Sanding top kerfing, head and tail blocks

[Bruce Sexauer]

Yes, the LMI 3 ring binder is a genuine treasure. Mine is loaned out at the moment in exchange for new binding. There was a lot of Bill Lewis old school attitude in that catalogue. You could probably build a guitar with no other information. I wonder if their $ value has appreciated? Should. Probably never happen.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

Yes, the LMI 3 ring binder is a genuine treasure. Mine is loaned out at the moment in exchange for new binding. There was a lot of Bill Lewis old school attitude in that catalogue. You could probably build a guitar with no other information. I wonder if their $ value has appreciated? Should. Probably never happen.

I still have my copy of the LMI 3-ring binder as well as LMI's first catalogue, from 1980, that was bound. I still have both my Bill Lewis Music Supply catalogue, and a copy of the old Gurian catalogue, though it doesn't contain much how-to information.

I wonder if it is worth disseminating that information, and who currently owns it.

[Halcyon/Tinker]

Interesting. I have a guitar (a Raven, I believe) disintegrating in the back guitar garden that has a Bill Lewis Music sticker on it...

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by redir

Well allow me to be the outlier here...

I don't think it matters!

Having said that, I do actually put the proper radius on the linings but honestly when you look real hard you can't really see it anyway. It's more important for the back of the guitar which is arched a lot more. I simply use a plane and then finish it off with an arched sanding stick.

This issue has come up countless times since Cumpiano and Natelson's book came out in the 90's. In the book they demonstrate putting a radius on the top but then clamp the sides to it with flat linings. I imagine literally thousands of guitars if not more have been built using this method and none of them have fallen apart. I've built a few with this method and you always see squeeze out on the outer edge of the linings. It could be because when you clamp the sides down they sort of lean in. But if you do the math on it, it's a very very small distance that requires that angle.

Interesting in Irving Sloans book which was one of the very first of it's kind, he does talk about putting the proper angle on the linings.

I think this post misunderstands the issue raised by the OP, and got the thread a bit sidetracked. The issue is not just putting the same radius as the back on to the joining surface of the linings--it's profiling the joining edge of the sides (and the blocks, which are much wider than the linings) to match the back (or top) radius.

IMO whether or not to radius the linings alone is a non-issue, because one will radius them anyway while sanding them along with the sides in a dish after they have been glued to the sides (the Spanish method of gluing individual liner blocks on the top is an exception). I suppose it may be possible to profile the sides and blocks and then glue the unradiused, square-cornered linings exactly flush with the edge of the sides, but I know of no one who does that, and I think even if one did that, it would be well worth a few seconds of sanding the lined rims in the dish to make sure that the effort at gluing the linings perfectly flush to the edge of the sides had succeeded--and then the joining edge of the linings will have been radiused anyway.

I read that H&D do on some guitars (I think it's an option) take a radiused top and force it on to sides, blocks, and liners that are not profiled at all, but instead made in a plane. I don't see why anyone would want to do that or what they would expect to gain by doing it. Martin, according to the vintage experts, never built that way. The consensus of vintage exerts I have read (on UMGF) is that Martin never in the "golden Era" radiused the top when bracing; in some people's opinion (Willi Henks, iirc) they purposely used somewhat over-dried top wood that would expand a bit and get a bit of a dome after being put on the guitar and picking up more moisture. Others think the doming was not intentional, and is just from many years of string tension. Martin does not appear ever to have profiled the sides in that period to a radius on the top's joining surface. Just a guess, but perhaps H&D took the non-profiled sides together with the mild doming of the top and decided that a radius braced top forced onto flat plane sides, blocks and liners was the way Martin built in the 30s. None of the vintage experts I have seen posting over the years on the Martin Forum would agree.

[printer2]

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

I read that H&D do on some guitars (I think it's an option) take a radiused top and force it on to sides, blocks, and liners that are not profiled at all, but instead made in a plane. I don't see why anyone would want to do that or what they would expect to gain by doing it. Martin, according to the vintage experts, never built that way. The consensus of vintage exerts I have read (on UMGF) is that Martin never in the "golden Era" radiused the top when bracing; in some people's opinion (Willi Henks, iirc) they purposely used somewhat over-dried top wood that would expand a bit and get a bit of a dome after being put on the guitar and picking up more moisture. Others think the doming was not intentional, and is just from many years of string tension. Martin does not appear ever to have profiled the sides in that period to a radius on the top's joining surface. Just a guess, but perhaps H&D took the non-profiled sides together with the mild doming of the top and decided that a radius braced top forced onto flat plane sides, blocks and liners was the way Martin built in the 30s. None of the vintage experts I have seen posting over the years on the Martin Forum would agree.

For giggles I did a pair of non-profiled bodies. I read the same from H&D and the possibility Martin built their tops and backs flat and warmed them up before attaching to give more time for the hide glue up. The bodies I built do tapper from the butt to the neck block but otherwise they are built flat lengthwise and across the width. I built them in the dead of winter when my average humidity was around 20%. I thought this should represent a worse case and that they should not be susceptible to cracks in winter no matter where they reside. Will they pop off braces in the humid days of summer? Part of the reason for the test.

In the end the top and the backs did bow out when they resided in a reasonable humid environment. Nowhere near a 15' radius on the back though, no braces popped off, the top and back did not peal off the linings. I still have to finish the guitars (life has taken me temporarily away from building) but I see no issue with the method of construction. Of course the saddle will have to be changed between winter and summer to account for the slight bellying in normal humid environments.

[redir]

The OP may have been talking about overall geometry but since he referred to kerfing[sic] that's what I focused on. Guitars are complicated things aren't they!

For anyone struggling with the geometries that make up the guitar you may find that making models helps. Just take some poster board and draft out the problem, cut pieces and look at them and so on.

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The LMI catalog is a true treasure trove of information even 25 some years latter. I started French Polishing at least 5 or so years ago and just last year I decided to look through the catalog and came across an article that John Greven wrote on FP. He adds walnut oil to the shellac as part of the finish. So I tried that and there's no going back to me, it jsut works great.

I took a look through the catalog last night, no doubt you could build a full guitar from just the information there.

[Glen H]

I learned how to build and bind flourentine cutaways from the catalog. Great articles and the best money I ever spent. Almost.