73 guild f112 project / suggestions appreciated

[JonWint]

Based on the photos you sent me, I would do a belly reduction to lower the peak of the transverse belly at the bridge. It should also raise some of the concavity between the bridge and the sound hole.

Use the method described by StewMac: https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-id...belly-reducer/

For a one-time use, make your own aluminum plates with 1/4" sheet. The T.J. Thompson tools have magnets that self-align and position the plates until the clamps are set. You could use bolts through the plates to locate them until clamping.

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[peetar]

Thanks Jon!,

I did the same difference with my Yairi over the winter and made my bridge on the thick side and kept the wings a little thicker than normal and it's still holding. BTW the angle of the slope / rotation is 3.5 degrees.

The difference between this and the yairi is this top is built like a tank and takes a LOT of force to move it at all.

You saw the bridge pic. It's pretty wood, i don't know if it's
Brazilian, what's your guess? I'm inclined to just make a new one regardless. I'm confident that the top would get more help that way.

[JonWint]

I don't know what wood it is but, it looks healthy enough to reuse. If it's not flat then flatten it.

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[peetar]

Please feel free to laugh at my adversity. that's why I'm posting it!

Shimmed the neck joint and at a snails pace W/ carbon paper was fitting the dove tail (Guilds only have a 5 degree taper). Tight as a drum down to about a 1/4 inch from set. Not as tight after removing practically nothing. Next one just taking the carbon off and it was pathetically loose.

Try again! Cleaned it up and put on new shims. SAME THING HAPPENED!

It appears it had been reset before. Guessing the shim to block glue joint held tight but the shim to neck joint failed. So when I cleaned out the old glue I got down to bare wood it was still an old shim and not the correct angle.

I was actually happy when I was messing with the female part of the joint and figured out what happened.

Time isn't wasted if you're learning something. I have it set up to accomplish the task as soon as I recovery from mt evening with Busch Light.

[phavriluk]

Busch Light?

I recall a story a while back wherein some genius decided his path to wealth involved getting President Carter's beer-loving brother Billy to endorse - - - BILLY BEER.
As the story goes some skeptic sent a can of the libation off for chemical analysis. The report started with a warning: 'Dear Sir, your horse has diabetes...'.

[peetar]

Oh what a pain in the rear a 12 string nut is. I managed to get the spacings correct, so happy about that. I have about half of the slots to where they should be.
Had a blank saddle that I guesstimated height + shape (didn't put any radius on the crown, basically a placeholder). Had to throw on a capo and play it as a six. I start getting the top moving and started getting whiffs of grandpa's basement. All that baking soda and it ain't smelling right yet!

I ended up making a new bridge so I still have to slot channels for the back row and bought pins that have that little set ring on them which I have to file room for the strings to pass.

Any advise on the following would be helpful:

1. Should I make the saddle for the octave strings and then go through the low ones with a file? For Intonation and offset the top of the top of the string height a touch?

2. The tuners are tight as a drum. Any lubrication recommendations or tips / tricks ( they are openbacks on a plate)?

[phavriluk]

I've had recent experience with openbacked tuners being very stiff (this was new construction, so the tuners were loose in my hands).

Here's my anecdote, certainly not scientific or instructional: I found the problem to be the stamped 'ears' on the tuner base which are the bearings for the tuner shafts needed to be relieved, in my case line-drilled with a drill bit in a pin vise using a numbered drill bit. It worked out beautifully. I couldn't see any metal removed by the drill bit, but the offending tuners loosened up dramatically.

[peetar]

Took off the tuners, Took a fret file to the inside and outside of each ear (for getting rid of any mushrooming), smoothed the inside with sandpaper. Cleaned everything and greased friction points. Turned trash into functioning tuners (most of the gears can't last for long).

Went to friends house tonight to have his son play it. He found the spacing between the main and octave strings to be too much, was impressed with the action, I too want a hair more room between string sets (worked off existing nut).

Going to make a new nut for it but probably won't do so for a couple days.

Anyway, the guitar plays and I'm happy. I'm drunk, have two months of work in front of me before I idle for winter, and thanks for the help/suggestions.

[phavriluk]

OP's rescue of this 12-string roughly syncs with my experience with the two I scratchbuilt: Setup is much more critical, time-consuming, difficult, and rewarding than I thought during construction. Re-visiting details matters a bunch, and new nuts and tweaked bridges and saddles are a norm. They're still works-in-progress. If my comments about 'tuning' tuners had any role in OP's making his work, I'm delighted.

[peetar]

Thanks again for talking me out of a bridge Dr.. It's been a few months and everything is stable getting a handful of hours of play a week.

With my next string change I'd like to replace the tuners and put in a passive pickup. I'm pretty ignorant about pickups. Please let me know if I shouldn't order a K&K mini and be done with it.

Does anyone know of a pretty good set of drop in tuners? Been lurking at LTG and I'm coming up with could / should work. It would be fantastic if someone knows of something in the $100 range that's drop in or close to it.

I'd highly prefer to stick to 6 on a plate.

Thanks again guys

[phavriluk]

I used Taylor branded tuners on my latest 12-string project. I think they work very well and the ones I used cost about a hundred dollars for the set. These are 12 individual tuners, but the value's there.

[peetar]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

I used Taylor branded tuners on my latest 12-string project. I think they work very well and the ones I used cost about a hundred dollars for the set. These are 12 individual tuners, but the value's there.

Thanks. I'll go that direction for a last resort. If I recall correctly, When I took off the original plate ones to get them functioning it looked like hell got run over by a train under the plates. I'm not fussy about appearance (certainly don't care about originality), but I'm going to try to cover up that mess if I can.

[phavriluk]

It's no scary task to refinish the back of a headstock. Masking off everywhere and either de-denting and levelling or even sanding flat and applying a complementary veneer and then refinishing would be relatively safe and casually, anyway, away from sight. Either one would get rid of the screwholes, too. Just so's the person doing the work is inside their comfort zone. Anything that gets done will be accomplished over many days and many work sessions.