Official Luthier's Forum Medium Jumbo

[Mary]

I am impressed that the two of you are trudging along on your projects. It's nice to see how well your braces are coming along, Neil.

[Neil K Walk]

Thanks, Mary. Like everything else this is taking me a little longer and I haven't checked for runout. All I know is that my grain is straight along the length of the braces. I'm not looking forward to any surprises when it comes time for chiseling though.

[Mary]

The surprises, my good friend, are what strengthens you during this process. I'm under the impression that like a Lay's potato chip you can't eat just one.

Keep the faith.

[Neil K Walk]

Good thing I spent so much time and effort on the mold then. I'd love to do a rosewood version of this one someday.

BTW, I spent a half hour today cutting and planing the remainder of the usable sections of the billet:


I don't know if you can see but the grain on certain parts of the billet were really wavy:


BTW, I still have a lot to learn about gluing! Look at that blotchy job on a sanding surface no less.

I was worried I wouldn't have enough for the upper transverse brace but it worked out. I even got all my finger braces.


... but I fell short for enough usable lengths to brace the back:


Like I said though, the back's still a ways off. Not pictured is the optional X-braced pattern which I was hoping to try but I think fate has told me "not this time." That's OK with me though. I think ladder bracing will do just fine.

...now on to figuring out how to radius all the braces but the upper transverse brace. I know that Tim had John redo that particular one on the Fish and he conveyed that pearl of wisdom on to me.

[Kitchen Guitars]

OH CRUD! Neil built himself into the box!!!!! Someone grab a saw fast!

[Neil K Walk]

LOL! Well I have been known to paint myself into corners too!

[Neil K Walk]

Last night sure was educational. The jury's still out on whether it was successful or not.



Just mist the paper before sandwiching everything in, mark your waist carefully, then heat it up to 222 and caaaaarefully (and slowly) clamp everything down:


Turn it off at 300, let it fall down to 290 then back on ad off 4 times before switching off for good. Then after an hour, take it out and caaaaarefully put it into the mold.



Meanwhile get to work on the other side. There was a bit of confusion on this though. More on that later, but as for that success thing - well, I learned the hard way not to fool with things: DOH! *face palm*



Hopefully all is not lost. A little fast-acting CA glue on the part of Mr. Kitchen and he may have pulled my bacon out of the fryer:


...now on to the other side. (to be continued)

[Kitchen Guitars]

The other side is fine. Do you want me to check if it will crack if I bend it along the grain? Nah, I''ll put it in the frame and leave it alone

[Kurt]

Neil! That's awesome! You'll be playing this guitar at the McJam, I'm betting.

Love the photos...thanks for sharing your process and progress with us. Keep pluggin' away!!!

[Kitchen Guitars]

Pssst did you notice our Club House is no longer the "He man woman haters club". Now its called "Build and Repair"
Its a start on ending the confusion of what goes in Custom what goes in Build & Repair

[Mary]

It looks like you are doin' well on your end. I recognized Neil in the rosette. I thought it might be a new custom feature.

[Neil K Walk]

As John said in his thread in this section, we both got a lot done. His 3rd build is progressing quickly and efficiently and it's quite inspiring. I'm blessed to have his tutelage.

That being said, for starters I set to work at sanding flush my decorative back strip of rippled mahogany bound by BWB purfling. Here's the result of about an hour's work followed by some clean up with naptha and a little shellac to protect it:



BTW, I love the figuring on the Honduran mahogany back. John had me lay some green frog tape on either side of the strip as I sanded it down but the sanding block did hit the bare wood lightening it a little. Even though, you can still see the wedge effect caused by a darkening of the grain. I'm hoping that there's a similar (yet subtle) contrast with the mahogany center strip.

Then on to the next issue: my sides. Sure, one of them cracked right along the line at the top of my mold - which irks John to no end - but I was really worried about the mix up that led me to believe that I'd bent two of the same side. Fortunately, an error on my part prevented that from happening: I'd flipped my second side when I laid it on the bender so that it bent correctly but now my sides are not bookmatched.

No biggie IMO - this is a first build after all. Besides, the sides cracked yet again - TWICE no less - as we clamped them into the mold. We probably should've just used the spreaders after all, but what better way to stabilize a crack than by just gluing in the end blocks?



We went with some stock Martin solid mahogany blocks that were already profiled. They look good enough against the profile of the mold.

The neck block is pretty much the same radius. Here's the tail block, which isn't that far off:


(BTW, ya gotta love those funky clamps of John's! )

Next he had me move on to gluing up the reinforcing strip on the inside face of the back plate:



Underneath the rosewood caul is your basic spruce back strip. John had just done the same with his #3 build and noticed that the go-bars had left indentations in the back strip so the caul was his way of solving that problem.

Next up for next time will be the kerfing. There's a bit of a debate between us though. The stuff he has looks to me like the same stock Martin stuff on my D-16GT. He thinks it's reversed kerfing.

Which way is right? Is this the side that should get glued to the sides? :



...or is this the glue surface? :



Either way, I'm looking at some pretty tight bends around the waist and upper bouts. John's already figured out that wetting the kerfing and drying it on a heat source relaxes it well enough to bend.

[Mary]

Neil did what? There's a problem with the book matching on sides? REALLYYYYYY???? How did that happen?

Say 'tain't so, Neil. Say 'tain't so. Who would dare let THAT silly mistake happen? ............. I mean, besides most every respected luthier out there?

This is good so find the blessing in it. You have been initiated into the club, Tweety. I keep such a "reminder" on display with hopes that we won't do it again. I even show our to most McGit "tourists."

[Neil K Walk]

LOL, Mary!

Yeah, the giveaway is a little 1/8" knot at the very edge. It's at opposite ends of each side; one is near the top, the other near the bottom. I'm still scratching my head over how the profiles seemed to work out OK.

Whatever. It's mahogany so there's not so much of a grain so much as patterns of little black dashes in the wood and those knots will be gone come time to route the binding. I'd burst it come time to finish if it really bothered me but I'm kind of in love with the look of raw mahogany. Still, it kind of makes me want to do another one though just so that I can do better next time.

[Mary]

Originally Posted by kwakatak

LOL, Mary!
Still, it kind of makes me want to do another one though just so that I can do better next time.

Ah, my friend. This is how the addiction begins. You need to seek authority figures before it is too late.