Scott French

The 85 f/1.2L is beautiful, if ridiculously big. We just got it recently for our wedding films because venues insist on turning the house lights way down low during speeches. Shooting wide open on that lens is insane - it sees more than your own eyes see.

the 35 1.4L is also gorgeous. trying to decide whether to buy that or the 24 1.4L next.

The 85L really is an amazing thing... it's huge, heavy, slow to focus and very expensive. It really only does one thing but it does it so well you can forget about all of the other limitations.

It's pretty hard to go wrong with any of the current L primes. It seems like the 50 is only one with a bit of tarnish on it's reputation. I would love the 35L as it can mimic a 50 on my wife's crop camera and offers something a bit wider than the standard on the full frame.

Mattia, that's a lot of gear. I would avoid trying the 85L as it's pretty hard to resist, especially if you have the money/habit of buying so many lenses. I am pretty simple/old school in my tastes. I like the 5D and 98% of the time I shot with a 50mm. I haven't found a lens longer than 85mm that I was comfortable on so really 35mm-85mm is my comfort zone. My wife and I don't even own any zooms. As far as old manual focus lenses go the only thing I tried is the Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5. Very heavy duty lens and pretty fast but the image quality wide open doesn't stand up to the modern lenses. I ended up selling that too. My short list is getting the 35L and 85L and hopefully an improved 50L if Canon ever offers one. Beyond that I would love to get a 5D-II, very jealous of you guys for the video, better ISO performance, larger screen, and live view. Other than that I'm happy with the original 5D for now, my wife's camera does video when we need it and I intend to use my current camera until it falls apart.

Congrats, guys! Battle of the beech. I liked a lot of aspects of both instruments but had to go with the Black Beauty as that headstock treatment is awesome.

Scott, I approve of your guitars, your bench, your bikes and your choice of camera and glass (still really want that 85L some day...)!

Thanks! I approve of that 85L too. I wish I had one, we've only rented it a few times on special occasions. Hopefully again this summer for Yosemite. I had the 50L for a while but couldn't rationalize having something so expensive sit around a lot of time. I traded down to the 1.4 and haven't looked back. If the 50L was as good as the 85L it would be a different story but it just isn't. The 85 1.2 is magic.

so I'll most likely only get around to that when I hate myself enough hahahah.

I wish I didn't know exactly the process and feeling you are talking about!

Bummer about the Alumitones. That is the good thing about pickups though, just swamp them out. Did you have to make/modify some funky pickups rings for the more square shape?

Inasmuch as you would like to find a source of FSC-certified veneer Scott, I believe that re-use is a far superior option to sourcing new materials. It does however present immediate supply limits in terms of repeatability for "production" instruments. My two cents.

I love the whole re-use concept and have made a few guitars out of old coffee tables (see below) but I haven't ever thought about re-using veneer... Any examples of what you're talking about?

Buckeye burl top is from a coffee table:

Redwood body is from a coffee table:

Redwood top from coffee table:

I ended up screwing it up and had to paint it.

Very cool thread. My kid is only a few months old and already I'm looking forward to getting him in the shop someday. There's a cool shop a few towns over run by a guy and his two kids. They're both in their mid twenties now and do great work. I've always thought that would be really fun.

Looking good! Seems like she's having a great time.

Name:

SF3co Prototype

Description:

I've been waiting on wrapping up my build thread before posting here. This is my first of (hopefully) many eco-friendly guitars. It's also my first SF instrument bolt-on. Check out the link for more final images, progress shots and information on what went into this project.

Build Thread:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=46110

Specs:

• SF3 Bolt-on Body Shape
  
• One-Piece Claro Walnut Body Blank
  
• Flat Top & Back with Comfort Carve/Belly Cut & Roundover
  
• RPI Black Plastic Pickguard - Recycled, Made In USA
  
• Natural Oil Finish
  
• 25 15/32" Scale Length
  
• 3-Piece Maple Neck with Green Lams - FSC Certified
  
• Obsidian Paper Stone Fingerboard - Recycled, FSC Certified, Made In USA
  
• 12" Fingerboard Radius
  
• Maple Headcap with Green Lams - FSC Certified
  
• 22 "Gold" Evo Medium Frets
  
• Standard "C" Neck Profile
  
• LMI Double Adjustable Truss Rod - Made In USA
  
• Individual String Guides with Zero Fret
  
• Light Green Anodized Hardware Finish with Brass Accents
  
• Nordstrand NCD Humbuckers - Made In USA
  
• Sperzel Locking Tuners - Made In USA
  
• Custom Strap Buttons
  
• Hipshot Baby Grand Bridge - Made In USA
  
• Master Volume/Master Tone/3-Way Pickup Selector
  
• Precision Electronics 500k Pots - Made In Canada
  
• Switchcraft 3-way Pickup Selector Switch - Made In USA
  
• Switchcraft Locking Output Jack - Made In USA
  
• SoZo Vintage Mustard Cap .047uF - Made In USA
  
• Consolidated Hookup Wire - Made In USA
  
• Hipshot O-Ring Knobs - Made In USA
  

Photos:

Project wrap-up time. Here are a few details on successes and places to improve.

Good stuff:

• Overall I'm really happy I was able to use some new materials that worked out really well.
  
• Finished my first bolt-on guitar ever, including designing a new heel to match the headstock shape.
  
• Using FSC certified wood was no problem although sourcing it was a bit of a pain. Luckily I was able to find a local supplier that eventually made things pretty easy.
  
• The anodizing was painless and worked great. I can't see any reason why I wouldn't do this on all of my instruments moving forward.
  
• Discovered some cool products/companies that I hadn't heard of before including Paperstone, Splaff, Allback Linseed Oil (sadly not USA made), SoZo Capacitors, Precision Electronics Corporation, etc.
  
• Although I didn't use him for this project, I learned about Glenn Cronkhite, an awesome gigbag maker in the Bay Area that does really nice work.
  
  Places to improve:
  
  • Better/harder plastic for pickguards.
    
  • Possibly try out some Lace Alumitones if I can get them to match my hardware.
    
  • Find either different finishing product or better technique that wont turn the neck so yellow.
    
  • Find FSC veneer source.
    
  • Continue refining wax recipe.
    
  • Stay away from brass neck bolts.
    
  • Learn more about green electronics options, including grounding paint/foil.
    
  • Figure out side mount option for locking output jack.
    
  • Better strap button option. I hate these huge acorn style nuts.
    

  Overall a success but lots of details to figure out. I've started thinking about the next one... pretty sure it will be a carve top with either a small archtop style pickgaurd or none at all. I still have another set of green hardware from the initial anodizing batch so I can get started any time.

That is pure magic as is, but I would've put a curly maple pickguard stained to match the hardware. But I like funky.

Thanks, Anthony. I might take you up on that for another one. I don't know if I trust a piece of wood that thin to behave but a figured maple veneer laminated to brass or aluminum stock might look cool. If you like funky check out Peter Malinoski, his stuff is the funkiest... one of my favorite builders.

You thought about submitting your work to mags like Premier Guitar for their luthier section at the back of the magazine each issue? Would be great to see such workmanship get some exposure on a wide scale.

I haven't been on the PR hunt for a while as I'm not currently taking orders. I've turned down a lot of work over the past few years and for now I just want to build, refine my ideas, try new things, etc. I have been in a few buyers guides and books. One of my guitars is actually in this new book from Robert Shaw (http://www.roberteshaw.com/Guitars.html). I only have two small pics in there but there are a TON of cool instruments featured, many of which I hadn't seen before. That's saying something because most of these big coffee table books sample from the same old range of images.

Do these type of threads get deleted? I looked around and couldn't find a rule against them... I also couldn't find any threads along these lines newer than 2005 when I used the search tool.

Nothing fancy, just post a pic of your main working area. In the past I would usually just find the flattest/cleanest surface in the shop when I needed to do something. When I moved a while back I actually took the time to convert one of my big tables into a "real" bench with tools on the wall and some kind of attempt at organization. I was also having a lot of back pain so I wanted to be able to work higher up. Here's what I ended up with:

If you check out the full version on Flickr you can see a lot of comment highlights I've added for various pieces. Most of it is self explanatory but I got carried away with the little commenting tool.

Let's see yours!

I've been meaning to do my final writeup on this project for a while but haven't had the time. For now here are some nicer photos.

Gotta give it to Chris. This is also the only one I've seen in really life. Nice stuff!

I'm digging this project!

• Love the California woods.
  
• Really into tiny instruments lately.
  
• Big photography fan.
  

I've been following the Lytro camera for a while now, very cool concept. I'm excited to see this stuff grow. I'm not ready to give up the control and quality of the SLR but it would be great to get this kind of functionality in a high end camera. I shoot around f/1.2-1.4 a lot so being able to finely control the focus during post production would be AWESOME.

Anyway, very nice work on the uke and Lytro, very cool stuff!

5% tolerance?

They're listed at 10% but every one I've checked has been much tighter. Some of the older CTS and alpha pots I've used have read down around 460 but all of these have been pretty close to 500. I think I have a few more open somewhere. I'll try to find them and check.

Mount a pot onto a piece of board and pop on a marker knob like a speed knob or other marked 0-10 in 1/2 increments. Mark the "0" point on the board and progressively measure the resistance between one of the track tags and the wiper each increment. See what Excel throws out plotting them up in a graph. Some manufacturers are "better" than others in trying to approximate log tapers for example, although none at the guitar builder end of the spectrum really do so. If these are very high end pots, there will likely be a more faithful taper curve also.

More curiosity than anything else really, Scott. Musicians don't really perceive taper approximations much apart from the extreme ends of the track (full on/off) but it's good to see how they stack up otherwise.

Theses certainly aren't audiophile pots as far as the pricing or marketing indicate. I think they are more on the industrial/military side of things. Anyway, here are some quick and dirty numbers. The little markers I measured off were kind of funky so both ends are a little off.

This build is beautiful.

Thanks, Anthony!

So great to see someone thinking outside of the box AND thinking environmentally. In all the 'thinking' I've done about what I'd do when building a guitar, the sustainability of the parts I'd have chosen didn't even enter my mind until I saw this build and I would normally consider myself fairly aware of such things. Excellent!

Thanks! The goal was to challenge myself and hopefully inspire some others to try new things too. I've actually done a big writeup on how this project came about with some more in-depth thoughts on this stuff but I have a feeling a link to my blog would be considered a commercial link and get me in trouble.

Any chance of plotting the accuracy of the taper on these pots, Scott? I'm interested in how the numbers stack up against the physical characteristics!

I've never done this. If you have some guidelines I'll test a few pots for you. I bought a ton of them to get bulk pricing.

Now why oh why do you need so much hardware when you make so few instruments?

That's some stocking up right there.

Like I said in the beginning of the thread, the plan was to build a big batch. I have enough of everything except pickups to build 15+ of these. This was before I got married and had a baby. Back then I was still trying convince myself it was possible to have a 9-5 job and still build a good amount of guitars. I was wrong even then. Now with job and family to take care of I think these parts will last me a very long time.

More progress shots... almost done.

Test fitting the pickguard and bridge. Note the knobs and baby grand are still raw here.

Test fitting neck. Neck carve mates up with the heel. Raw aluminum ferrules here too.

Close up of scarf joint, brass side dot and neck lam.

Neck and body getting oiled. I ended up using pure, filtered, triple boiled linseed oil. Seems to cure slower than the Watco I've used in the past but nothing outrageous.

Here's a good shot of the custom anodized Hipshot hardware. I got this done in a batch at a local metal finishing place. I was able to do the logo dots, string guides, neck screw ferrules, strap buttons, bridge, and knobs. The tuners were already anodized green although in the future I'd like to get those raw too.

I was able to buy a bunch of these unfinished. I'll be able to do custom color hardware on my guitars for quite a while. The polishing was an absolute pain in the butt. I got a raw tumbled bridge anodized with the first run as a test and it actually looked pretty good. I'm going to avoid the polishing step moving forward.

Electronics!

Switch made in USA, Pots made in Canada... pretty stoked to find some non-china options for this stuff. Switchcraft is pretty common but I had not heard of Precision Electronic Components until Bruce from Johnson's Extremely Strange Musical Instrument Company let me in on these. They are SUPER HEAVY DUTY. The action is a little stiff but very solid and feels nice. You can get them from Digi-Key.

I like this... I would rather see it in the end of the guitar with the set screw coming in from behind but awesome just the same.

If it is ok with you I would like to steal a form of this idea.

Thank you for the wax ideas. However you didn't give us a long term recap on the wax. I would be interested to know how it has held up. I use a carnauba blend myself (purchased years ago of course... and I have never found a replacement).

Go for it. I was trying to get through the rest of the progress pics before outlining all the results. I'm not really sure on the wax. It's still pretty tough to apply but once you "warm it up" by rubbing with a cloth it works. I think it gives a pretty good shine but it doesn't seem to last as long as the Warwick stuff I used years ago. That being said some other more natural options I've used also didn't seem to last as long so I may have some unrealistic goals here. I have a bunch of tins if you'd like to give it a try.

Cool build I have worked with this type of material in the past when I worked in a countertop fabrication plant. We didn't use paperstone, but I'm familiar with it. It is basically phenolic resin and thin sheets of paper compressed at high pressure. Commercial laminates (Formica, Wilsonart, Pionite..etc) are a thin version of this material. The only way I know of to get it to adhere to another surface long term is contact adhesive, which would most likely effect the tone. Epoxy may work...never tried it. Phenolic material is very dense. It will dull tooling very quickly.

I would look into a "rail" type fret stock similar to what is on a chapman stick.

Thanks! You hit the nail on the head: Proprietary phenolic resin + recycled newsprint + pressure + heat! We're not exactly blazing trails here. I know Ernie Ball did a few with Paperstone and David King did at least one. The CS guy I talked to at PanelTech when I bought this stuff suggested West Systems G/Flex 655 as the epoxy they could confirm worked. I just used a generic 2-part from the hardware store and it worked fine. I tried one with no scuffing and titebond... it peeled right off after a few hours of clamping. Ouch!

Standard frets worked fine too! Other than an extra round of slotting I didn't really modify my process at all. I hadn't seen those Chapman rails until now though, pretty awesome!

Thanks Prostheta, I missed that when I was reading the original post. Looks great, and I like the concept. The body shape really matches well with the bridge.

Am I right in noticing that it doesn't have a nut?

Thanks! Yep, Prostheta has it, each string has it's own nut element.

Here's a little more about the polishing wax I mentioned in the last post. Finishing was something I wanted to think about a lot of this project. All the oils I've used in the past were full of weird chemical drying agents and the wax I had been using was also full of weird stuff... why does a wood wax need petroleum distillates? More on the oil later but back to the wax. I decided to make my own blend. There's a lot of info on this kind of stuff floating around the web but to summarize you basically need a tough protecting kind of wax, a softer wax to blend it with (as the tough ones are usually too brittle) and a cutting agent to make it easier to apply. Carnauba wax seemed to be the standard for the hard/brittle side of things and beeswax was very popular for the softer side to blend with. I'm not so strict as to avoid honey but after eating a vegan diet for a few years I decided to try and make the blend animal free. No bee products! I went with soy wax as as replacement for bee's wax as it is also very soft. It's also a little greaser (and I'm not sure that's a good thing). For the solvent I absolutely wanted to avoid something super toxic. I ended up going with citrus solvent. It's made from distilled orange peel oil and a tiny amount of water. The stuff is still pretty gross but not as bad as some of the alternatives. Here are some photos of the process for anyone curious.

Measuring out the wax flakes. The darker is the carnauba. I ended up adding A LOT more soy wax as the first test was way too hard to apply.

Bringing the double boiler up to speed. I used the bottom half to cook rice for years but lately it's been in the camping box. Glad I had it!

Dump the flakes in.

Pretty soon they start to melt. At that point I added the solvent and stirred that in real quick.

Then started pouring into the tins.

A little goes a long way. I mainly bought the soy wax for my wife to make some candles. I also got the tins from a candle making supply website. Pretty easy!

Great to see you back Scott. I just love that guitar, the look, the concept, everything.

The paperstone got me really intrigued. Looks like a good ebony substitute. I have not been able to get jet black ebony for some time now. How well does it machine? Whats the prize? And what sizes are availible? I have already contacted the company to see if there is a suplier in europe. I guess that this would take care of the lack of compression in the material

I'm very interested also Peter. I wouldn't mind exploring the possibility of acquiring some if it is economically viable. If it is a little painful to glue up, perhaps dovetailing the underside 45° to the centreline would yield cosmetically unique options in addition to the security.

http://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-projects/impossible-dovetail-joint-puzzle-plans.html

It's fairly inexpensive if you can find a deal. I got about 20 guitars worth for $85 shipped (over 1/3 was the shipping cost). I haven't been able to find it again, but PanelTech used to have a PDF floating around of all of their offcuts. You could buy weird pieces (sometimes slightly bowed, very narrow, etc) for pretty cheap as that sort of thing would be useless for countertop makers but no problem for a guitar builder who would only use a small chunk at a time. The thicknesses vary but they do offer some stuff in .22" or .25". I'm pretty sure mine was slightly thinner than normal.

Other than the compression and gluing it doesn't work too much differently than a very dense wood. For gluing just scuff it up like normal and use epoxy. On the slotting I just ran it through the normal table saw/template process then widened the slots slightly by resawing them all by hand fairly aggressively. That did it for me. I wouldn't go straight from the table saw to the fret press, that's for sure.

I turned most of mine into fingerboards but I know there is still some left. I can chop some up into little samples if anyone wants to play with it. I also have a bunch of tins of homemade polishing wax that I wouldn't mind getting some feedback on.