Thread: Acoustic build no 1

Thanks for the offer Rob. It certainly looks nice against the darker back and sides. I might hit you up for some when you turn up a longer piece.

I think I may have even seen a London Plane tree yesterday after doing a little bit of reading on the species. I was driving so didn't get a chance to go back and verify. Funny how you notice different things with new knowledge.

I definitely like how your guitar mold can be used to hold the body in a vice. I was scraping mine recently with the guitar on the floor between my knees while I sat on a milk crate!

I spent a lot of time this week checking scale length, string spacing,putting it on templates, and comparing to bridge position and neck to body join, instead of making two more jigs for the neck I thought I would try to cut by hand,and leave the neck shaping till later,once I had the angle right,then I could lay the scale length from the bridge to the nut,mark out the rest of the neck and cut, I think I had to do it this way because I had left so little room for error by making my bridge plate smaller
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cutting the neck end went well, I then used this to mark out the body and used the router to take out the waste,and shaved it in with the chisel, got in to trouble though,took off too much down at the thin end on the left.

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Ended up I had to fill the left end about one third from the back, at the bottom half. I made up a 2 pack epoxy with saw dust mix , next day cut back to the right line and fitted the neck, had to shim the thing twice, most of wich was sanded off, ended up dead on line and rock solid,after six hours

Later I realised I have made my dovetail to long so that the gap does not sit under the 15 th fret which is only a problem for doing a neck re set,I think ? then got to thinking about a neck re set, and thought the only way you could do a re set with a truss rod is remove the fret board first, then take out the truss rod ,steam out the neck,adjust and put back together, is that right ?

Marked out the rest of the neck and roughed out on the band saw, did that thing lose some weight ! then shaped it to within 1 mm, cant get over what how thin it is without the fret board and strings, sat down and did some pretend strumming.

I did it again . Looking forward to building a jig for next time . cheers Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

Later I realised I have made my dovetail to long so that the gap does not sit under the 15 th fret which is only a problem for doing a neck re set,I think ? then got to thinking about a neck re set, and thought the only way you could do a re set with a truss rod is remove the fret board first, then take out the truss rod ,steam out the neck,adjust and put back together, is that right ?

All looking good Rob,

A hand cut dovetail...I take my hat off to you Sir!

Re your concerns....if it comes to a neck re-set the important thing is that there is a bit of space between the end of the tenon and the back of the mortise to allow some steam to be pumped in. The steam is pumped in via a hole drilled down at an angle through the nearest fret slot (fret removed)...this will be either the 12th or 14th fret depending on instrument design. No need to remove the fretboard. The hole is drilled to one side of the fret slot to avoid hitting the truss rod.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

All looking good Rob,

A hand cut dovetail...I take my hat off to you Sir! .

I'd like to second that.

And I look forward to learning that skill, and I have to confess that I find that work bench quite impressive as well, it's a beauty.

Thanks Martin and Wal, Wal, the bench I made about fifteen years back,Jarrah with Red Gum threads.
The guitar with roughed out neck fitted
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Roughed the heel and sides in the vice with gouge , block plane and spoke shave,then glued down at three points with Loctite with paper in between
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Sharpened the curved end of this scraper by holding square on the linisher,more scraping and spoke shave work ,and then snapped it of at the paper join
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cheers Rob

Looks great Rob, excellent progress.

Made up the truss rod and covered it in heat shrink
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Did the trench with the little Makita, would use a router next time, with a longer bit
and a thicker template , just like the book sugested, I had to muck about with this set up,
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Did a bit of a finish on the top, I gave it a wipe over with Oxalic acid to remove some oxide stains,fine sand with 400 , a wipe with glue size ,dry of with heat gun , fine sand, then about four quick goes with a rubber with blonde shellac and the UB hard shellac mixed in.

Then set up the table saw and a jig to cut the fret slots with the new blade for frets,did the first cut to find it was too wide ,the blade was not clamped in right and had a slight wobble, lucky I had left the fret board too long. cheers Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

Yeah Steve, the shavings are a funny thing, I cant help but stop and spread one out, hold it to the light and think if only I could use it somewhere .

I hate disposing of my rosewood and ebony shavings....they are so long and curly and awesome...

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

A hand cut dovetail...I take my hat off to you Sir!

I also have to take my hat off to that effort, nice one

Nice job on the neck Rob. How did the hard shellac do mixed in with the regular shellac? Will you be using straight hard shellac for the top coats? Some really great work going on in the forum, Steve's guitar is really shaping up and did you see the pictures Martin posted of his work? Great stuff ! Hope you and everyone in the forum has a Merry Christmas. Mike

Thanks Andrew and Mike, we do a fair bit of hand dovetails at work, so I thought I would give it a go ,very touchy going though with all the different directions it has to be lined up.
I did a post on the finishing section and asked about the mixing of hard shellac and normal, was told it will work but alters the hardness at the end,so went with it, probably will mix through to the end,am going to take off the coats that I put on the top and start again , noticed a bit that needs a sand,Yeah saw Martins thread ,looked very nice, almost added to it but noticed it had been put on a while back and the question was being asked about jigs for neck joins. Thanks for the Merry Christmas Mike ,same to you from down under, what's the temperature where you are at the moment, and do you have snow? cheers Rob

I sawed my fretboard on the table saw with the Stewmac blade and template made to register on a brass strip,had a problem with the blade not seating right, it had a wobble, luckily it was to long so moved it along after fixing the blade, this was the start of my problems . After checking dimensions glued it down with the hide glue.Attachment 156616 Attachment 156617

Next day took off clamps and saw gaps between neck and fretboard, also a crack in the ebony from 11th to 19th fret that moved when pushed, glued on the veneer at the head, that cupped and did not seat well and realized my glue was to thick and was gelling to fast ,and that was what caused the problems with the neck, also by rushing in to it I had not read the instruction to put a convex curve in the caul that pressed the fretboard down,so I took off the veneer at the head , thinned the glue down and re glued
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The fret board came off with the iron and knife , was amazed to see how much had not made contact when I flipped it over, and the crack went right through, and the neck had warped a bit as well.

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I had two more ebony boards to choose from ,these were from Stewmac and the grain seemed better than the first board which I got from a different supplier here,I spent a lot more time checking the position,and got it a little more accurate than the first,set up my little spot lights and with the help of glasses test fitted it ,pinned it in two spots through where dot markers will be and used extra cauls, still had not checked the book to read about the convex caul that should have been usedand decided that I was not going to risk it and used two pack to glue it down, not proud of that, if it has to come off it will be with a chisel and plane
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Clamps came off the next day and it looks good .

I like the look of the Ebony fretboard Rob, really contrasts well with the top. Shame about the split but looks like it wasn't too difficult to remove the board first time.

It's funny how after various deviations in sequence our builds have now come back together.

Originally Posted by stevemc32

It's funny how after various deviations in sequence our builds have now come back together.

Yeah it is a funny thing.
I will be taking off for a ten days tomorrow, thinking of taking the build to the bush and doing the polish job, I bought a case for it off ebay, just have to get the back of the neck finished and a final sand to the body,I will see what interesting pictures I can take polishing on the land.
Cheers Rob