First Ever Guitar build (or any instrument)

[reek]

Hi. Im attempting to build a guitar! I have never done anything like this before and have been reseraching this forum and others for months and decided its time to try my hand.

Here is a pic of my 1st rosette. Its Wenge, purple heart, and abalone. Its not sanded other than rough so far.



Here is the 1st thing I made. Its my neck, curly maple with wenge. Its a rough block unsanded / shaped.



I am currently gluing in the braces, I will post pics of that soon. Back and sides will be wenge, i have them cut on my new bandsaw. What else... I have the back cut out but unglued. Getting close =)

Thank you for checking out my noob work, any comments, advice, suggestions I would love to hear them!

Thanks for looking!

Edit: Oh the top is stika spruce "light weight" from Alaskan Specialty Woods.
I used all hide glue from international violin.

[reek]

I am going to try and make the neck without a head plate so my wood shows instead of putting a plate over it and covering the nice maple up.

I got some blonde shellac flakes in today. I also ordered some Nitro Cellulose. Unsure which to finish it with. French Polish or Spray the Nitro.

[reek]

Got bracing glued in. I will sand that HHG glue down, it looks bad. Working on shaping the braces down. I made a 50' radius jig and router'd the tops of the braces and glued them in place using a caul with a 50' radius. The tone / finger bars were glued flat. I will radius the UTB to around 25' if i remember correctly. I am basically mimicing other greats that I have been watching here. We will see.



those are pencil marks that have yet to be sanded on the ends, they look like splits in the photo but are not.

[Neil K Walk]

For a first build that doesn't look too bad. The real test is to see how stable the neck is and if it stays straight before you install the truss rod.

FYI: don't radius the underside of the UTB. That area needs to be dead flat with 1.5 degree angle for the part of the fingerboard that extends into the body. I'm no expert but I found a source online that basically said to put the sides face down on a flat surface with sandpaper on it, the put a popsicle stick under the tail block and focus on sanding the upper bout.

[BradHall]

Just a few comments. It looks like you are very generous with your HHG application. As long as you have the positions of the braces marked and the dry fit of the X braces is solid, a small brush to apply the glue will yield a much cleaner result. HHG is easy to clean up with a damp cloth and a beveled stick dipped in the hot water pot. Saves a lot of sanding later.
Looking at your finished outline of the top plates it looks like your brace ends are excessively thick. Except for some you may plan to tuck into the kerfing (i.e. X Braces) you will save a lot of effort working the ends closer to your desired profile and length before gluing them in. As you become more proficient with your chisels this will be less of an issue. That’s especially true on the other end of braces that abut the X brace. It’s much easier to get a clean cut and even sand the “scooped “ part before applying glue. Less chance of damaging the cross bace also.
The first build is all about learning the process. Be patient and always think about what the next few steps you will take and how what you are doing now will affect them. Good luck on the beginning of a great adventure.

[reek]

Been shaping and tap testing here is where I am at. I added the height written on the sides of the braces in mm. Anyone have advice? I know what to listen for sort of, I watched pretty much every thing thats out there on voicing but doing it is another story.

Are there areas that I can thin out without risking structural weakness? Can I take some off near the center of the X intersection? Thanks for any advice.

[Bruce Sexauer]

What I see of the bracing looks like it will work . . . there is a lot of unnecessary mass towards the edges of the guitar. Don't touch the crossing of the X, there is little point and they are already halved by the intersection. The lower tone bar is high from my POV, leaving a disproportionately large unbraced area between it and the tail block. Nearly everyone over braces judging by photos I see. The only way to really know what it takes is to make many, and fail once of twice due to inadequate structure. You are no where near that unless your top is very thin.

Ny braces start out at no more than 14 mm, and except for the X joint, are under 12mm at their peaks and as little as 4 mm at the depth of the scallop . . . more often 5 to 7 mm, but it depends on many other factors including species and tonal target. IMO, there is little point in adding much structure or any weight under the bridge.

I can't be sure, but your neck may be narrow at the body end. My necks are not less that 2 1/4" wide at the 12th fret.

I clean up my HHG with a toothbrush and hot water, dried immediately with Scott Blue Towels.

Thank you for asking.

[reek]

I just realized I did not thin out my top properly. It is sitting at 4mm. Im debating on planing vs low grit orbital sander like 80grit and just slowly grind the top down about 1 mm. going to have to work from the soundhole towards the edges leaving the soundhole at 4mm due to rosette material being at or less than 1mm. I guess I can take like .8mm off the top from rosette outwards then maybe like .2 to .4 ish from the back side between the braces.

I guess I could take a small jap saw and cut all the braces off, sand it from underneath side, then reglue them after. But I might just take it off the top like i said. Comments, suggestions?

[BradHall]

It is not an easy task to remove precise amounts of material with a random orbital sander. I suggest you take this as a learning experience and remove all the braces. Not difficult because of the HHG . You can then thin the top plate from the back side to your desired target with a card scraper, checking frequently. Follow Bruce’s advice about the spacing of the braces in the lower bout and the dimensions of the same. Trying to kludge a fix the way you described is a recipe for failure in my opinion. I think you will be much happier with the the results if you start over. A good lesson on checking everything before the glue comes out.

[Bruce Sexauer]

I believe that consistent thickness is extremely important in a guitar plate, and cannot imagine maintaining such consistency working from the outside of a braced top plate. Since your top has twice the required strength in thickness, and so do your braces (IMO, of course), removing the braces and re-calibrating the top seems reasonable to me. Almost all of my guitar tops are between 2.5 and 3 mm thick.

[reek]

Thank you gentlemen for your help I appreciate it immensely. I will remove the braces, and thin the top and tune down the braces as per Mr. Bruce.

I will post pics when I am complete

[BradHall]

Reek. Check your PM

[reek]

well.

i heated a stainless stirring stick with a heat gun and pushed it under the braces, took me about an hour. did some planing but early day tomorrow.

[BEJ]

Looks like you found a solution that will work. Also looks like you will learn a lot from having to do this. Most of us starting out need to know what to do from outside sources(books, videos, etc) but still need to find out on own how to do it.

Bruce,

[reek]

Ya, you're right. Gotta put in the time for sure.

For some reason I've never wanted to learn a skill so much in my life. I must have been helping Stradivari in the back of the shop in a former life. Something about Violins, Cellos, Guitars, Violas, Bass, the old "ancient masters" of cremona, etc etc. This is an elegant and honorable craft for sure. Something to be proud of as so few can do it.

I will make it. I wish I had a mentor IRL but I will have to depend on my online friends to get me there. Thank you.

Kelley