2nd build from a KMG 00 Kit

[naccoachbob]

This kit from Kenneth Michaels Guitars is East Indian Rosewood with an Engelmann top. It will have bloodwood bindings top and back as well as binding the ebony fretboard. If that's not enough bloodwood, the headstock veneer will also be from that wood. Ken made me a rosewood rosette with abalam surrounding it (pic to follow). Also, he made this great 5 piece neck of mahogany, maple, and a strip of bloodwood in it. This one will be for my daughter, and she kinda likes red, so that's the reason for all the bloodwood on it.
I've already contributed real blood to the top while trimming down a couple of the braces, so it seems appropriate.
I won't go thru all the steps, but will show some pictures as I progress.

First up, the sides with reverse kerfing. I'm liking that kerfing - the body feels very stable to me right now.



Here's the top with the bass braces being clamped.



The neck is really going to look good on this body I think.



I'm really excited to start this one. My daughter's name is Joann, but we call her Joey. So I'm asking Jimmy Wingert to do an inlay for me of a baby kangaroo (a joey) on the headstock veneer. Hope to have this finished by Joey's birthday in late July.
Thanks for looking.
Bob

[Fliss]

Beautiful rosewood, Bob, that's going to be a lovely little guitar. And to make it for your daughter, that's something special. Did the kit come with the sides bent and the neck shaped ready?

Fliss

[naccoachbob]

Fliss,
Yes, they were bent and the neck shaped. The rosewood looks a lot better than the picture shows. I think the flash killed it. Also, the neck does not have the dark spots that the pic showed on the headstock and near the heel. It's smooth and very consistent in its coloring.
By the way, Ken included those cam clamps (a reasonable extra charge), and I assembled them. They sure make life easier.
I don't have the equipment to bend, nor the talent (yet) to shape a neck.
Maybe when I retire in about 3 years I'll try doing something from scratch.

Neither of my kids (she's 23 - soon to be 24, and he's 22) play, but I saw a thread earlier where members were talking about receiving guitars from their parents, etc., or what they would do with their guitars later on, and I thought I'd make one for each of mine. And hopefully they will keep and pass them down. There's no way I'll leave a fortune to them, but I can put my hands to use and try to make them something unique that they can keep and pass down.

Bob

[Steve Kinnaird]

Looks great Bob.
Our motto around here is that it isn't "our" work until we've bled on it.
It's a true sign of ownership... your DNA is truly in this instrument.

Steve

[naccoachbob]

Yeh, Steve. Looks like I "own" both of my builds so far. There's blood on each of them.
Here's the Inlay that Jimmi Wingert's going to do for me. She sent 3 designs. The first was a single kangaroo but without the sun. Here's the 3rd. Just remove the smaller 'roo and that will be it. Ebony for the black, not sure what she has in mind for the sun.

The headstock is a Kathy Wingert headstock. Both of the Wingerts are very creative.



Bob

[blackie51]

Bob,

The large and small kangaroos have the look of parent & child to them. Since this guitar is destined to be given to your daughter, might be nice to leave both of the kangaroos as a symbol of the guitar going from parent to child. Just my $0.02.

Tom

[naccoachbob]

Blackie51, I had thought about that, my wife said "There's only 1 Joey", I said "Well, we're putting both on there". So we compromised.
We went with 1.

[jarfly]

nice compromise :P
That will be a great combo between the neck and the body! Lets see that rosette now!

[naccoachbob]

Sorry, I've been remiss in my duties. After a long wait for the humidity to get lower here in East Texas (that's a laugh), I borrowed my father-in-law's de-humidifier and started building the box.
Here's the rosette:



And here's the headstock veneer inlay. I'm blown away:



I glued the top and back in using a mold from KMG that allows me to use rubber bands instead of go-bars. On this, my 2nd build, it worked like a charm. Hardly any pressure was needed to make the top and back fit. Prior to closing the box though, I took the top and back to Steve Kinnaird and Ryan Middlebrook for advice and a critique. As I had figured, I was very much over-braced. On my 1st build, I simply used the bracing that Stewmac provided and didn't shape it much beyond what they gave me. As a result, I'm sure I lost something there. Although it sounds good, I'm betting this one will be better as a result of the comments and direction I got from Steve and Ryan.



I'm going to inlay the fretboard, too. Using rectangles I got from Custom Luthier, I've already glued each piece down and scribed around the edge. Then I used chalk dust to show the outline. So far, I've got one cavity cut and when it was completed, the piece fit pretty well. I can see a bit of irregularity, but when I'm ready to glue it, I will put some black magic marker all over the MOP and then super glue it in place. The magic marker should dissolve and leave behind all the black, which will get into the glue and should hide my mistakes. It's really cool working with a 1/32" bit and wearing the visor that magnifies it. Under the visor, I can see some deviation, but to the naked eye, it looks pretty good.



The other day, the end wedge went in, but not without problems. Somehow, I bent (how the heck does that happen?) the cut for one edge of the cavity for the wedge. So it didn't look very good. The 2nd piece I put down to use didn't quite cover things, so I took a big piece of bloodwood that I got from RC Tonewoods and cut it to shape. Here's the embarrassing part. That piece was way thicker than the wedges that I'd used. Rather than sand it all down when it was installed, I decided to use the stationary belt sander that I have to thin it down. Ya know, a 4" piece of wood will really fly when you set it down on a belt sander. However, fingers don't! The piece went flying and my 1st and 3rd fingers hit the sand paper. I'll not be playing guitar for a while.



The piece did go in exactly perfect for me. But there was a bit of sanding left, so I used a random orbit sander to get it down. During that, a very tiny piece of rosewood broke off right next to the wedge. I should be able to cover it, but it's got me p***ed off. It doesn't show very well in the picture, but the piece that came off is on the lower left of the wedge. There's another part that came off up at the top that's somewhat visible, but it will be covered by binding, so no problem.

Hopefully this weekend I can put the binding and purfling on. The top will have w/r/w/r purfling next to the bloodwood. Very thin pieces, so I think it will look good. The back will only have the bloodwood.........unless I play around and decide I want some w/r/w on it. Probably not.
Thanks for looking,
Bob

[naccoachbob]

I used rosewood sawdust I got from routing a waste piece, flung a bunch of it into the hole, squirted some CA, and later sanded it back flush. Somewhere a magician is saying "Why didn't I think of that?". The error is gone.
Today, I finished cutting the rectangular MOP inlay on the fretboard. The errors I made were very small, and should disappear once I've sanded it down. I used thin CA and coated the bottom of each cavity and placed the pieces in, then used more CA around the edges. If I understand right, I might see pockets of air later on, so I'll inspect this tomorrow for those pockets. An exacto knife to burst them, then spot with more CA. Then sand.
One thing of note, I found that when doing the edges I have more control when I go sideways as opposed to moving the bit towards myself. Some of that, I thought, had to do with my going with the grain as the bit came to me, but later I had the piece sideways, and felt the same thing.
Here's the f/b after all the gluing today:



Ken provided the f/b attached to some MDF. I'm going to cut the f/b to the width I want (which, with the binding will be 1 13/16"), without cutting the MDF. Then I will put plastic shipping tape over the MDF and screw the f/b back on. That way, if I use CA to glue the binding, it won't stick to the background.
The MOP is a bit more proud of the f/b than I wanted, but I was worried that if I cut the hole all the way to the depth of the MOP (.06"), that the center would be below the f/b due to its radius. I think I only ended up .005 or a bit more higher than the fretboard. But that's gonna be a lotta sanding, UGH!

[Kitchen Guitars]

Looks great.

[naccoachbob]

Cut the f/b to size today and used a straight edge to clean up the sides. Got it a little smaller than I wanted, but with the bindings on it, it will still be between 1 11/16" and 1 13/16" at the nut.
Here it is after I cleaned up the inlay a good bit. Still a little sanding to do, but it's looking good. I can see very few mistakes, and they should clean up nicely. Beside them are the pieces of bloodwood for the binding. I've given up trying to inlay rectangular side fret markers on it. I'll probably use some left over dot material if I can find it. It just looked like too much work, and I don't have proper tools for making sure the edges are all square and precise. Shame, because I really love that effect. Also, I just got a new Nikon digital camera and it has a macro mode so I can get close up pics now that don't look all fuzzy.



And, still playing with the camera, I wanted to show off Jimmin Wingert's inlay for the headstock veneer. The two tuning machines closest to the nut will fit somewhere in the sun, and I traced the outline last night to make sure. Can't wait to finish this part of the neck.



Thanks for looking,
Bob

[naccoachbob]

Finally got the fretboard all inlayed, bound, and about ready to fret.



I'm really happy about how it turned out. I hadn't intended to round the end of it, but when I was cutting it to size at that end of the board, I cut it a bit shorter than it should have been. When placed on the top, it would have left the missing part of the rosette showing. So I had to cheat a bit. Even at that, I ended up cutting a bit of the abalone from another hidden area and completing the inner ring. You can barely see the inner ring with this as it is. The hardest part was bending that piece to fit at the edges. So, I turned a mistake into a "feature"!!
Puts kind of a smile on that end of the fretboard.
Thanks for looking,
Bob

[naccoachbob]

I thought I'd updated in here more recently, but guess not.
While routing the top and back, the router bit dropped down about another 3/8" past where the binding should had been. Not sure if it was the collet or my not locking it down tight enough. At any rate, it ruined the sides.
I cussed, threw everything but the guitar, and then lost it in frustration. Man was that the worst time ever?
I cut the top and back off, trying to salvage them. But when I got new sides, even though I used the same mold set the same way (it's adjustable, but hadn't been touched since I pulled the box out the first time), the top just wouldn't make it. Too much gone, since I'd routed for purfling before the binding. The back was saved. So I also got a new top, with the same rosette. And it looks very good.

Sunday I glued on the back:



And this evening, put on the top:




The top didn't need the clamps on either end, the rubber bands got good contact, and the top was flush all the way around. I just did it to insure the blocks at both ends were totally in contact.
I'm bought a brand new bit, will tighten it down solidly, and practice on scrap until I'm sure it won't move. Then I'll cut the binding and purfling channels.
The back did have 1 spot where it would leave a very tiny gap if I just use the binding, so I ordered some bloodwood purfling strips. W/Bloodwood/W on the back, along with W/Bloodwood/W/Bloodwood on the top (previously it was going to be red. But bloodwood is a them on this, with the headstock, inner stripe on the back of the neck, binding on the fretboard, etc.
Hopefully, if I go slow, and watch very closely, I will succeed with this.
I wonder how easy it is to work with one of these:
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdpro...hneider+Gramil
Has anyone any experience with one? Any tips on how to use it?
Much appreciated.
Thanks for looking,
Bob

[Neil K Walk]

Sorry to hear of your setback, but it looks like you're back in business. Good luck!