GoodWood

Cool! Show us a pic of the hotknife please! You will have to take off the finish for a real good fit. Exacto blade (careful to cut only the varnish.) And you will have to measure the saddle exact to make the tone in tune.

Thanks, maybe for splitting wood, you could glue on some cross stringers, to be sanded off. Thats what Im thinking, but you would need a heat resistant glue, unless you just glue the ends and stay away from it with the heat. What is the best metal to use? I called a gutter place and they are a bit expensive for even a 36" piece of gutter.

Is Paduak always excessively brittle? I suppose bending needs care, and good heat distribution.

Cool, Thanks- Did you mean backs will be .01 thicker than sides as a rule? I need some basic 'rules' as these are my first. So a little thicker is probably better. Thanks

Ok, I have a Honuran MAhogany, Paduak, and Ziricote set that I will be working on, - I will be using mainly Mahogany and Indian Rosewood though. What are the best thicknesses for these types of wood, what is too thick, what is too thin, etc... Honduran MAhogany Paduak Ziricote (very hard) Indian Rosewood Thanks

My first intuitive design was to use metal rods to support the bridge, and use no bracing,but I had no idea how bracing effected the toneality. Basicly, guitars are stringed wooden drums. I also wanted to just take the top off a crappy guitar, and put a new one on it to start out, but one local luthier said it would ruin the guitar. Now I would think I would rather have started that way. Get a decent but not loved guitar, take the top off, make a simple mold and put a new one, or new ones on it.

Im thinking of getting a Padouk set for my second guitar. Its cheap and the guy lives a few miles away. In comparison to Mahogany, he said its more trebly, which I dont like. So make the soundhole slighty smaller,and make it a 4.85 body depth to get more bass, if I get the set. Does anyone have experience with Padouk? and how do/did you like it? I may jsut pony up for a decent set of quarter Mahogany if my first comes out ok though...but this stuff is cheap, and I need the practice... Thanks

That site listed above also has a simple home made "radius dish" idea, and again hes a pro, and uses it. Kinkead tells how to get the measurments for the radius curve. You do the longitudinal, then measure the 4 braces where they go along the curve to get the different heights, then measure those out- Im jsut about to do that. Radious dishes are about $100 with sandpaper and shipping. On my second guitar I get the dish I think. hundered here, hundered there, dang by #3 it better be a kickass friggin guitar!! (#1 really, but Im a realist...)

I think Kinkeads book shows him just cutting out the kerfling in 3's where the X braces go into the side, and then he glues them on top. I will cut into the side Kerf myself. I saw one guy who is has a guitar parts biz actually goes all the way through the sides- the X spruce sticks out the side, you can see it!! And he has a Lutheri business and sells lots of molds etc... http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/index.html

Hi Fryovanni! Im out in Colorado by your sister city, Boulder....but if Im ever going up to Oregon, been meaning to...Ill drop a line !! When I say I want to sell my first few guitars, I mean I hope to regain cost output + $100 bucks to pay for the next ones, and help pay for more tools. So like $275-300.00 bucks. I hope thats doable!! We'll find out in a few months if they dont explode, bend warp, and my biggest worry, frets, bridge mount sounds good.... All solid wood Mahogany guitar for $300.00 bucks? Dang...

Oh I know, every time I turn the page, its another $100.00 bucks!! $#@@@!! Im just working through the basic knowlege here, because I didnt have it when I thicknessed my tops, which ended up too thick, going by the book, Kinkeads measurements I think. I have bad hypothyroidism, and I have very limited energy to work each day. This top wore me out. I just didnt understand how to read the dial gauge properly, now I understand it, thanks.

I decided against hand planing and went with thickness sanding for simplicity sake. Im using lower end Carpathian Spruce. The rings are wider at the ends (about 12 per inch) than at the center (about 20 per inch) I think I want 1/8" thickness, and then handsand and scrape it a bit to final and get the first one done. That was supposed to be done, but comparing to a 1/8 inch drill bit, its still too thick. I will try handplaning in the future for sure. I dont want to mess around with my first tops (and sides ) though. I jsut need a number to tell the sanding guy, as this number he used didnt work. Cumliano reccoments 1/8 inch for beginners. Then you sand and scrape it alittle, as now I know you just smooth it out. To reiterate: Should I just have them thickness to 1/8 inch on 120 grit, and then scrape it down smooth in a few swipes? We left it a bit fat, and handsanding, scraping is not moving it. Thanks

http://goodwoods.blogspot.com/ Sound clip would be GREAT for that crazy guitar!! Here is my guitar blog. - Its mainly a personal BEGINNERS RANT, -Best thing on it so far is the very temp adjustable glue pot made from a garage sale fondue pot I got for $5.00 and an olive jar for the hide glue. Building a gobar deck this week. Cutting my top spruce and will get the sides bent and ready before I glue the top together. Making home made triangular Kerfing from African Mahogany. Reading these boards really helps with the little details. Get everything ready BEFORE you start gluing the top etc... My first 2 guitars will be mahogany, and if they turn out ok, Ill move up to Indian rosewood and see if someone will buy it for $600.00 bucks....

Not to bust your bubble, but I had the same idea, and someone at the chiladni pattern yahoo board does this regularly. He just mounts an extended wood side piece that goes an inch or two over the board. Ive had about 5 'breakthrough" ideas so far, and all of them have been done by individual builders Ive seen. Only one or 2 of my ideas I havent seen so far, but Im betting that they have also been done. Lots of smart builders who have lots of ideas. Ive even seen my weird * idea done by someone. grrrr oh well. My bridge designs and my headstock designs are origonal to some degree, but that wont effect sound.

Ok, they thicknessed my tops too thick I think. Said he was real close but after an hour of sanding 150 grit and scraping its not much closer to 1/8". If your thickness sanding with the machine, what is the best thickness for them to shoot for for Spuce tops, and Mahogany sides? I imagine Rosewood is really tough to sand and scrape to final. I'm thinking about a small orbital sander at this point. Learning curves, grrrrrrrrrrr

How do you convert between thicknesses. My thickness gauge is standard hundredths? So thickness for tops is recomended say 7/16 s, but it says around 3.5 on the dial? How do you convert? Thanks

Ok, Im trying 2 for 1 here. I have a 21" guitar in the making. Is there a mathmatical formula for determining the X brace center position? Also, can someone go over the basic sizes of the guitar for me? My body form is based on my Tacoma DM-9, which I then enlarged here and there to fit the tops I got. I thought it was dreadnaught size, but I keep looking at wood, and it seems dread would be larger?? Thanks

Jonathan Kinkead talked about the shellac or sanding sealer for cutout prevention. It seals the grain. Ill let you know how it works in a couple weeks. ITs all I had so I was using it for endgrain seal. I imagine beeswax and mineral spirits would also work, (I think its what the pros use) Is this the mold people use light bulbs with (if you dont have a heat blanket? Heat blankets seem to need tempreture control also, which doubles the cost.) I will be using FLAT IRONS to bend my sides, Ill let you know how it goes. Im starting with Mahogany. I have some quarter sawn cedar from the hardware store for practice sides, and my first guitar maybe. Quarter sawn for the neck also. I just picked through the pile. About 3% of the wood has some decent vertical in it. Wet as hades... .....Now to get my bandsaw to cut it thin and strait when it dries!!!!...

If you want to cut down on tear out, you can use shellac or sanding sealer.! I also shellac and wood glue the endgrain to keep from splitting. Works great

I love the Redneck Rosette Router setup! Ive been going nuts trying to figure out if I should get a dremel kit (cant find the older good one you see in books, just the crappy cheap ones they use now) or if I should get a larger drill press to accomodate the 6" hole center, or this or that..... I have a Foredom. Any special treatment you made for it? How do you adjust the size of the circles? Thats what I want to go with!!