McKnight all-walnut 00-12 fret build

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by cigarfan

Cool sound port. Really shaping up.

Thanks Dennis. I'm generally not a huge fan of sound ports on (OO and smaller) guitars. The ones that I have experimented with tend to rob some power from already under powered guitars so I was hesitant to put one on this guitar at the customer's request. He suggested making a smaller than normal port so I agreed to give it a try.

I took our regular sized Luckenbooth sound port and gradually shrank it down to a size that I felt would still offer some feedback to the player but not be a deficit to the small bodied guitar. I can't explain the physics behind the design, but from our testing, the Luckenbooth has always measured the greatest volume increase of dB's of any sound port design that we have made so I felt this design would have the biggest positive effect. I think it has something to do with how the sound emits from multiple holes as opposed to a single hole port, but that is purely a hunch.

So here is where we started. The Luckenbooth on the far right is our standard size for midsize to large bodied guitars. The one on the far left is well, much smaller:





I accomplished this by taking my CAD design and reducing it and then outputting the designs through CAM software to our CNC machine:





Small gizmos like these are difficult to hold in position to machine them without breaking them into a million pieces. Here's a trick that I've learned is to start with a larger piece of wood, cut the Luckenbooth port almost all the way through it but leave about .010" of material in the bottom of the cut. This keeps the small pieces attached to the larger sacrificial piece of wood. After the CNC does its thing, I place wide painter's tape over the machined side of all the small pieces, then run the opposite side through my thickness sander to remove the final .010" of material from the bottom. Then I peel the Luckenbooth ports from the painter's tape without any breakage, if that makes sense?





Another method that I often use is to design a "TAB" to hold the small pieces to the rest of the board. After machining I just cut the tabs off with a bandsaw. This method works equally well but does leave a bit more work to do.





After some dialog with SongWriterFan we agreed that brown ebony would match the bindings and look better than the walnut Luckenbooth.





Then we had to add some .020" thick Maple purfling around the perimeter to match the binding theme.











Now we had to inlay the medalion sound port into place by cutting a ragged jagged hole into the side using a Dremel router.

[Tim McKnight]

Add just a "tich" of glue as Mary would say:






Sand it level and we are almost done except for the finish that I am IMPATIENTLY waiting on!

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by Steve Kinnaird

I love them "in the white" like this. Or would that be "in the brown"?
Whichever, this looks great.

Steve

Hey thanks Steve. I get impatient in the white or "in the brown" waiting to see our work under finish. Its such a pleasure to witness the true beauty that only He creates.

[Neil K Walk]

Nice work and nice touch, Tim. I like the medallion look. The puddling really makes it pop decoratively speaking.

[riorider]

I really like the small port...

Thanks for the pics and discussion!

Agree with your observations on multi-hole ports, Tim.



Phil

[TuckerRE]

Lovely build and sound port treatment, Tim. And must be the season for 00's! Thanks for sharing the entire stream oh photos! Helps me not get to work in time and enjoy my coffee longer!

[Guitars44me]

I like the port idea. Thanks for sharing your technique!

Lovely axe coming here!!!

Cheers

Paul

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

Nice work and nice touch, Tim. I like the medallion look. The puddling really makes it pop decoratively speaking.

Thanks Neil. Of course you know that I'm a puddler from way back.

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by riorider

I really like the small port...

Thanks for the pics and discussion!

Agree with your observations on multi-hole ports, Tim.



Phil

Sounds like words spoken by a man who has experienced multi holed sound ports 😉

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by TuckerRE

Lovely build and sound port treatment, Tim. And must be the season for 00's! Thanks for sharing the entire stream oh photos! Helps me not get to work in time and enjoy my coffee longer!

Sorry about holding you up from your day job Bob but as they say "a picture is worth a 1000 words". Sometimes I find it difficult to put the process into words so a shared pictorial helps folks understand some of the thought and steps to get to the end goal.

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

I like the port idea. Thanks for sharing your technique!

Lovely axe coming here!!!

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Paul.

[printer2]

You do realize all these Luckenbooth sound ports now need a home?

[Neil K Walk]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Thanks Neil. Of course you know that I'm a puddler from way back.

LOL. "Purfling". I blame auto correct, but I'd look into that puddling problem. There has been lots of rain in Ohio.

[gregc]

Tim, impressive as always, and still getting better. Beautiful, my friend.

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by gregc

Tim, impressive as always, and still getting better. Beautiful, my friend.

Thanks for the compliments Greg.