Thread: #1 Acoustic Build

De-clamped the fretboard last night and was a bit disappointed.

Firstly I managed to damage one of the back braces when a clamp through the soundhole dropped onto it as I released it...

Then once fully de-clamped I found that the board had managed to slide a little out of alignment. I guess I wasn't careful enough when clamping but I thought that two small tacks used under the board would hold it in place.

On further inspection this morning I found that it's about 1mm off centre at the headstock and about 1.5mm off centre in the opposite direction down at the butt strip so the fretboard crosses the centreline somewhere along it's length.

Attachment 156544Attachment 156545

I did think about trying to remove it and re-glue but more measuring showed that the bridge will only need to be displaced about 1mm from the centreline to get it all square and I think I can live with that. You can notice a bit of misalignment at the soundhole end in the photo above.

Doesn't look so bad when you take a step back.

Attachment 156546

Steve, I think I could live with that, don't believe it will be noticable when it's completed. I had the same thing happen once when I tried to use a couple of brads with the ends pointed, to locate the board while gluing. I went to using pieces of spring wire that I use for gunsmithing, but I suppose any stiff wire would do as long as it's smaller than the width of the fret slot and you can get a bit to match it's diameter. I drill through a fret slot at each end and a bit into the neck, then drill holes to match their locations in the caul ( I drill the holes in the caul a larger dia.), slip the wire through the fretboard, slap some glue on the neck and clamp. I wait about 15 minutes for the glue to set enough that things won't move and yank the wires out. Looks good!

Looking very nice there Steve.

Thanks guys.

Pressing on, I had a chance to shape up the neck today and it feels pretty good. It's probably just a little thicker than I'm used to and having just picked up my favourite acoustic for a quick strum I think I might end up thinning it a little further. In any case, it still needs some substantial sanding time...

Attachment 156688Attachment 156689

The next picture shows the soundboard end of the fretboard with a straightedge on top of it.

Attachment 156690

The build method I'm following indicates that after gluing on the fretboard it should be checked to ensure it's perfectly flat from nut to soundhole, however I'm not sure how this could occur since I was required to introduce a 1° to 2° neck angle into the mount? Unless I had packed underneath the soundhole end of the fretboard I don't think there was ever much chance of it remaining flat after gluing on.

I'm now supposed to re-sand the fretboard to ensure it's flat along it's length but that would involve removing quite a bit of the fretboard thickness around the middle of the board and would probably remove my fret markers along with it.

Checking Cumpiano and Natelson indicates that a slight drop from the 14th fret to the soundhole can be accepted but also talks about pre-tensioning the truss rod and arching the fretboard by planing and sanding out the hump. I couldn't find anything about this arching of the fretboard in either the TLG DVD or the Kinkade book.

So some advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated. Should I sand out the centre section of the board until it's flat along the entire length? Should I be pre-tensioning the truss rod first and possibly end up sanding out even more of the fretboard or should I just carry on knowing that the board is flat from nut to 14th fret and accept that?

Originally Posted by stevemc32

So some advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated. Should I sand out the centre section of the board until it's flat along the entire length? Should I be pre-tensioning the truss rod first and possibly end up sanding out even more of the fretboard or should I just carry on knowing that the board is flat from nut to 14th fret and accept that?

Is this guitar a flat top or is the top domed?

What is the current height of the straight edge above the top at bridge position when straight edge is lying flat on fretboard between nut and 14th fret? With the fretboard OFF I adjust neck rake so a straight edge along the neck is clear of the top by around 10mm. Youve got the fretboard on so youll have to add on thickness of same to work out the desired clearance. Note that sanding the fretboard below 14th fret is going to change the final finished string height at the bridge. This all needs to be checked before sanding the fretboard if you decide to go down this route.



My first build was an OM flat top and it has a bit of drop away from around the 14th fret to the end of the fretboard. I would just live with out as per advice in Campiano's book.

I guess it's a flat top. There's a slight curve in the belly of the soundboard but above the soundhole is certainly flat.

I'll check the measurements tomorrow and see how it looks.

Thanks.

[QUOTE=kiwigeo;1252644]
What is the current height of the straight edge above the top at bridge position when straight edge is lying flat on fretboard between nut and 14th fret? With the fretboard OFF I adjust neck rake so a straight edge along the neck is clear of the top by around 10mm.

Talk about make a bloke run for the book ! I hope you have made a mistake here Martin, Kinkade , 2-3 mm gap at bridge position with fretboard off.

With 7mm fretboard, 9-10 mm gap at bridge position
I hope you got it wrong and I am not reading this the wrong way

cheers Rob.

[quote=auscab;1252679]

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

What is the current height of the straight edge above the top at bridge position when straight edge is lying flat on fretboard between nut and 14th fret? With the fretboard OFF I adjust neck rake so a straight edge along the neck is clear of the top by around 10mm.

Talk about make a bloke run for the book ! I hope you have made a mistake here Martin, Kinkade , 2-3 mm gap at bridge position with fretboard off.

With 7mm fretboard, 9-10 mm gap at bridge position
I hope you got it wrong and I am not reading this the wrong way

cheers Rob.

Yes I did get it wrong...last post was type after 3 Steinlagers. Sorry for that. 2-3mm sounds about right. I was thinking of the strung up clearance for some reason.

Ok if your clearance is good then you have a choice of working the fretboard down until it's flat and losing some clearance at the bridge or just leaving it. I think you said you've got your markers in already...that is going to be a deciding factor also. Given what you've posted up Id live with the slight fall away above the 14th fret.

My steel strings have top doming (25-30' radius) that extends to upper bout so this reduces fall away above neck join.

Cheers Martin

Ha Ha ,thats funny, I was sitting here with my Boags thinking Martin is taking the P ,he's got Steve running out to his shed and Me going for the book,and he's waiting to see what happens .
Must be that fancy beer Mate what's wrong with the local drop, Coopers

Martin what is a good book ,or web site to read about doming with a dish? I see it being done a bit but none of my material covers it.

Cheers Rob

My plans called for a gap at the bridge position of about 10 mm with the 1st and 14th fret fitted to the board. Measurements this morning show about 7.5mm with the frets off so around 9mm with the frets fitted. Too small to be taking anything off at the 14th fret as you mentioned so I'll just leave it as is.

The dip away from level at the 19th fret is about 0.75mm so shouldn't be too bad.

Thanks for your help.


And Rob, I guess Steinlager is probably Martin's local drop. He's just not local to it at the moment!

Ok, back into the build!

I got the neck thinned out a little today and left it with a bit of a D shape instead of the C that I'm used to. Haven't played with this shaped neck before so thought I'd give it a try. It's down to about 22mm at the 1st fret and 24mm at the 10th fret so still a fraction thicker than I'm used to but it feels ok.

I then knocked up a very crude fret wire bender with screen door wheels from Bunnings. It did the job.

Attachment 156884

Once I got the bending radius sorted out the fretting was underway. It all went quite smoothly. I filed off the ends and made up a small bevel block to hold the file and bevel the ends of the frets. I did manage to bang the fretboard a number of times with the little hammer and marked up the soundhole while beveling the frets but it'll survive.

Attachment 156885Attachment 156886

Next step is the bridge.

Looking good Steve.

You say you filed the fret ends off. It's alot quicker to nip them flush with the side of the fretboard with some flush end nippers and then do the filing as part of the fret dressing operations.

Cheers Martin

Originally Posted by auscab

Must be that fancy beer Mate what's wrong with the local drop, Coopers

Martin what is a good book ,or web site to read about doming with a dish? I see it being done a bit but none of my material covers it.

Cheers Rob

Hey Rob,

Unfortunately Im not a Coopers man.....not into stale tasting ales. My old man back in NZ is the opposite...loves the stuff.

On to your question....I can't actually quote a reference to using a dish to dome the top of a steel string. I think I got the idea initially from articles in the GAL's Big Red Book series. There are also alot of guys on the OLF forum using the method.

I have a 25' and 15' radius dish lined with sandpaper for shaping braces for the top and back and I have unlined dishes which I mount in my go-bar deck and sit the top/back in the dish while gluing in braces. The sandpaper lined dishes also get used for sanding the sides of the guitar to fit the top and back.

Cheers Martin

Thanks Martin. I did nip the ends off the frets before filing them down to the fretboard side. Would have spent a very long time otherwise.

With regards to the soundboard dishes, do you mean similar to the ones from StewMac below?

Attachment 157091

Spent today on bridge construction and had a fairly productive time. First up was to cut out a little jig for routing the saddle slot. That worked quite well and I then spent some time cutting down the bone saddle blank and shaping it to fit the slot. It still needs to have the 16" radius curve sanded into the top.

Attachment 157092Attachment 157093

Then drilled and countersunk the bridge pin holes and started working on a bridge shape. I wanted to carry through the shape used on the headstock and fretboard end but found it was a little too severe for the bridge. A couple of iterations saw a design that I thought might look ok so that was transferred to the bridge and the shaping / sanding completed this afternoon. The first photo shows a bridge from another guitar that was a fallback design if I couldn't find anything I was happy with.

Attachment 157094Attachment 157095

Must admit I'm getting a bit excited about it now. Need to slow down and make sure I don't do anything stupid trying to get it completed in a hurry.