S. Kinnaird Port Orford/Osage Orange SJ

[Kenneth Casper]

Originally Posted by Jamiejoon

Thanks Steve, that’s very kind of you. We are safe so far, and in a lot better situation than folks directly in the path of the Kincaid Fire. Fire risk is the flip side of being lucky enough to live in a very special spot surrounded by open space.

Your guitar is looking great, Jamie! Some pretty neat treatments happening.

My wife and I were north of Bodega Bay along the Mendocino coast last week. As long as the breeze was coming off the ocean, the air was clear there. But we had one day that was really calm, and the smoke settled in even along the coast. PG&E shut power down Saturday night, so we spent the last two days with no power. In following the reports, sounds like the high winds and outages continue. October has not been kind to California over the years.

Wish we could send you some of our rains. Hopefully you get relief soon.

Ken

[Jamiejoon]

Thanks Ken. We're all praying for rain here. Sub ten percent humidity is scary, especially surrounded by forest. The Kincaid fire seems to be getting under control (knock on wood), but now there are freezing temperatures that the evacuees have to contend with at night. We just need one good rainstorm.

I'm glad you got a chance to visit. Were you hunting for sets of redwood?

Jamie

[Kenneth Casper]

Let's hope a rain storm arrives soon.

No wood hunting this trip. I was helping a buddy refinish the four exterior wood doors on his house. Though the doors turned out great, I much prefer shooting lacquer on guitars!

Ken

[nacluth]

Continuing on Jamie’s build, it was time to attack the guitar with a high speed cutter with the intention of adding decorative trim.




Then here we have installed the back purfling scheme.




Steve uses some calipers to mark out where the purfling for the arm bevel will go.




Then using a Japanese saw rasp in its inverted form, he relieves the bulk of the unneeded wood.




But, here’s where a twist entered the story. A timely question by Jamie revealed that there was an issue we needed to address. Stay tuned to find out what happened.

[TomB'sox]

Awesome, a super cool build thread with a mystery thrown in woot woot!!!

[nacluth]

So here at Kinnaird Guitars, we pride ourselves in being a custom shop where customers can get everything they want in their guitar. In this guitar, Jamie had some very particular desires with a whole lot of creative leeway. It’s been a blast to build, and there’s more fun to come. But, when I sent Jamie the shots posted above, he replied with the curious question of when the cutaway gets put in. Uh oh.

Now here at the shop, Steve and I have a system where he takes his communication with the customer and all their choices and sits down with me and I fill out a build sheet. Through the several dozen choices that go into most guitar design, I fill out the specs, so I can build away without going back to emails. Somehow, the cutaway box got marked “no” instead of the correct “yes.” Ouch.

We notified Jamie of our error, and he politely assured us of his desire to reach up the neck on a 12 fretter. We knew there was only one thing to do - proceed with a cutawectomy. The next post will show the details of the subtractive procedure.

[nacluth]

Steve and I worked out how we would go about the process. The first job was drawing on the guitar the exact shape of the cutaway.




We then used the bandsaw to actually cut through the guitar. (No pictures were included because of how serious the operation was.) But once the scalpel was put away, the interior of the sides needed reinforcement with a corner block.




Steve then made the interior linings to exact shape on the cutaway form. This would provide for extra strong support. They were built a little oversized so they could be shaped down after installation.




Then they were clamped to the top and bottom plates making sure they fit exactly to both the corner and heel blocks.




Once all the interior support was in, Steve took the guitar to the spindle sander to perfect the shape. It worked like a dream.




Then came the challenging part of bending some more Osage Orange to exactly fit the shape and then get the right clamping pressure to glue the side on with a clean joint. This is what it looked like.




The final step was routing the cutaway to bring the whole guitar to the same stage of the build. The cutawectomy was complete. While it is not the preferred method of building, the whole process was fairly painless in practice. It did deserve a nice sigh of relief though.




Some might say that it’s a mistake to reveal missteps in your business. To that we say, sorry we’re real people. We do own up to them though, and we will correct them. And honestly, we have learned and evaluated through the process to get better. This is one error we will probably not make again. Jamie, of course, has been gracious through the whole process.

Keep following along because it just gets better.

[Nemoman]

Wow--looks like it's not for the faint of heart...

But you guys seemed to have pulled it off beautifully--nice work!

And Jamie--way to keep 'em honest!

[Jamiejoon]

Since I have grown very attached to this guitar already, I was glad I was not there in person for the surgery. Steve and Ryan, performing daredevil feats of luthiery without a net! Someday perhaps all cutaways will be done this way?

I have to say, Steve and Ryan were super cool and good-natured about the whole process, taking it as a challenge. Which they aced.

[j. Kinnaird]

I’m impressed. That was nicely done.

[Guitars44me]

Originally Posted by j. Kinnaird

I’m impressed. That was nicely done.

Grace under pressure, and live without a net! Well done indeed!!! If you are not careful you may be swamped with requests for "cutawectomys".

Want to add soundports to a couple of my guitars???

Paul

[chippygreen]

That was equal parts awesome, riveting and, might I add, a master class in doing the right thing the right way - and I mean that in every sense.

[Steve Kinnaird]

Thanks fellas, first off for not laughing at us too loudly, and then for your kind words. This wasn't quite as difficult as plumbing a house after the sheet rock is hung, but it was difficult enough. Like Ryan said, our plan is to do all future cutaways at the easy stage.

Such experiences lead to questions, such as mine, "How did Ryan miss this?" And Ryan's question, "How did Steve miss this?" Ryan's is the operative question, believe me.

The architect John Pawson claims that an object has reached perfection when it can no longer be improved by subtraction. If that be true, then Jamie's guitar is as perfect as we plan on making it, cuz we're not subtracting anything else!

Thanks for watching,

Steve

[j. Kinnaird]

Originally Posted by Steve Kinnaird

Thanks fellas, first off for not laughing at us too loudly, and then for your kind words. This wasn't quite as difficult as plumbing a house after the sheet rock is hung, but it was difficult enough. Like Ryan said, our plan is to do all future cutaways at the easy stage.

Such experiences lead to questions, such as mine, "How did Ryan miss this?" And Ryan's question, "How did Steve miss this?" Ryan's is the operative question, believe me.

The architect John Pawson claims that an object has reached perfection when it can no longer be improved by subtraction. If that be true, then Jamie's guitar is as perfect as we plan on making it, cuz we're not subtracting anything else!

Thanks for watching,

Steve

Tres drole. Now for a real challenge and for your next trick i’d Like to see you guys do this again but this time with a Venetian cutaway.

[cigarfan]

Originally Posted by j. Kinnaird

Tres drole. Now for a real challenge and for your next trick i’d Like to see you guys do this again but this time with a Venetian cutaway.

Oh John. That is just cruel.

Great job guys. You know I love your Florentine cutaway shape!

And this cutawectomy (nice term) is definitely a first for me. Although I would have liked to see some surgical masks during the process.