GoodWood

Working on a Selmer Petit Bouche, I bought the wood before the crisis

What a co-incident, as I hear we are going back to the "0'30's

"......

I'm working on a hybrid, but I haven't put up a build thread yet. I'm waiting until I've made some decent progress. I'm looking forward to seeing the work you guys have been doing though.

-Dave

Kool!@! Are all 6 the same, Dred, OM,???

IS the hybrid steel string? Or classical?

I am planning to make my baroque '6 ' course capable (has mostly double strings) DId a test on the soundport design, and I will stick with the "simple one"... I may post a tutorial or something. Its a burl rosette with my logo, with black trim...

My LMI 'student' grade Sitka was a pancake, so Im stuck with the adi (on both)...Baroque would usually call for Germanic stuff...like classical....

Oh, I made a cool circle cutter (manual), and Im trying to make it micro-adjustable, but the ($*)# won't email me back on the parts....but it still works great...need to post some pics...

Yea, 6, whew....cant imagine, are all those spoken for Daniel?

Whats going on out there? Is the economy smakin you down? Anyone working on acoustic builds any more? Haven't seen Rich for a while...

I got some wood thickness, working on final shape for Dreadnought, and a small Baroque style geeetar... Bending soon, just I have some Sapele for kerf lining I dont like very much....

I keep mine in home made plastic/duct tape bags with a hygrometer in each bag, to stabilize the humidity. That way I know its at a constant. Check hygrometer accuracy with salt/water technique. Its a pain to have to stabilize everything and let it aclimate, but unless youhave a constant shop humidity, its the smartest way to do it I can think of.

Let me just throw this out there. Please understand that I have no affiliation with or personal interest in this resource, but John Hall at Blues Creek Guitars is a really awesome guy. We've emailed back and forth a good bit, and he really has a heart for helping other builders. If you ever find yourself looking into a kit (or a number of other things), his stuff is worth checking out:

http://www.bluescreekguitars.com/

-Dave

You should ask: What has been updated on Cumpianos/Kinkeads book. You can also get the guitar making book by Kinkead, which is good. There is a classical guitar building site:

Moldmaking at OLF forum

you need to look into the tools for building an acoustic, it can be extensive. Geting the sides pre-bent is a good idea. You can also get a precarved neck on ebay.

Cumpianos book is good for plate glue up, thicknessing by hand if you go that way, neck carving. He added a bolt on neck instead of the oldstyle thing he used to do. Alot of the back and top radi stuff is done in dishes, but those run89.99 apiece with sandpaper and shipping.

John Hall is well known for taking alot of phone calls from beginners also... he worked at Martin for a while.

It looks like the neck heel is not at the correct angle. This could be due to the actual heel angle, the angle of the neck block in relation to the top and back, or something else altogether. Hard to say from the picks but that angle is dramatic. I am surprised you didn't notice it before you glued the neck in.

This is the danger of building from kits that try to take care of all the hard stuff for you. Thinking things through for yourself makes sure that things like this don't just happen. Do yourself a favor and get this book and build it from scratch next time starting with a full scale drawing. Then you will not have any surprises.

~David

Was the neck angle checked with a straight edge going up to the bridge area??

I've read that to bend the sides of a acoustic guitar into shape you have to steam them first. Doesn't that cause some pretty bad shrinkage issues over the life of the instrument?

Yes, - Sometimes Drednoughts do shrink eventually into OM's or 000's. Thats where they come from..,If you use too much water, they can shrink into a Mandolin.

I have listed a very nice Ziricote Dred set over at the OLF! If you have ever wanted to try an awsome high end Rosewood, this is your set! PM me if you want some close up pics. I have it on for 20 days, then best offer over $165.00 or Ebay, or I keep it. Its a nice set at $50.00 off price.

http://www.luthiersauctions.com/detail.asp?id=967

Has anyone ever used the Wagner Safe-T Plane? I'm considering buying it to plane down Strat headstocks.

Have you considered just setting up a router jig to do it? It would be free and from the sounds of it safer if all your using it for is strat headstocks, could be a little time consuming for other stuff.

Well, I never really thought of building a jig to do it because I assumed that the plane worked quite well, but from what I'm reading it's not that great. I'll probably design some kind of jig or system to do this quickly and neatly.

I did a headstock today and took a few pics. The jig takes 3 minutes maybe to make, I'm thinking of making a permanent one though since I build one of these like once a week at least. I used to use a jointer for the headstocks but it's too easy for it to chip and this only takes a couple minutes longer. It's also great for backplates and veneers since my planer is a hand feed one it's a lot of work to use it for something this small. I use doublestick to stick the neck down and use a 3/4" bit since it's the biggest I have.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr266/g...er/IMG_2853.jpg

Man, that's a great idea. Thanks!

I think you need a decent drill press to use the safety planner. Then you have to set it up properly, and then you have to have hold downs for the wood. I also have an enclosed vacume system for mine. It works well, but additional sanding will be needed. I run mine at top speed on my sears drill press 3500 I think. I like it, but you have to do alot of test runs on woods to get used to it, and to see what to expect, and to fine tune it. Then it will be your friend. A dust trapping contraption also keeps fingers away from the blade, yes, it can bite you! I think its great to thin down thick side sets to close, then I still have them thickness sanded, but it costs alot less. You do have to 'build another jig' to get it going though.

I am 'planning' on making an adjustable jig (4") to plane thicker boards with it.

My first impression looking at the photo is that the angle on the heel is wrong. It seems as if some material needs to come off the heel i.e. from the heel cap you take off 0mm to 1mm at the top of the heel just underneath the fretboard. That should bring the headstock up and the end of the fretboard toward the top.

But before you take anything off measure it yourself.

You need to go real slow also, when you take it off, you can tear the top pretty easy if you get hasyty. I tried removing backbraces from a back, and the heatgun scortched the back wood (too close) but the braces never budged (Hide Glue). I now have a practice glue up woods with hhg Im working on, just to practice this sort of thing.

Go real slow, like this would take 1 hour minimum.

Then, you might want to figure out how to clean the joint glue without much fuss for the next batch of glue. Not a fun deal to clean, and not easy to take the neck off without a bolt on neck.

Good luck.

I have 5 backsets of Martin Sapele dred size up on ebay if anyone is interested. They are not perfect cosmeticly, but if you want to build acoustics they a good first/second guitar. Sorry, all out of side sets for now. They should go for around $6-$8 a set x 5, so pretty cheap. Measure 9 x 22 x 1.10. Some have a small crack, or pitch pocket, easy enough to fix. This listing goes until Jan 28th 7PM mst/

I have never met a piece of wood which is perfect. Yes you can buy a perfect piece but it may not stay that way. Screwing a board to anything is useless, unless you steam heat it first and loosen the fibers. At 1.5" you are not going to change that board even using extreme measures.

The general process is called milling a piece of wood or in easy terms making it square before you use it. Given the size of the piece you bought, unless the bow is severe, I don't see any issues. Mark out the neck pieces in different parts of the board and see how bad the bow is rather than looking at the whole board as a problem. Top plates are never 3/4" so I don't see any issues there.

I am not sure why some people would not use a piece of wood which is bowed, to me it says the wood has settled and is more stable. Offsetting grain direction in a laminated neck will also add additional stability to the project so look to cut mirror images out of the board.

Notice the grain direction is opposite, can also be reversed. I use this method when using flat sawn boards.

Or maybe a jointer is what you need, a planer does both ends and is for thicknessing I think.

You guys seem to know a bit about this, and I don't think this is hijacking the thread, so...

Does anyone have thoughts on the effects of the bridge plate on tone? I have a source for some ugly Brazilian Rosewood, and I've been wondering if it would be beneficial to go that route.

Has anyone ever used ferrules rather than bridge pins, I know it would mean no single string changes without slackening the strings but an intersting idea nonetheless.

How would you use the ferrules? Do you want to put them where bridge pins would be and just string it by sticking your hand in the sound hole? Also, you've seen these, right? Does this accomplish what you're looking for?

Maple is neutral, rosewood is more bass oriented.

Ok, I am looking for some springsteel for side bending, (going to do like 4 sets whhhooooooo) What thickness is good for gueetar molding guys??

Anything less than $40.00 out there for a set of 6" x 36"???

Anyone using safety-planer? Here is a chip shaving catcher! Needs vacume attachment.

(Saftey planers are great to thickness wood with a drill press, but they shoot out lots of annoying wood chips/dust.)

Some wood, plexiglass, stiff foam to hold down the wood.

It needs some adjustments but it works really good for guitar size woods. Vacume took most of the chips.

Also, in all honesty, the funkiest/craziest/most exotic woods you'll be able to find will be very difficult to find in plank form, and fairly easy to find in pre-cut back/side form. You pay a bit more, but remember you're paying the dealers for sourcing the best of the best of a given wood species, for sawing it to thickness (tools you don't own and cost at least 500-1000 dollars to get set up to deal with it all, often more considering you also need a thickness sander and a big dust collector) and dealing with the fact that many a hunk of wood has flaws in it that will mean the final pieces are unusable.

Check out places like allied lutherie or RCtonewoods.com (Bob's a great guy, smallish operation, top-notch product and service).

BTW, zebrawood's pretty common/cheap.

We all want to make great guitars, how many tools do you have for this? What is your woodworking experience? This is fairly detailed, sometimes maddening woodworking to thousanths of an inch tolerances.

Willie Nelson has an neat acoustic electric. I would think you may not want to scallop the braces if thats the way you do it. A great acoustic is not neccessarily a great electric,

This Goodall sounds really good, but then he plays more, and they all sound about the same. Not sure but I think its just mic-ed outside. They don't say.

I am going to be using my student grade LMI sitka top for my second attempt, third top, it has a nice tap tone, and is visually just fine, $15 beeners, this may be a good start for you.

Get some Supersoft, and thin the most rounded areas. Never used it, but I would on tough rosewoods. Also, you may need to use a mold/blanket, not hand bend.

How does it sound?

Gonna try to redo the braces?

Ive been waiting for the humidity to fall to start doing mine again, and I think I am going for a drill press plane to plane my woods, my molds are still held up,but the wood is all cut, and they only take a few hours to build.

I am doing 4 sets of sides, tops etc, I really want to crank this out. I have some martin 2nd necks/fretboards, so that cuts the time, all "I have to do is a few boxes"! If they sound like crap I will try to take them apart and redo, instead of building more. Go go go...!!

Keep in mind inserts for electrics are a completely different ballgame from inserts for acoustics; on an electric, the load is almost entirely lateral, while on acoustics it's in the same axis as the bolt holding the neck in place. I wouldn't trust press-fit inserts in an acoustic heel, where added pressure might split it. Rather have hex driven inserts superglued in place. You also tend to only have 2 inserts taking signficantly more tension (usually 12-54 or 13-56 string sets) than an electric with four inserts. Experience shows holding power and adjsutability isn't a problem at all.

On the Stewi mac Herringbone Drednaught design (martin), he uses two 1/4 x 20 BOLTS coming out of the neck, so I may just go that way.

Ok, can you link to the lee valley stuff?

Mattia, hate to ask, but what screw to go with the brass inserts? I don't see 1/4 20 anything for screws.

1/4-20 internal thread.

http://www.rtlfasteners.com/RC/q.html

What size would the standard stock Martin dreadnought (kit) take? Anyone know??

well here they are, if anyone has any questions, comments, or wants to see any other angles, let me know! I still need to hit the bridge and pickguard with some lemon oil, but im all out, but thats not a big deal.

Alright!!! How does she sound??