Sexauer ‘19, chapter 2

[Bruce Sexauer]

Once again I will leave room for a few posts at the end of "Sexauer ‘19, chapter 1" so that the thread will hopefully not become locked. We are over halfway through the 7th month, so this thread may make it to the end of the year! If you are wondering what I am talking about, HERE is a link to the previous thread. In fact I have been conducting this blow by blow documentation of my lutherie for several years, I think each of the chapters is linked backwards as this one it. Yes, some people do care.

I took most of the last month off from the bench and caught up on yard maintenance, retouching trim in the house, and even replaced some bricks in my front porch which were broken when an amateur crew (uncles and sons of the giftee) carried my daughter's long unused piano out a couple of years ago. I strung up the Koa 000 a week ago and am reinspired.

Yesterday I joined a top plate which I received from Poland a month or two ago. I had ordered 4 "Mastergrade" tops from them and they sent me 7 tops, none of which are quite as good as I hoped, but all of which seem good enough to build first rate guitars from. I picked one for this next guitar which is neither the best nor the worst, and it is looking pretty fine so far.



This will be another extremely Martin derived OM, not unlike the hOMage I built a few months ago. I call it an FT-15-es, where es is a tip of hat to Eric Schoenberg, for whom I have built many similarly inspired guitars. Here is the VERY well quartered BRW back:

[blindboyjimi]

Someone’s going to be very lucky indeed. Beautiful.

[M Hayden]

Zipper back strips are my favorite...

[TomB'sox]

Glad to see you back, posting and building...missed you during your gardening and home repair hiatus!!!

[Bruce Sexauer]

It looks like there's something to be said for consistency, Tom: Mark Hatcher and I reached thread saturation at the same time although he began his blog a month sooner, yet he got two pages of response on out near simultaneous Chapter 2 inaugerations in the same as I got 4 posts. Perhaps its the very tangible difference in photography skills . . . so I took a more exciting picture of my new back.

I will be playing my Le Chalet Basque gig this Saturday from 6 till 8 pm in the restaurant patio and local forumites can catch my presentation for the price of dinner. What do I do? Glad you asked! I play guitar and sing songs from the Great American Songbook, mostly '30's and '40's. Reservation are a good idea for patio seating.

One in the shade and one in the sun:

[Bruce Sexauer]

Hand Planed:

[TomB'sox]

That would make some beautiful ribbon for gift boxes if it could be stabilized somehow!!!! I guess that is the sign of a sharp plane with perfect adjustment.

[Bruce Sexauer]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

That would make some beautiful ribbon for gift boxes if it could be stabilized somehow!!!! I guess that is the sign of a sharp plane with perfect adjustment.

Perfect is pretty elusive, but actually adequacy happens at a pretty high level.

A ribbon could be manufactured with this pattern on it, but the inspiration would be lost on most observers. These shavings are pretty fragile.

[jaan]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

Hand Planed:

This is a cool photo!

[Bruce Sexauer]

Although Peone ("little block", approximately) construction is often attributed to the Spanish classical guitar tradition, I have seen multiple examples of old American guitars built using the method, including Martin guitars. While there are several arguable advantaged to the method over continuous kerfed linings, it is the essential key to my being able to offer an infinite variation of templates without having to make new fixtures and therefore without further expense to myself or my customers.

[TomB'sox]

Yes, I love that method, no fixtures, tension free building, has that hand made feel to it, allows you to add or subtract a 1/4 inch here or there, to do what you want with each guitar.

[Bruce Sexauer]

Looks like you folks are appreciating he little details. Here're some:

This is where the sides come together and are held by the tail block. If you look at my peone from this POV, you can see what I call "Fractal Alignment", whereby the top to side join is strengthen by deminishing point loading.


Like many, I sign my guitars on the side of the top. I currently use a Blackhawk #602 pencil, allegedly Walt Disney's choice. It has a lot of character. This bridge plate is made from Jatoba, sometimes called "Brazilian Cherry". It is the hardest toughest wood I've ever worked, and it allows me to make the plate quite thin. I suppose Martin's thinking behind their Carbon Fiber BP is similar, except Jatoba is FAR less likely to degrade under point pressure (string ball ends) as CF certainly does.

[The Bard Rocks]

Would Ipe (Lapacho) be potentially better? I can think of reasons both yay and nay.

[Bruce Sexauer]

The biggest advantage in Jatoba, for me, is that I have quite a bit of it. I have built several guitars from it, and found it is highly resonant and quite stable. The guitars it makes are loud and even aggressive, making the material quite good for professional performance guitars.

While I have never worked with Ipe, it seems to be mostly used for outdoor decking, whereas Jatoba is perhaps best known as a premium indoor flooring material. HERE is a link to a Jatoba FT-000 guitar I recent took in trade-back and have for sale.

[Nemoman]

Glad you're back at it, Bruce.

This latest BRW is looking fantastic right out of the gate. The black ink grain lines really add a lot of character IMO.

Looking forward to following along!