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  #196  
Old 02-08-2019, 08:02 AM
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Tom, I can assure you that the buffing wheel is the source of many luthier "crash and burn" incidents involving buffing through the finish (particularly on edges and radii), overheating the finish and having the piece grabbed from your hands...(ouch!)

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Looking great Bob, can you imagine the feeling of getting that far along and having that buffing wheel grab it out of you hands and send it to the floor. Man oh man. I think Tim M. might have told a story about that happening once if I recall.
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  #197  
Old 02-08-2019, 01:49 PM
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Gorgeous...
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  #198  
Old 02-08-2019, 04:11 PM
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Schweeet!!!!!!
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  #199  
Old 02-08-2019, 04:38 PM
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Gorgeous...
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Schweeet!!!!!!
Thanks Gents....

The Brazilian Rosewood belly bridge has been fabricated goes on today. This weekend it will make it on to Nick’s set up fixture which hopefully I can share pictures of.
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  #200  
Old 02-08-2019, 05:15 PM
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What a Beauty!

Anticipation....

Getting close!

Cheers

Paul
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  #201  
Old 02-09-2019, 07:23 AM
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What a Beauty!

Anticipation....

Getting close!

Cheers

Paul
Indeed it is... BUT the weather forecast in Portland, Oregon (where Nick is located) is for ***snow***this weekend. It is one of those cities that gets overwhelmed by a bit of the white stuff, so I have a feeling the meeting of the guitar with strings may be delayed.

Aside from attaching the Brazilian Rosewood bridge, fabricating a saddle/nut and setting up the guitar, Nick also still needs to custom cast some pickguards using his neighbor and friend John Greven’s recipe. Hopefully it will produce a pleasant sound next week...
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  #202  
Old 02-09-2019, 03:12 PM
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Nick doesn’t mask off the area of the top pre-nitro that falls beneath the fretboard. He chooses to mask off the after the finishing is complete and strips the local area of nitro finish to allow for good adhesion between the underside of the Ebony fretboard and German Spruce top.



Nick prefers to use Brazilian Rosewood for his bridges and never uses Ebony. Sometimes he dyes the BRW, and I have seen a number of his guitars listed as having Ebony bridges but they are actually dyed BRW (mine will be natural). He of course chose a Brazilian Rosewood bridge blank to match the peghead veneer. The blank is sized using a thickness planer and checked for fit on the guitar top to present the saddle 0.022” above the bridge surface. The basic plan view profile is then cut using a bandsaw.



The bridge has the six pin holes bored through it and countersunk so he can affix it to his saddle slot routing jig.



Thinning the wings of the bridge.

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  #203  
Old 02-09-2019, 04:44 PM
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Stunning guitar !
Thank you for this very detailed and documented thread, I'm really enjoying it, being one of the rare (and lucky) Franklin owner in Europe
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  #204  
Old 02-09-2019, 05:04 PM
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Stunning guitar !
Thank you for this very detailed and documented thread, I'm really enjoying it, being one of the rare (and lucky) Franklin owner in Europe
You are quite welcome Niko....

Luthiers, being solitary artisans tend to develop divergent approaches in the isolation of their workshops for creating their instruments over the decades they refine their craft. Their individual methods can appear odd to one another when viewed by their peers. Build threads that appear in this forum not only display the beauty of materials and artistry of guitars, but can also at times chronicle the hidden subtilty underpinning why each builders guitars have their unique sonic signatures.
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  #205  
Old 02-09-2019, 09:05 PM
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Very interesting that Nick only uses Brazilian rosewood for his bridges. I am assuming this is not for aesthetic purposes, since as you note he sometimes dyes the bridge black (on my Franklin the bridge is black to match the ebony fingerboard). Did he give you his reason for his preference?
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  #206  
Old 02-10-2019, 03:36 AM
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Very interesting that Nick only uses Brazilian rosewood for his bridges. I am assuming this is not for aesthetic purposes, since as you note he sometimes dyes the bridge black (on my Franklin the bridge is black to match the ebony fingerboard). Did he give you his reason for his preference?
I believe mostly because they are on average about 20% lighter than an Ebony bridge of the same size but are still extremely hard. The belly bridge on this guitar weighs only 26.2 grams (without the saddle). That’s about the same weight of a Ebony pyramid bridge on another one of my guitars. BRW is also a lower damping wood than Ebony. Some believe that matters in terms of sound, many do not. Like all things in lutherie, I suspect he’s had success using BRW in the construction of his guitars and does not want to change his “formula” for success.
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  #207  
Old 02-10-2019, 04:55 PM
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That makes sense, and the "formula" certainly works!
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  #208  
Old 02-12-2019, 02:04 PM
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I believe mostly because they are on average about 20% lighter than an Ebony bridge of the same size but are still extremely hard.. ..
That's what Nick has told me.
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  #209  
Old 02-12-2019, 04:02 PM
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Nick uses this plastic fixture to locate the bridge by referencing the from edge of his bone saddle (final intonation is handled within the saddle shaping itself). The bottom shots show him scribing the bridge perimeter into the nitro finish. The most interesting aspect of this shot are the shims he has adhered on the end of the fixture to compensate for the shrinkage of the fixture across the decades!


This sequence shows how Nick masks along the scribed lines defining the bridge perimeter and how he applies stripper to remove the nitro finish beneath the bridge.


This sequence chronicles how Nick locates his bridge with pins in the saddle slot. You can also see just how thin the wings of his Brazilian Rosewood belly bridge are taken to (about 3/32”) to keep the bridge weight low. He uses Titebond Type 1 glue to adhere it to the German Spruce top. You can see his custom cawl that applies pressure to both the center and the wings.


When hand making instruments sometimes a luthier will discover small defects in the finish after the guitar has come out of that process. Nick discovered some very small bubbles in the neck finish in the heel of the Honduran Mahogany neck near the heel cap. He bottomed out the area and applied a touch up to the area. As a result, the guitar will need some time before he can progress further on it. What is great to me in this shot is the depth of the color in the 50 year old mahogany without pore filler or stain to darken it.
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  #210  
Old 02-12-2019, 04:16 PM
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That's what Nick has told me.
Nice to see you still frequent AGF... (it’s been a while since you posted)
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