Another McKnight Build - Page 14

Tim McKnight · #**196** 12-05-2011, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by naccoachbob

Tim, in the pictures above that show you with the ruler laying horizontal across the frets and feeler gauges underneath the ruler, what exactly are you measuring there?
A wild guess here, gulp, but were you figuring fret height so you could use those gauges plus another fixed amount to figure nut string height?
Thanks,
Bob

ps I was going to refer to the pictures' names, but, uh, we might never have connected on that.

Hi Bob,
You are essentially correct. I measure the distance between the top of the frets to the surface of the fingerboard and that gives me the total fret height as installed which is approximately .040". Next I stack feeler gauges to the fret height (.040") and then add .020" to that dimension which is .060" in this case. I set the feeler gauge stack on the surface of the fret board and then butt the edge of the feeler gauges against the nut and file the e and B string slots until the nut file just touches the feeler gauge stack. That gives me a nut slot depth that is .020" taller than the height of the frets. The middle two strings slots are filed to +.030" and the top two strings are filed to +.040" above the fret height. This is JUST a starting point and a tad high. After the saddle height is set and action adjusted at the 12th fret, I fine tune the nut slot depths to a more comfortable action. This is certainly not the only way to do this task, its just the method that I use.

Tim McKnight · #**197** 12-05-2011, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chazmo

Tim and Mary,

Thanks so much for sharing another awesome guitar build with us! You guys rock!

Its been our pleasure but BK certainly gets to share the credit. Its been a lot of work posting all of these pictures and we are certainly grateful to him for sharing his excitement with all of us.

Chazmo · #**198** 12-06-2011, 06:56 PM

Indeed! Thanks, BK!!

Mary · #**199** 12-07-2011, 09:01 AM

Within a few days I will take pictures of Tim and he takes pictures that are suitable for framing. Then Bruce will get the final pictures for his private stock and shots of Tim packing the guitar for shipping.

We try to keep the customer in the know as much as possible. Bruce has been a gem for posting his pictures and letting me know he has them safe on his own computer. THAT's a big relief on my end.

naccoachbob · #**200** 12-07-2011, 05:25 PM

As very much new in the art of lutherie, I'm bookmarking this thread to review as I progress on my next one. It's not only the craftsmanship, but the tiny, little things that Tim and others do that make these guitars special. And having reminders of that ain't a bad thing.
Bob

bk314159 · #**201** 12-07-2011, 06:09 PM

Roy - I totally agree - Mary and Tim are amazing to work with and their results are spectacular.

Chazmo - I posted the photos, by Tim and Mary are the true artists. It's nice to know that other people enjoy build photos as much as I do.

And this will be the set of photos from Mary. Some of these are of Tim taking the final photos which I hope to get soon. When I do, I'll post them also.

The microphone is back in Mary's hand -

Putting the photo studio up:

Tim's picture will be much better:

bk314159 · #**202** 12-07-2011, 06:18 PM

Time to pack her up and send her off -

The guitar case is labeled

Placing the guitar in the case:

Wiping the finger prints off:

Closing the case:

Clips for backpack straps:

Chazmo · #**203** 12-07-2011, 06:30 PM

That's some case too! Is that a Calton?

bk314159 · #**204** 12-07-2011, 06:37 PM

The case is wrapped in cloth:

The guitar in a bag is packed in bubble wrap:

(editorial BK - This is my "goodie" bag of the raw materials, strings, etc.)

Marked, weighed and ready for U P S:

I want to thank Mary and Tim for allowing me to feel as though I was almost in their home for this build. They have both been very gracious with their time and their patience. This build initially was going to have a Carpathian top which I changed to LS Redwood, which was changed to the final 50 year old Redwood. The back was initially Malaysian Blackwood which morphed to the Ziricote. With those changes, the binding and purfling changed. Through out the process, Mary and Tim were always supportive and very understanding.

I'd like to thank all of those of you who have followed this build. I do apologize (again) for including so many photos. I know the photos are what I love of the other builds people have posted. I'm still amazed at the vast number of steps it takes to build a guitar. For the other luthiers that may have followed this build - I hope I may have included a shot of some procedure that you might not of thought of or did differently. This was for we layman who are blown away by your craftsmanship. I'm sure many of us would love to be like the old-geezers that hang out at Wayne Henderson's shop. For most of us we have to do this virtually.

All my best,
BK

fulfillingsoul · #**205** 12-07-2011, 06:49 PM

This is one of my favourite threads. Will always revisit it to enjoy the journey.

Thanks for sharing!

Dru Edwards · #**206** 12-08-2011, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fulfillingsoul

This is one of my favourite threads. Will always revisit it to enjoy the journey.

Thanks for sharing!

Same here. I love those final pics!!! Very impressive on the shipping packaging as well. Now we just have to wait for the review.

Mary · #**207** 12-08-2011, 06:10 AM

Thank you, Bruce. Thank you to all the others who participated in this thread.

I'm no photographer, but it is fun to share the build pictures each week. Thank you for letting me invade each of your homes.

Respectfully,
Mary

bk314159 · #**208** 12-08-2011, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fulfillingsoul

This is one of my favourite threads. Will always revisit it to enjoy the journey.

Thanks for sharing!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Same here. I love those final pics!!! Very impressive on the shipping packaging as well. Now we just have to wait for the review.

Thank you Dru and fulfillingsoul. I obviously feel the same.

I think if all you saw was the packing portion of this thread, you'd know the pride and the dedication to excellence that the McKnights bring to everything they do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chazmo

That's some case too! Is that a Calton?

I'm hoping Mary or Tim will hop in and answer that one.

BK

Tim McKnight · #**209** 12-08-2011, 11:28 AM

No its not a Calton case. They do make fine cases but we found it too stressful waiting for cases that never arrived.

The [standard] cases we offer (like the one pictured) are fiberglass cases, slighter lighter in weight than Calton cases but certainly pro-level road and flight worthy as we have flown them all over the globe with no issues.

We do offer custom Cedar Creek and Ameritage plywood cases as well as Karrura and Hoffee carbon fiber cases as options to all our customers. Though we have found that our stock fiberglass case will meet the needs of 98% of our client base.

bk314159 · #**210** 12-09-2011, 03:15 PM

I just received 26 final photos from Tim. That makes an amazing grand total of 900 photos - I repeat 900 photos!

Since the photos are much larger in size I'm only going to post my favorite 5 to keep the bandwidth down.

She arrives Tuesday. I'm sure this is going to be a long weekend.

Once again - Thank you Tim - Thank you Mary - Thank you all!

BK