Thread: #2 Acoustic Build

Love the look of this one Steve.

Keep up the great work.

Rob, it's hard to see with the pictures. It's also kind of hard to explain, but more like the back and soundboard are not exactly the same shape so if I lay the body down on it's back with the neck and tail blocks vertical, there are areas where the sides are not vertical. The back is symmetrical across the upper bout where the soundboard is quite asymmetrical in that area.

I think the Queen Ebony does oxidise naturally but it takes a long time. I've had this fretboard blank for over a year and I can't really tell a difference from when I bought it. I believe Sitco will sell outside the shows but I couldn't be bothered trying to get in touch with them so I did a quick search and found Australian Tonewoods in WA stock the bridge and fretboard blanks so now I've got a bridge blank on the way over. I just picked up a small amount of what I'm told is Burdekin Plum in quartersawn fretboard friendly sizes that really looks good. I'm considering using that instead of the Queen Ebony...

Thanks for the encouragement Manny. I'm starting to get some enthusiasm back for this one now that it's coming together. Cut the blackwood bindings yesterday and hopefully get time to route binding channels tomorrow. I've made these ones much smaller than the bindings on my first guitar so hopefully won't have anywhere near the drama that ensued earlier.

Originally Posted by stevemc32

Cut the blackwood bindings yesterday and hopefully get time to route binding channels tomorrow. I've made these ones much smaller than the bindings on my first guitar so hopefully won't have anywhere near the drama that ensued earlier.

Hi Steve,

You mentioned the sides not being square (I think?). When you go to route binding channels be very careful if you're registering off the side with your router jig (eg as with Williams style jig). Any undulation in the profile of the side will cause a corresponding wander in the binding channel.

If you scrape or sand your sides to bring them level be careful you dont sand or scrape right through the side or make it so thin that the router jig pushes through the side....happened to a guy on another forum doing a uke binding job recently.

Good luck!

Martin

Thanks Martin.

That was definitely my concern when trying to level the sides. I've done most of it now and pretty sure I didn't go too far but had to settle for somewhat less than flat sides...

If the sides are grossly out of square or there are localised "bumps" one option is to cut your binding channels by hand using a Schneider or Ibex gramel or similar and chisel. You can also make up your own gramell and make the guide that registers off the side very short to registration is taken off the rim of the top/back. This is what I used on my lute which has sides that aren't square with the top of the instrument. I actually run around my tops and backs with the Schneider gramell before going in with the router..I find this reduces risk of tear out from the router.

That's a good idea making a cut before routing to avoid any tearout. The climb cuts worked well when trimming the soundboard and back on this one so I expect they should do ok for the binding.

I've learnt from Rob's routing advice on the previous guitar to do a shallow test cut all around to see if the bearing drops into any hollows before doing the final cut. Didn't get to routing the binding ledge today, hopefully have that sorted out tomorrow afternoon.

Bit more progress.

Finished off the binding with a bit more success than my attempts on No. 1. I used smaller bindings on this guitar and it definitely made it easier to ensure the bindings conformed to the shape of the guitar. I miscut the binding on the rear so there is a small gap about 1mm where they do not meet at the top of the back. It's filled with glue at the moment so not sure whether I will bother to dig it out and graft a piece in as the heel of the neck will mostly cover it.

Attachment 181709Attachment 181710

I decided to go with the Plum for the fretboard instead of the Queen Ebony. It's a little lighter than the Ebony and looked better with the Blackwood bindings and head plate. I've just used another simple dot pattern for the inlay and it's radiused to 16 inches.

Attachment 181711

Originally Posted by stevemc32

Bit more progress.

I miscut the binding on the rear so there is a small gap about 1mm where they do not meet at the top of the back. It's filled with glue at the moment so not sure whether I will bother to dig it out and graft a piece in as the heel of the neck will mostly cover it.

Looking good there Steve. Re the gap in the binding.....dont worry about the top binding as its covered by fretboard. The back binding....you could leave it but most luthiers find that things like this start to annoy them and eventually you'll lie in bed at night obsessing about it.

In this situation I normally just graft in a new section of binding/purfling using a scarf joint where graft joins with old binding. I normally do the surgery with my LMI mini chisels (2-4mm wide blades).

Cheers Martin

Thanks Martin.

I agree that the error on the back would probably start to really bug me after a while so I have attempted a correction. Twice in fact and both times I've chipped out the graft when cleaning it up. I'll have another go at it tomorrow and be a little more careful...

Much worse things have gone on today unfortunately. I managed to completely root up the neck join dovetail. Whilst routing the mortice in the jig, the guitar body moved and the dovetail bit slipped down in the router. I didn't notice this and made a total, off centre, mess of the whole thing.

Just had to keep routing till I got a nice clean mortice and cut a couple of sacrificial tenons to fill it back in. So that's two jobs that need to be repeated tomorrow. Hopefully with a bit more luck / skill / experience.

Attachment 181770Attachment 181771

Holy male moo cow excrement !! Steve ,don't those routers deserve to die slowly. I've had thoughts of throwing one in the water tank out the back while running then hanging it from a tree by its cord to watch it rust away , not that I'd dare blame the tool ,as I'm kicking it out the back door towards the water tank

Things could be worse,least you don't have to start over,looks like you patched it good.
The fret board and binding look good as well.
If I was doing the female part of the neck join I would be going at the center out ,till the last pass was the out side last 2 mm , and with a mark on part you can see to check to see if the bit is dropping.

With making furniture or restoration work, I'm triple checking, you have to invent ways for each job ,because these routers are more likely to do something like that than not do it ,and it can cost thousands of dollars.

So much is learned the hard way though, I just bought a nice old Wadkin table saw that I'm cleaning up to replace my Carbatec one ,this thing was built about 1963 and the way it has been engineered is amazing, I'm in love with it . The other day I thought I was doing the right thing by tapping out one of the shafts ,protecting all the right parts from damage, some one helping . I'm tapping away and he yells out stop stop !! " Your breaking off teeth " I look in the saw and Ive broken two teeth of the adjustment gear for the blade tilt another lesson learned the hard way.
cheers Rob

Yep, the router can certainly make a mess.

The second attempt was much more successful on the dovetail mortice so I then went and over-routed the dovetail tenon on the neck end... So it's shim city in this here neck joint, but it looks to have come up ok in the end.

Glad it all gets covered up and I really hope no one ever finds it necessary to pop the fretboard off while I'm still alive.

Attachment 181910Attachment 181911

Thats no good on the old Wadkin Rob, I guess replacement parts are a little hard to come by these days. I did something similar on my motorbike just recently and had to fork out $25 for a single nut to get it back on the road.

The neck glue up went fine and the fretboard went on today.

Attachment 182331

Steve, I've been checking occasionally on your progress and me thinks that is going to be one great looking guitar, if it sounds as good as it looks it will definitely be a keeper. Looking forward to seeing the finished product and hope you'll do a video playing it.Mike

Thanks Mike, good to see you're still around.

I've reached the sanding stage and was going to post another photo but it just looks the same as the last one with some frets installed so I'll hold off.

Not far to go now.