Looks like I'm gonna try and build a guitar...

[kwakatak]

I spent a good part of last night in my friend's workshop last night:

I bought the MDF and had it cut up at the Home Depot yesterday. YJ and I glued and clamped together 6 boards (in 2 stacks of 3) to serve as two sides of the mold. YJ wants to clamp the other 6 together in this fashion.

I traced the outline and bracing pattern to a thin sheet of plexiglass last night and scored it with a razor blade in order to attempt to cut it out. It broke into several pieces though and is the first in what will probably be many setbacks.

Once that's done it's on to cutting out the molds. We're also going to join the top and back too. That'll be next week at the earliest though.

We also bent the sides for his sycamore L-00. This was the first time I'd seen the process with my own eyes and it was very educational.

[kwakatak]

It's official: the build is underway - we joined the back.

I made an outline out of cardboard and after cleaning up the inner edge of what are going to be my molds I went and drew the outline. Due to the concern for excessive sawdust the actual cutting won't be made until Tuesday when YJ's ShopVac is up and running and attached to the bandsaw. At that time I'm going to join the top too.

In the meantime, I have some oversized paper and am going to trace the cutout for the sides. Bending obviously won't happen until the mold and forms are cut out.

I'm thinking rosewood for the binding and wedge. I haven't decided on purfling but I've seen that WBW looks nice between cedar and rosewood and mahogany. Still no idea of what kind of rosette I want to do. Most likely I'll do a wood inlay of some type.

[kwakatak]

Sorry, you guys need pics or this didn't happen. I understand. Here's the results:

We decided to skip using the 3 hug clamps for this jig. We figured the nails were snug enough.

Note the glued boards of MDF. There are four pieces of 3 glued together and each represent a half of 2 molds.

[kwakatak]

Man, but I love the smell of cedar! Last night I planed the edges and did the light test and did much better this time: I was rewarded with a wonderful smell and a perfectly tight joint after only 6 passes on the table planer. I also used a little less glue when joining the two book matched halves of the soundboard. THe only hang up was when I clamped it down; I put a dink in the soft cedar. Oh well - it's close to the center and that's where the fretboard extension can go.

Meanwhile, we had some issues with the band saw and I only got one of my 4 mold sections cut out. I suppose it was partly user error because I haven't used a band saw before and I found myself fighting the thing around the curves. Still, I have one done, another halfway through and the other 2 ready to go.

Sorry no pics; I left my camera there though I did take a couple pics.

[poppytater]

Good luck with your build.

[kwakatak]

 

Originally Posted by poppytater

Good luck with your build.

 

Thanks! With the winter coming up it might be hard to make it out to my friend's place so I've been cleaning my basement. I have about 10' of my workbench uncovered along with a whole lot of floorspace that fell victim to clutter. I figure I'll take some work home and do the stuff that doesn't require power tools.

[rickoshea]

great stuff Neil .... keep the pics coming. Believe me, it'll be one of the most enjoyable things you've ever done. I'll look forward to the smell of cedar with my next

[kwakatak]

Thanks, Rick. I'm looking ahead to thickness sanding and cutting the billets for the bracing but I have to finish my molds and do my center strip and rosette first.

[kwakatak]

I got a little bit done last night but am still learning to use the band saw and now thickness sander.

One bit of bad news - there was a weak spot in my top and it split and not at the joint. When my friend took it out of the jig he held it up to give it a look to see if the join was perfect and free of gaps he gave it a tap for tone and it split. He managed to save it though and reglued it for me; there were no loose fibers. Kinda sucks but that's first builds for you I guess.

He's probably getting back at me for messing up his band saw. I have trouble making the turn when cutting the waist in my molds.

BTW, there's been blood shed - his not mine though. He cut his finger on the metal housing of his band saw when I got my mold hung up halfway through a cut. I feel terrible about it but he brushed it off. He looked a little peeved though.

After throwing the band saw out of alignment for the 3rd time we moved on to the thickness sander and got to work on the cedar top. The board started at around .199 and the target range is .110-.120 but it was pretty slow going. His sander is a smaller 10" drum type which only sands the top and half of the joined board at a time so it takes 4 passes. Then I'd crank the height down very slightly so as not to mark the boards or gum up the sandpaper but of course I messed it up. Luckily it should sand out eventually, but it was getting late and the sandpaper roll was getting gummed up so I had to quit. After about a dozen passes I only got the board down to .169 but my "oops" is getting noticeably lighter and the glue joints are getting less and less visible.

On the bright side, I got 3 of my 4 molds cut and have 2 sides which should be enough to put my sides in once I bend them. The cutouts will make suitable forms for the bender. They'll all need to be sanded smooth and level but not by much.

It's still not looking like a guitar yet but I feel like I've made significant strides in the setup phase, despite the setbacks and slow going.

[kwakatak]

I just uploaded some pics from last week:

Top being joined (the first time):

The molds being cut (in progress):

Close up of the cutout to be used as a form for the bending process:

Top being joined the second time (this time the right way?):

[Chordchunker]

Dang that looks like fun!

[LiFeStArTs@40]

Neal... nice work so far. Touching on what Gary and Freeman said about hand planes, scrappers, and chisels, I wanted to comment that I have a couple of books by Garrett Hack that I strongly recommend that you read. I'd be more than happy to send them to you to use. Also, I do have some nice waterstones and sharpening jigs you can use if you aquire some tools. I'm sure Gary or Freeman will agree that having your plane irons and chisels VERY sharp (google Scary Sharp) is probably the single most important thing when using hand tools. With scrapers, it's not difficult to put the correct burr on the edge but it you do need to know how to do it to get the result that you want. I have a video from a Danish furniture maker that shows a very quick, simple, and effective method of properly setting up scrapers that you're also welcome to borrow.

I will warn you now... hand tools are probably worse than guitars as far as GAS goes. Once you know how to use them they're addicting and multiply like rabbits. For chisels, look for crappy old Stanleys at garage sales because you can find them REALLY CHEAP and the old ones used great steel. You can get a set of scrapers at a woodworking store $15 or less and they don't have to be fancy at all. For hand planes, go on Ebay and find an old stanley block plane with an adjustable mouth. Don't buy new planes unless they're LieNiesons. Old ones are the best. You should be able to score one for $30-$40 and will have a "lifetime" tool. They're very handy for general carpentry (house hold projects) too.

If your take the time to learn how to sharpen and use these tools, you'll find it's one the most satisfying things you'll ever do. In my case, I used to go in my woodshop and hand plane wood to see how thin of shavings I could make and to hear that "woosh" sound.

Again, good luck on your build... I envy you!

[kwakatak]

Funny you should mention tools. I was thinking of picking up a coping saw and a chisel to maybe do some of this work at home. I'm nervous about using the band saw on my top and I thought I'd carve the bracing and voice my top here at home. I couldn't see me using a plane to thin down my top to the desired thickness though.

Of course, I've also wondered how hard it would be to build my own go-bar deck too though. I'd have to fashion a radius dish though...

Actually, I've been contemplating on being a visual artist again (I went to art school and did some graphic design some years ago) and get into doing my own inlay art. Not yet though. I've already started sketching out some ideas and have been playing with line art in Adobe Illustrator as a means of making templates. I've also been contemplating on picking up a set of jeweler's files. I need to cut my own nut after all...

[Greymuzzle]

In the concerning absence of Knockwood, I feel it beholden on me to issue the following warning.

IF you feel it absolutely necessary to cut your own nuts, one simple accidental slip and there's your pecker off.

Take care

[Freeman Keller]

Amen to what LiFe says about good sharp tools. I've used the Scary Sharp method and swear by it - it really is a pleasure to use a quality sharp chisel. Remember that for years guitars were built with only hand tools and many good luthiers still use only limited power tools (and no frekin'g cnc's)

And Neil, building a go-bar really is pretty easy - look at the go-bar "kit" at StewMac, then go to Home Depot, buy the parts and do it yourself. The only problem is the bars themselves - I found a bunch of fiberglass wands in the hardware dept that were intended to hold little reflectors for driveways (I bought all the wands but none of the reflectors LOL).

Making a radius dish is more trouble - the most common method is to build a cradel for your router that straddles a piece of MDF and just go back and forth and round and round. I also heard of someone who hung is router from a tree 16 feet in the air on a rope, put the MDF under it and played Pit and Pendulum. I, on the other hand, gave some money to SM and they shipped me a nice one.

However, the coolest trick (and the one I still use on tops) is this one, it works perfectly well on the back and either with a go bar on just clamps.

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/contourtool.html

I use some pretty cheap jewelers files for small cleanup, but for nut work you really need a set of the correct files. Pucker up, get the right ones and you'll be making nuts for a long time.

[kwakatak]

LOL @ the Pit and Pendulum jig, Freeman. I've heard about the cradle jig/go round method. In fact there's a youtube video out there of it in action. Most likely YJ and I will procure one.

As for the go bar deck, YJ has one and he does use fiberglass dowels. He warned me that they tend to crack and the splinters are nearly invisible so they're a b~tch to get out of your fingers. Again, I probably won't need to make one unless I don't get to bracing after the winter snows set in making it hard to get to YJ's place down there in cow tipping territory.

As for the hand tools, I'm really think that I'm pushing my luck with the band saw - especially since my top cracked already. I was thinking that a coping saw might be a good alternative to cut the outline of my top and back. Heck, I wonder if I could use it to shape the billets into braces? I know I'll need a good chisel for that.

BTW, I'm trying to figure out the logic behind the use of fanned index cards in that link. Are the braces already radiused on the bottom and the cards are just there for the top to rest upon so that they can be clamped on with a go-bar deck? If so, then it's just a matter of figuring out the radius of the bottom of each individual brace using Kinkead's method of making a curved template for each brace? I'm assuming that the most logical thing is to make the X braces in this fashion and use that as a basis for all the other braces?

[kwakatak]

I went over to YJ's last night to try and whittle away at the cedar top some more. Thicknessing sure is slow going. All the molds are cut and I took them home to sand flush. A lot of stuff followed me home in fact.

I stayed up late last night in my own little workshop and checked to see if everything lined up against the plans. They did not. I'm confused, because my cardboard template does not seem to be as "off" as the lines on my mold are.

Back to the drawing board: I've retraced the outline and bracing pattern on clear acrylic - being extra careful that everything is accurate to the best of my ability. I haven't figured out what happened with or what to do exactly with the molds, thoouh. FWIW, I think I might be able to shim the interior of the mold somehow and the cutouts for the bender are still usable provided I can sand them square to the correct outline.

[kwakatak]

I'm tossing the molds and starting over from scratch. I went to Kinko's and copied my blueprints and got some good advice to follow through on over at the official luthier's forum. Now I have a better idea of what I need to do.

BTW, now I have TAS. I got a reallly good deal on a 9" band saw from YJ. Next on my list is a router.

[kwakatak]

Sanding MDF sucks. I'm starting over on the molds because they're just not good enough. Live and learn. Next time:

- birch plywood

- cut a single board at a time, not 3 and use RELIEF CUTS to keep the band saw blade from binding up.

- cut outside the line and sand it until it's perfect

- cut the rest (11 more) similarly but don't worry about sanding

- acquire a router and a pattern bit and use the perfect mold as a guide

- do the bending forms separately (which is wasteful but I'll find use for the scrap I'm sure)

- same as with the outside mold, get one 3/4" thick form perfect and follow the same instructions.

..then I have to do the spreaders.

[guitarist21]

WHOA! What a great thread to read through and catch up on. Best of luck to you, kwak, and I can't wait to read more!

[kwakatak]

Thanks, Ellen! So far it's a hobby but who knows? I'm not likely to give up playing though.

[rickoshea]

sorry I havent been about to comment Neal .... but great stuff so far . I was lucky having my moulds made by LMI but am just about to start my next from scratch ... in MDF - we'll see how that goes lol.

TAS is particularly dangerous. I actually sold a good watch so I could expand my collection . I still want some good carpenters vices, more clamps, some more chisels and planes - the list goes on lol. Heres what the place looks like now after a bit of expansion of the worksurfaces and some "tool acquisition"

be prepared for a long and expensive ride now you've started, but hell, its just too much fun

for go-bars I used wooden dowel rods, sharpened at one end with a pencil sharpener, then with small bits of leather superglued onto those ends to make them more "grippy". It worked a treat and was what you could call "cost effective". Plus, they were dead easy to size if needed. The deck was 2 bits of wood screwed to some agglo for rigidity at the base and some threaded rods surrounded by plastic plumbers pipe to protect the guitar from bangs. Its nice and simple to make.

Keep the pics coming - great stuff

[kwakatak]

Good to hear from you, Rick.

A word about the MDF, it cuts and sands like butter but from what I've heard it soaks up water and glue. I'm moving up to birch plywood which is still relatively cheap, even if it doesn't look at "clean" as MDF. That being said, I've yet to actually work with the stuff. What I've seen at my local mega hardware store looks like it may be prone to chipping.

As for how to make a mold, the archives at the Official Luthier's Forum are a pure gold mine. Here's a useful link on how to make outside molds:

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/v...02&t=14138&%22

As for tool acquisition, I have to be very careful. While money is not tight, we have a budget to keep and small children to feed/clothe and a house that constantly needs something fixed. I'd love to pick up a cheap little router and there's a special at Rockler for a pattern bit that would save me a LOT of work cutting/sanding the molds. One good thing is that I now have that 9" band saw to do the rough cutting with - though the blade always seems to be loose.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever actually start working on the guitar though. I stuck at thicknessing it and we just don't have sand paper that's course enough; we've been using 120 when I need at least 80 grit. I think I've passed my cedar through the drum sander about 60 times so far and I'm starting to lose patience.

[rickoshea]

I know the feeling about tight money and kids ... thats why I had to sell my moonwatch to get more tools

I had to read up and ask Gary about setting up the bandsaw - its sometimes a tricky business, and I lacked the knowledge, but once done its a great bit of kit. I would highly recommend the Bosch GKF600 router ( http://www.axminster.co.uk/bosch-bos...al-prod784588/ ... I know thats a UK site but you'll probably get the same cheaper in the USA) that Gary recommended to me. It makes so much that you'll be doing easier, with a lot less risk of things like tear out when doing the binding prep etc. The kit also has the tilting base included. That makes it simpler to angle the router during the binding prep which is needed due to the radius of the top and back. If you can afford it its a brilliant tool

Thicknessing - I'll be starting soon on working on that aspect. I got a random orbit sander and some new planes so .... we'll see how it goes lol.

All starts to get better once the real "putting together" starts so keep at her, you'll love the process

MDF can be sealed once the workpiece is completed to avoid any moisture uptake too

[kwakatak]

I'm not concerned about getting a router right now, though I've seen a Ryobi at Home Depot for $60 which is about half what the Bosch routers I've seen go for. I'm more concerned about getting a table to work on, preferably one that can house a router so that I can mount a sanding bobben or a pattern-tracing bit on. It'd also be nice to work with that bandsaw while standing and not sitting on the floor of my garage.

Which reminds me. I could really use a shop vac.

In the meantime I need materials and some more design ideas. I still haven't decided on a rosette or a headstock inlay. I still don't want to use abalone unless it is very minimal.

BTW, which do you think would go better visually/functionally with a guitar with mahogany back & sides and a western red cedar top? Ebony or rosewood bridge/fretboard/headstock overlay?