ago, 10pizza said:

Following this one for sure as I have a few acoustic bodies that need to be finished by me.

Hat off to you AD, seen a lot of great builds coming by on Instagram.

 

 

Thank you mate

The lacquer doesn't have a filling properties, at least that's not the intention, it is simply in the mix because it makes the grain filler go off much faster. Doing any kind of gap filling with lacquer is fraught with disaster IMO, because it's always going to shrink down into whatever you're filling. 

Yeah I thought that would be testament to it's amplification ability. 

That would involve me making some ebony dust. I watched a series on That Pedal Show Youtute channel recently where Luthier Jonny Kinkead makes a guitar and he sprinkles plain pumice powder onto the rosewood headstock veneer that he is coating with Shellac.While he was doing it he said that it was a traditional method for grainfilling and that the oils from the rosewood dyes that pumice powder brown to work as a coloured grainfiller. So I thought the method I'm using is a cool nod to the traditional way of doing things, also I like that the dye in filler helps to dye the wood rather than just colour the grain.

19 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The guitar is looking great.  That neck joint looks neat.

Thanks Andy, it's definitely tidier than the previous 2 efforts,

Made a bit more progress this evening - Firstly got the the body and neck sanded up to 240 grit, forgot just how damn loud taking an orbital sander to an acoustic guitar body is. Then I sanded the bottom of the bridge to match the top, that takes forever! Started with 60 grit and tidied up with 120.

I taped off the bridge area by bolting the bridge down on top of the painters tape then VERY carefully scored round it with the fresh scalpel blade. 

With everything taped off, I made myself some grain-filler from pumice powder mixed in to boiled linseed oil and some brown and black alcohol based dye mixed into it. Once I was happy with the colour and consistency I added a glug of lacquer to the mix which helps the filler cure much more quickly. Then applied the filler with some hessian fabric. 

I really like this type of filler the only ingredient that I need to buy especially is the pumice and a bag of pumice lasts for ages. I like that it works as a bit of a shader too, it's done a really nice job of darkening up the rosewood.

I'm hoping I'll manage to get a few coats of lacquer on it over the weekend. I am thinking I will do a few coats of Morrells pre-cat cellulose on it as a base coat, get that fairly level and do a cherry shader and top coats with Dartfords lacquer over the top so it will check.

Got the neck carved this evening. Rosewood stinger came out pretty cool, not as pointy as I would like but that seemingly is a lot easier to pull of with paint and masking tape than a 1mm veneer. Can you see I fecked up my tuner screw holes? Cocktail sticks came to the rescue

Went with a different heel shape this time, it's 20mm deep in the middle, 9mm at the edges and full width.

Here it is in situ, managed to get it all sanded to 220 without screwing up the joint. 

I need to sand the body now, see if I can scrape the scratches of the binding then it's ready for some grain filler.

Here's a glam shot. That's the closest I could get to the tortoise shell on the binding (both were labelled as dark brown tortoise shell), not  huge fan of all the gold in it but I don't have the option of picking one out unfortunately,

In other news - I'm going to have a change round and put some more bench space in around the edges of the workshop. It's occurred to me that I am not using the space well at all and I could probably fit a dedicated acoustic or setup/repair bench so I cut up a couple of sheets of 8x4 ply and have some 2x2 to frame it out, though I have a feeling I don't have anywhere near enough 2x2s 

Wow look at these tools. Luckily they arrived while the mrs was out.

I think I will rebind No2 and use it as a learner before I invest X hours into making another box

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I use a small triangular needle file to form the groove and exit point and then , on the thicker strings, a small round needle or the modded triangular needle which I have filed one edge smooth to use for rounding sharp edges off the fret ends.  

Thanks Andy, sounds like I've got all the tools I need to make it happen

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The other thing you can do is file the 'v' grooves at the front of the peg holes so that the string at the rear of the saddle sits straighter and at a greater break angle over the saddle.   I'll try and find a photo to illustrate what I mean. 

I know what you mean, I was actually thinking I would try solid bridge pins on this one. Just need to make sure I've got the tools to properly notch the fronts of the slots. 

12 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

One option is to lower the rear of the bridge, the hole area. I mean, make the bridge a bit slanted so you'll have lots of support for the saddle and a decent break angle.  Like so:

Yeah I have a bit of a taper on the back of the bridge to lower the height of the saddles slightly, although it's not a concave curve like your diagram. That is an option if needs be but I think I've got more than enough tolerance in the saddle to get decent action. We'll soon find out.

I made some more progress today. After rough shaping a bone blank for the nut, I was able to get the two outer strings on, then used a 105 bass string under them to get the correct intonation points. This is a quick and dirty method but it does work quite well. I make a pencil line at the front and back of the 105 string and use the centre point of those two lines for the top E intonation line, then I used the front of the 105 string on the bass side, that takes into account the compensation for the other strings.

Jumping forward a couple of hours and I have a practically finished bridge. After getting the saddle slot routed, I printed out a cross section of a 20" circle and made myself a 20" radius block out of an offcut, used that to sand a 20" radius into the top/centre of the bridge. Then I carved a bit of a taper so the height falls away behind the saddle to the back meaning the pins will sit a hair lower than the bridge. Sanded it up to 320 then just polished the bare wood on the buffer.

The centre of the bridge is curerntly sitting at 7.8mm off the soundboard.

I've got 4 strings off a 12 gauge set on there at the moment (I am planning to put 11s on it), action is currently sitting at 3mm bass side and 2.5mm treble side. 

But the saddle is currently sitting at 6.5mm off the top of the bridge so I am confident I can bring that action way down. I am not sure what is deemed as the "Correct" saddle height but I think I can get away with losing at least 3mm off the height of it before losing too much tension over the nut. I do also need to sand the bottom of the bridge to match the soundboard too, not that will take much material.

I'm surprised by how big it sounds, I thought being a mahogany top it might sound a bit thin. Unfortunately too many variables from previous OMs. Previously used ebony for bridge and fretboard, previously used spruce for tops, and kerfed linings.

Anyway, I think I'm safe to get the neck carved and get some lacquer on it.

4 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I used the principle but cobbled up a simpler, cruder version using a cheapo £15 folding workmate-type bench (ah, Maplin - where did you go to???) and some plywood.  It actually takes up very little room although, admittedly, doesn't have the elegance.  I haven't used it in a while and probably have cannibalized bits for other uses, but it did work pretty well. 

Yeah shame about Maplin, it was nice to be able to go into a shop and see the thing you needed, rather than play the lottery on Amazon. 

53 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I made a 'roughly in the same ball park design-wise but made with bits I had in the shed' homemade version of this jig:

It actually works surprisingly well (there are other videos on his channel in use).  I think I remember that you can get hold of the plans to make one - I haven't looked at how much LMI charge but it's usually eye-watering!

Oh - and I fully agree that a high bridge and therefore steeper break angle can transform the tone of an acoustic. 

I very nearly went down this route. A friend of mine made one so I got to see it in person. My gripe with it was the amount of space it needs in the workshop. Between the gobar deck, the form and the bending machine, it's all taking up a lot of room in the workshop so I ordered this from Elevate. This video is a really good explainer on it:

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

No worries. I'm sure you've got a plan in hand. I was thinking of a jig to rout in the shoulders of the neck around the tenon at tenths of a degree. I've actually got mortise/tenon tasks in my head right now for basic CNC workholding and machining, so it made more sense with me already having pictures in my head!

Oh I see, I misunderstood what you meant. No I don't currently have anything like that and cut the tenon/shoulders on the neck be hand the last 3 times. I have just ordered the Elevate Lutherie mortice and tenon jig though. 

The thing with Taylor is that yes it's easy to shim the neck, but if the fretboard has to protrude out above the soundboard at an angle, it still looks stupid. So it's better to get the neck angle right. But I don't think there are any jigs to dial in the exact required break angle, because it's all in the sides and how happy you got with radiusing them before gluing on the top. I think it might be easier to eye ball it if it has one of those L shape neck blocks, so there is enough material on there to reliably read a protractor.

Speaking of Jigs, I've ordered some fancy bits from Elevate Lutherie, looking forward to trying them out on the next one. 

Yeah it certainly is unorthodox in solid-body terms, I am certainly guilty of taking the adjustability of a tunomatic for granted, but if you look at the likes of Ramirez classical guitars, they do some funky tapering of the fretboard too, they actually plane in some fallaway just into the bass side of the fretboard. Even less adjustability in a Spanish heel too, the neck angle has to be baked into the guitar before the sides even get glued on and I don't think there is any nice way to adjust that down the line other than maybe taking the back off the guitar. 

My rationale for doing the taper fretboard is that it's less obvious than if I dramatically increased the neck angle at the heel, it will be interesting to see if anyone notices the tapered fretboard when it's all finished, I can see because I know it's there, but I think a shimmed fretboard sat on the top would have been more noticeable. 

I made some good progress today. Got a rosewood offcut glued on for the heel cap and made the heel a bit smaller. A hard wood heel cap with a real pain to do the sand paper pulls, I'll pay more attention to how much material is needed for the heel in future and make the heel cap a lot thinner, I had to relieve some material on the underside of it which made the sanding a lot easer but it was still a pain to get right because the rosewood is much harder to sand than the mahogany.

I made a tape taper to taper the height of my fretboard radius, see what I did there? Layered up and it was about 1mm thick at the nut end

Then I had a go with my new toy. Worked really well, the fretboard came out at 4.8mm thick at the nut and 6.1mm at the other end.

All the items necessary for a good fret job. The last 5 guitars I've done have all been stainless steel so it was bliss going back to nickel for this one.

Forgot to photograph the neck glue u, did it with spool clamps, then did a bit more finessing on the bridge shape.

I'll leave the top of the bridge flat until I've routed the saddle slot, then I think I'll put a radius on it to match the fretboard. BTW this fretboard has a 12" radius like the previous 2. 

Now that I am happy with the alignment and scale length, I got the bridge attached with a couple of screws in the peg holes. Now i'll be able to put the two outer E strings on, check alignment for real and find the correct intonation points to route the saddle slot.

I wasn't able to hold the camera, a straight edge and a ruler so you'll have to take my word for it. There is 2.5mm clearance above the bridge so I think I will be able to achieve decent action.

Lastly, I made an attempt at designing a paper label and did a test print. Not sold on it yet, might end up with a couple more revisions before I print it on the decent paper. 

Well when it comes to action .33mm is a big number. I don't think I need much anyway now that I've done some tape pulling. The bridge is currently 8.5mm, I can bring that down to 8mm, then there is the height of the frets too, I think I should be able to obtain decent action depending how much lift there is on the top. Worst case scenario I need to tilt the neck back a bit more and stick a veneer under the fretboard extension. 

I think I will increase the break angle in the soundboard on the next one though, all it would have needed was an extra few mins sanding on the ribs. 

How are you doing the radius? Are you taking the neck to a block or a block to the neck? If it's the latter, I'd bet you're putting too much pressure on and causing the neck to bow slightly in the middle as you're applying pressure and that is creating your hump because the heel and headstock are way stiffer. 

My preferred method now is to stick a long beam upside down in the vise and take the neck to it, that way I can target areas I need to while checking often.