jaycee

Scotty D.....Extremely good looking, and I like the way the side of the upper bout behind the neck looks convex, is it? One thing I am not to keen on is the length of the horn on the bass side, but other than that the woods and hardware look great.

Avenger 63........ Any other month and this would have had my vote the grain and the way you have brought it out is gorgeous, and the curves are to drool over. It's a pity that you can't withdraw it and put it in next month.

Daniel Sobera..... Another stunning acoustic Dan, the fret inlays are an unusual but nice change from the norm, unfortunately the ring of thorns rosette although excellently done does nothing for me.

Jaden........ Well I don't really know what to say about this, I think it's a bit like marmite you either love it or hate it and I haven't decided yet, but I do like the Emg's, after saying that it is a good clean build.

Simo.......... This is so good i'm speechless..............oh and it got my vote, nice one Simo well done.

Low End Fuzz.......I love the neck on this one, the woods are very nice, If you could have used some on the back of the body that would have been nice, is the neck really long or is it just me?

Metz............ Sammy hagar would love this, and so would my sister hanging on the wall in her red kitchen. The horn on the treble side I quite like and the deep cut on the same side as well, I bet it's comfy to play whilst ssitting down, a nice build.

Daniel "nova"......Nice and clean looking, and I like it that the control cover on the back is the same wood as the rest of it.

RFR.......... well despite the F hole I do like this one. In fact there have been so many f holes on here that they are starting to grow on me. (forgive me if that sounds rude) I really like the look of this one an acoustic tele, it could give me a reason to build one myself. It just looks as if it wants to be played. And again if it were in another month I would have voted for it.

I say this every time at the end of these voting sessions the quality of all the builds is top class, well done to everyone.

I'm sure Wez will chip in, but theres no difference from a standard fretted guitar. Each string has it's own scale length and as long as the placement of the saddles in relation to the nut is correct ten intonation should be the same

Wish you were here - Pink Floyd, a agood all rounder that's fairly easy to play

The Kavanagh site looks like a good source and good prices

here are two more

Allperts

Axes r us

John can you give us a few more pics from different angles? that would help

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.

I thought the router would work but as I said was being cautious. But its good to know that for future reference.

Cheers guys

I opted for the scraper in the end and the result was very pleasing. It took about an hour but was worth the effort

i may be a little too cautious but i try to avoid taking a router to a guitar if i dont have to. When i do my binding, i cut it back with a newly sharpened scraper and it doesnt take too long and is by far safer than a router with a trimming bit. Is the binding plastic or wood?

It is wood, Walnut. I am thinking the bit will do the job allright but would like someone to chip in that has used a router to do this. I was thinking the same Dan regarding the grain, but you know what its like, the closer you get to a finshed product the more cautious you become especially when it's new to you.

The binding was supposed to be 2mm but it turned out to be more like 3-4mm.

I have glued the binding on which was a little oversized, scraping the excess from the top was easy enough. To trim the overhang on the sides will a trimmimg bit be all right to use, I can't see why not but being this far into the build I am being hyper cautious

Everything was ok this morning so I glued the one side on, and will repeat the same process tomorrow

Sadly the bird eye maple had to come off. I forgot to remove 2mm from the headstock but I have another piece to go on.

The rebating bit from Wealdens worked a treat. It is a 20mm cutter, the largest I have used is a 12mm so when I turned it on for a test cut the noise scared the pants off me I thought my router was going to blow up :o.

Anyway once I had calmed down and worked out it's the larger bit I did a test cut on some 4 x 2 and then tentatively put the blade to the well secured body.

I made sure I was allways routing "downhill" and I took a 6mm x 2mm rebate out in one pass on each section, although I did go over it a second time just to make sure.

I used a hotwater bottle to heat up the walnut banding which is fairly pliable anyway and moulded it to the body on the one side, taped it up and will leave it overnight and hopefully it will still be on in the morning.

There was program on the bbc last year about the history of the guitar, in one section it showed one guys collection of old guitars and he had a lute instrument that had an almost 90 degree headstock angle. I suppose some sort of mortice and tennon joint would have been used. Apparently they were notorious for staying in tune

I got a nice piece of birds eye Maple veneer of ebay for the headstock and along with some 6mm birds eye Maple courtesy of Wez for the heel cap. The heel cap takes a bit of getting used to regarding the colour contrast but once everything is together I think it will tie in very nicely

In my 2 acoustic builds.. i have used home made spool clamps which were really cheap and really effective to glue my tops and backs to the sides... only issue with this, that yours may solve is that if your not extremely careful, your sides can skew a little bit. Arnt threaded inserts pretty expensive?

That's what I used on my one as well, homemade spool clamps. The problem I found here in the UK is the availability of the threaded inserts in small quantities. I managed to track down a firm talked to one of the guys there and he sent me about a 12, 6mm and 8mm threads in headed and non headed types as samples once I explained what I wanted them for (neck bolt on) in large quantities they work out about 50p each

Just had a look on ebay works out at $11 for 50 delivered

On my tanglewood acoustic the string are fed from the rear edge of the bridge, much like a classical guitar. It has 2 MOP dots just behind the saddle one either side whuch I suspect are screws or bolts.

I am toying with the idea to have 6 of the strings strung this way and the other 6 strung using bridge pins, is there a reason why this setup would not work.

On the clamping cauls that stewmac sell they have cork which would do the trick

Here is something I came up with to clamp the top and back on, as yet I cannot see why it won,t work with a little refining and would not take a lot of time , money as most builders of acoustics use moulds in thier builds.

Forgive the drawing it's the best I could do in paint.

Here's how it works, you drill a set of holes into the mould put in the holes threaded inserts, make cauls, drill through one end to attatch to the mould with the right sized bolts. As you tighten the bolts the top gets clamped to the sides, it may take a little tweaking to get the pressure /angle right but i'm sure someone could work out a way to solve that.

The top is glued on and trimmed. Although I did have a little tear out on the lower right bout, but I think by the time the binding and purfling goes on it will be covered up.

I think what happened was I had trimmed most of the hang over off but missed a bit there and when the router bit reached it, it just flicked it off.

I have also thought of another way to glue tops and backs on will post when I draw it out.

That accident pic made me feel sick, and I shivered, especially after reading the grain filling section. I think if that happened to mine after all the work it takes to build an acoustic I would sit in a corner and unashamedly cry my eyeballs out.

It's good that your giving it another go well done

lots on ebay

Once the top is on taping it will not help from what I have been told (I may be wrong). Initially you are not looking for a note more like a sound, like tuning a drum. You also feel the top by bending to see if it is loose or stiff (hard to bend or easy). All of these techniques take time to master, or you can have have a Master teach you. I see there are books and a few videos on the subject.

Best thing here is to finish it up and if you don't line the low or high end create another post and ask more experienced builders here what you can do to change the sound by modifying the braces. Most likely you will be a happy camper unless you are an experienced guitarist who is very picky.

It sounds like a science all in itself, I'll look into it more if I do another acoustic. There was a program on the BBC here in the UK last year about the history of the guitar and there was a guy from the states Henderson maybe can't remember but Clapton had to wait 10 years for a guitar from him, he got an amazing tone from his tops

When I tap the top near the neck area it is quite dead due the amount of bracing , but further down the body it does ring out very nicely, so hopefully as you say I may be fortunate with this.

There is a slight arch fron top to bottom, but being my first acoustic I erred on the side of caution when the plans and other sources on information contradicted.

I can allways try and take some of the bracing away if it is a little shut in, whereas putting it back on is a bit more tricky.

I am enjoying the build more than I thought I would

Simo that looks stunning on here as well

I forgot about the bands and L hooks, I remembered thinking at the time I saw them that it looked like a good idea. I am working off plans so I don't want to deviate to much as this is my first acoustic build.

I did think of scalloping the braces but one site (something like Martin or Taylor ) reccomended either not doing it or only do it a little , so I decided to leave them full.

The top is now glued on and there is quite a nice tap tone to the top, and when tapped the air even managed to blow a match out.

Regarding the arching of the top it said it was not needed on the plans so I went with that.