Burner Father & Son build #005

[songsender]

Heading to the shop to start work on guitar #006 - a Claro Walnut/Redwood guitar.

I'll be posting a thread on this one soon.

It's time to bend the walnut sides - and maybe build my Florentine cutaway press.

When Kyle is done working today he's heading over to work on the Bocote guitar (#005) - crack stops on the sides and start building some braces for the back and top.

Have a great Sunday!

[Mary]

Originally Posted by Chazmo

Mary, interesting perspective. These kids are the "bored generation" as far as I can tell. Actually, that's an overstatement... My teenage son is really not that different from me when I was his age, *but* I had certain passions in my life that drove me forward (including music). I don't see that in him, and that's what scares me as a parent.

He'll gain a passion and floor you with his intelligence later.

At our place, it's an open invitation for the kids to join us in the wood shop. Sometimes they groan, but they do show up periodically if they want to make a lamp or something. However, our son is an RN who studies meds and equipment like there is no tomorrow. He is like Tim in that area. He wants to investigate every detail. While we work on woods, we tend to concentrate on the work at hand. If our son is with us and is talking about medical stuff, we are only half listening, most likely because we only half understand. That frustrates him and probably bores him about us, I'm sure.

Our daughter just passed her Pharmacy Technician classes. We don't know drugs as well as she does. My kids really are smarter on that subject. I'm a mom who loves to hear about her kids being into drugs. I'm actually intrigued, because it is all decent, legal, well and good. Slowly they teach us. Our daughter is also studying to be a mechanical engineer. Yeah, I almost 'get' what she talks about. Her physics forum friends can relate better to that conversation.

When Tim and I were their age, we weren't all that serious about life yet.
Our kids get bored when they have to hand sand their home projects. I can help with that. I count it a blessing to be able to sit. listen and sand while they talk.

I just hope they always want to come home to talk to us.

[songsender]

We've had some time to work on the guitar more over the past week and we're excited about the progress.

We braced the back of the guitar, shaped the braces and cut the notches in the kerfed lining in preparation for attaching the back to the sides


We glued and clamped the back on. Not sure why - but I love photos of all the clamps on the guitar.




And here's the excitement for the day.... We have Chris at Hanalei Moon make necks for us that are to our specs - and here's what arrived for this guitar today. It is going to ROCK when we put the head plate veneer on it with our logo.

[songsender]

After seeing the ebony back plate on the guitar headstock, we decided to go back and bind the sound hole with ebony to tie things together.

This was a bigger process than I had imagined as my ability to bend wood on a bending iron leaves something to be desired.

I initially tried to cut a 1/8" ring out of some ebony sheets I had on hand - but both times the ring broke along the grain line. Then I tried bending a piece of ebony binding material into a 4" circle - and those broke both times also. (after about working on them over 30 minutes each)

I put a call into a guy I know (Jason) who works for the company that makes my fingerboards. He suggested gluing the ebony to a piece of backing material and coating the top layer with CA (super glue).

I found a piece of scrap spruce - glued some ebony to it - and did the CA - and as you can see below, it worked perfect!

Here's the process:

I drilled the center hole for the pin that holds the ebony/spruce piece to my workbench. With some critical measuring (since the sound hole had already been cut into the spruce top and rosette done, I calculated the necessary size for the inner and outer dimensions of the ebony ring.

I initially routing the inside cut on the ebony - only going through the ebony - but not through the spruce. Once this was done I cut the outer ring a bit larger than necessary and through successive cuts, I worked my way to the point that the "ring" was the desired width. I adjusted the router bit depth and cut out the entire circle.

Here's a photo of the ebony/spruce "plug" I cut out. The photo makes it look like 2 pieces of ebony - but it actually is still glued to the spruce backing board - so it is all held together.


Here's another photo of the "plug" where you can see the backing board.


I won't go into great detail about what it took to get the spruce top re-centered on my dremel jig center hole - but I used a bit and moved the jig around the pin to get things centered. Lots of minor adjustments! Small amounts were cut away from the sound hole making the diameter of the hole just large enough to allow the plug to fit into the hole.

I cleaned off my bench, and put the top, face down on the bench. I applied a thin layer of Titebond glue to the outer edge of the ebony plug and pressed it into the hole.


I ran the top through my thickness sander multiple times - eventually sanding off the spruce backing board. The center of the plug then fell out - and I was left with the ebony ring. I flipped the board over and ran it through my thickness sander a couple times to remove the little wood burrs left when I routed the hole larger. And the results were exactly what I had hoped for!!!



Needless to say - I'll be trying this again in the future!

[Acoustom]

Good stuff Paul and Kyle,
I love watching the building of a guitar and seeing the different ways problems are figured out. I'll be watching this one with great interest as well as the new Walnut build that's in the works. Blessings, Tom

[songsender]

Wow.... it has been a long long time since i Posted an update to this thread. Guess it is time for an update.

This summer was a tough one for building for multiple reasons - and it's nice to be back at it with some cool evening hours in the shop after a full day of work at my "real" job.

Here's a breakdown of the progress made:

Braces were glued on


Top was tapped


Braces were shaved


Top was glued on


Neck channel was cut

[songsender]

and more......

End graft (butt wedge) was installed


Somewhere in the mix the fingerboard side markers were inlaid. We used some Map-O-Lam from RC Tonewoods - it looks really nice and we're quite happy with it.


Shaping of the headstock was done - and the tuner holes drilled. Ready for Gotoh 510 with black knobs.


And tonight I did the fretting and attached the fingerboard to the neck and did some shaping of the neck.


Next up....

Bending the Ebony binding, cutting the channels and getting it installed.

Hope to be done with this one soon so we can hear it sing sing sing!

[hann]

nice! as always!

[Mary]

Very cool. I love most that it is father/son time.

[songsender]

Thanks Mary!

I too love the father/son time. There just isn't enough of it lately. Kyle is finishing his Master's Degree at UNL - and school has him VERY busy right now.

And then there is college football season here at Nebraska - which is a fall priority in this part of the country.

[kak1154]

Looks like it's coming along great. I can't wait to see the finished product. Have you guys been selling any of your guitars? This one is really catching my eye.

[pappy27]

Beautiful work and attention to detail. Great work guys.

The really great thing is doing it together, you guys are very lucky indeed.

[songsender]

We had some good time in the shop over the weekend so I thought I'd post an update.

As many of you know the neck has to be adjusted to the body in two angles - the height over the bridge (up/down angle) and then it must be aligned to the center of the guitar. We purchased this wonderful alignment jig from Luthier Suppliers which really helps us when it comes to the left/right alignment. Here's a photo of it in use.



This alignment tool also works great for positioning the bridge and making sure it is perpendicular to the center line of the guitar & neck.



Since our last build we purchased a Ribbeke-type binding jig - which can be found from John (great guy) at Blues Creek Guitars (he also makes the side bender we use). Here's Kyle making some binding channel cuts with it. Worked VERY slick.



Here's Kyle cleaning up the channel around the end graft (butt wedge) and making the mitred corners.



Some people use CA to glue in their bindings and some use white glue. We prefer white glue at this point because of our rubber band jig. We glue the binding and tape it in place using... you guessed it - binding tape. Then we put it on a board with screws around the perimeter. Long rubber bands are stretched very tightly around the instrument to pull the binding and purfling in nice and tight while drying. We've had great success with this.



And here are a couple photos of the binding after some initial clean-up. On to the top binding next.

[hnuuhiwa]

Hey Paul,

I recall your excitement when you and Kyle first went to build with Kevin after he came back to building after his shoulder injury. I have watched each and every build with admiration (not just because its great for you folks to have a shared father and son interest), and I must say that both of you have progressed well in your knowledge, and abilities. Your craftsmanship is excellent and I certainly enjoy watching each new Burner being born .

Kudos to you and Kytle

Aloha, Hen

[songsender]

Thanks Hen - really appreciate your kind words!