Sunday, December 26, 2010

back from the finishers

a gentle burst

Good contrast between cocobolo and boxwood binding

The butt joint

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Back from the Carribean and back to work. Neck photos

I spent the last week scuba diving in Bonaire and did not get anything done on the guitars I am building. Had to escape the snow.  But things are back to full speed.  Here is a tree of Lebanon inlayed in a peghead that goes with  Rick's 000 guitar

I veneer the back of the pegheads and I wish I could tell you what kind of exotic wood this is, but I really do not know.  It was lurking in my exotic veneer drawer and has been there for some time. Heel cap is boxwood which will match the binding.  There is a cocobolo center section.  The side dots are sterling silver.
a look at the boxwood binding around the peghead





Thursday, December 2, 2010

Lyndsay's guitar body ready for the finishers

european spruce top, imbuya rosette 
purfling is brazilian rosewood with maple and bloodwood purfling lines

nice figure on back and sides

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Fretting the neck

So the fretboard has snowflakes inlayed as position markers.  It has been crowned and the frets are being pounded into the slots.

roll of fretwire on really messy workstation.  Cat food for my assistant is in the background.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

ready to ship to the finishers

Sanded out ready to go

a look at the tool and the guide used to cut the mortises for the neck and fingerboard extension

Clamping on the fingerboard

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

adding a top and installing binding

Lyndsay's guitar gets topped


binding on Rick's guitar with epoxie filler

other views

next step is to sand everything out
bit of a taper showing

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Purfling and binding

Binding chanels cut in top

and back

binding stock

cutting the binding strips

Top purfling

Adding the top purfling.  White teflon strips hold the birdfoot purfling line in place.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Adding backs to sides


Notching the sides to recieve the back braces.  I cut the notch with a small back saw then rout out the wood in between with a dremmel



Clamping the back.  Inside shot

Clamping the back, outside shot

Back joint dry, out of the mold with overhang trimmed off




Clamping on the back of the 000 guitar
Inside of 000 guitar.  Joint is cured.  Ready to have top glued on.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Braces, carving and gluing

000 top preliminary carving on braces

This is the brace carving jig that holds the brace (which is just visible) and acts as a pattern for the router table


Lyndsay's guitar side.  Gluing on a patch of veneer to strengthen the area where a sound port will be carved.

Lyndsay's L-00 back with braces glued on

Gluing on the back braces for Rick's 000

This is Ricks guitar.  Dark glitter has been sprinkled on the top and then the top is subjected to a loud pure tone to see how various parts of the top are vibrating.  The glitter congregates in the vibration nodes

here is the signal generator for that drives the speaker

here you can see the top held by the area that is under the fingerboard (and will probably not make a huge impact on the sound of the guitar) suspended over a guitar amplifier that is driven by the signal generator.  This generates the chladni patterns that are hard to interprete but over time give the builder some insight into the overall resonance of the top and braces before the top is glued onto the sides.

braces and reinforcement

Gluing on the back reinforcement using a go bar deck

Back reinforcement on Lyndsay's back

Top braces glued on in the square

carving braces

back plates thinned

the two guitars that are getting the most attention.  Cocobolo back for Rick's guitar and Koa guitar for Lyndsay's guitar.

Koa back exposed

Friday, October 15, 2010

working the plates

Cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa) is such an oily wood that it gums up the sandpaper in my abrasive planer real fast.  I am going to finish thinning Rick's back down by hand.  This is a scraper planer and you can see the fine shavings it takes off the wood 
Rick's Top
Gluing on the bridgeplate 
Clamping the bridgeplate down to the top (which is resting in a dished workboard).
This is a gobar deck that I use to clamp braces and such onto tops and backs


Some braces clamped into place using the gobar deck.  I am using hot hide glue as an adhesive for all the sound producing plates (top and back)

Monday, October 11, 2010

A few more rosette construction shots

Removing the teflon strip

Inlaying the abalone strips

Completed rosette of the L-00  (Lyndsay's guitar)