Mark,
Very interested to see how this build progresses and to see your extensive use of hand tools.

I'm also here for the bloodwood. It is my favourite wood, though not my favourite one to work with.

Thanks for following along!

How do you Replace a Band Saw?
 

It's likely you have a coping saw kicking around somewhere but, you're not sure where because you hate using that crappy tool you or your dad got from Sears a long time ago. The level of disdain only gets so high before the tool is banished to rust on a nail in the basement. Coping saws sell a lot of band saws!
Well this ain't your daddy's coping saw!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ba7b003e_b.jpg

It has an adjustable tension cam for easy blade changes and tightening up the blade. You can also throw the cam and rotate the blade in place so you can cut much deeper like when your cutting the waist of a guitar top.
With the lightweight rigid frame you can get those blades really tight so the blades don't wonder, chatter, and break when cutting.
I put a custom mesquite handle on it that puts weight where you want it and I now have a coping saw that I think of using first before the band saw.

Once I got hooked on this I went with their fret saw that does cuts you can't do with band saws like these sound ports:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b1b1bf95_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...2829389d_b.jpg

This fret saw has a titanium birdcage frame and weighs nothing except for the big heavier Mesquite handle I got for it. I'm willing to take on much more complicated sound ports because of these.

There will be more coming up on this one further into the build.

Thanks for a glimpse into your process. I’m very impressed with the coping saw methods of cutting sound ports as opposed to using a router or dremel. I may borrow this idea... power tools make me nervous that far into the build.
Very impressive detail! That saw to cut out the soundboard is a monster!

Mark - what does the fretsaw blade look like? Is it a spiral blade or a flat blade?

Great! Glad you found that helpful!

stick, I use flat blades. Pegas blades have been working very well for me.

Love this thread and will follow along to see the use of hand tools.
Would love to hear the “most valuable” hand tools list for an acoustic build in your opinion as well.

Thanks for doing this - really excited to follow along.

I'll enjoy following this thread, Mark. Beautiful wood choices and I am partial for things handmade - so this project is fun to follow for the guitar, the tools and the process. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Best,
Jayne

Great to have have you along Jayne!

Hmmmmmm.....
 

"Bloodwood is harder, stiffer, and heavier that Black Ebony and unlike Black Ebony it rings like glass. It is a very resonate wood with eternal sustain."

Now I'm GASSING for Bloodwood:D

Plane Talk
 

This is well timed! There are many valuable hand tools many of which are hand planes. Planes come in four basic families that I use building guitars; Bench plane, Block planes, Finger planes and Specialty planes.

At this time there is one super star I'd like to talk about from the bench plane family, the smoothing plane. This tool does things that no power tool can do.
It is a finishing tool which when properly set up and used truly optimizes the look and functionality of a wood surface:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...552023ef_c.jpg

Here is a close picture of the Swiss alpine Spruce soundboard I am using on this guitar. The surface has been sanded as it normally would be for gluing or finishing:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...870ce2ca_c.jpg

Here is the same top ready for finish using the smoothing plane:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e710907b_c.jpg

The planed surface is much shinier and the grain shows much better with more depth and chatoyance. That's because the surface has not been shredded by the abrasive action of sandpaper and the porous surface has not become all jammed up with sawdust.

You get better glue and finish adhesion to a planed surface. Important things like the braces, sides and bridge are going to stick better and hold longer. The wood will even look better while doing it!

Now lets talk about accuracy. One thing I needed to upgrade was my micrometer. With a high resolution micrometer I can gauge the depth of the plane's cut by measuring the thickness of the fine ribbons of wood being shaved:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0d196d43_c.jpg

I'm pulling just under .001" in this photo. You can almost see through that. The mouth of the plane is adjustable in front of the cutting edge to control the consistency of the cut.

To insure the plane's blade is not leaving edge grooves when doing a large surface I use this plane hammer:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1505258d_c.jpg

The way it works is I take a a shaving on a piece of test wood and the use the micrometer to measure the two edges of the ribbon. I use the hammer to just tap the back sides of the plane blade until the ribbon edges exactly match. The hammer head is brass so it doesn't mar the sides of the blade. The right hammer makes this set up easy.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1f523a01_c.jpg

No sawdust, no dust mask, no dust collector, no ear protection, no noise just the sound of the wood doing my bidding!

Amazing to see the difference in that top surface, quite convincing, besides the other benefits you list... and a clue for the hammer... since I stop by your flickr page at times I saw that and couldn’t figure out why that was there...
fascinating.
It is quite obvious you do something you love and live. Congrats !

It's marvellous to see you working this way with these tools, bravo! :)

I’ve been gassing to make a guitar with this Bloodwood for a long time now. I bought a nice sized board of it and re-sawed a number of back and sides sets. The big advantage of doing it this way is if a side breaks while bending I have a number of sisters to try again.

Thanks Lonzo, I do love what I get to do. I love working with these tools but,
in this thread I’m trying to separate out the actual advantages hand tools bring to the quality of my work.

Thanks magirus!

NICE!!!
 

This thread is too cool for school. Thank you for sharing all this. Really interesting!!!

Go hand crafting, Go

Paul