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A Mutt of a Guitar


gitnoob

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Built my first X brace today and used a go-bar deck for the first time. Now I feel like a guitar builder!

 

Sort of an interesting variation on the go-bar theme. The luthier makes his own bars using a spring mechanism.

 

2ajvziu.jpg

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Yeah, those are ...um....interesting go-bars there. For some reason I thought I as looking at the back of a chair there for a minute.

 

Regarding the braces, how hard was it for you to do the lap joint? I was worried that I was going to split one of the braces in half. That bridge plates looks huge to me, too, but I know it's all part of your plan. When are you going to get to the sides assembly?

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His go-bar deck is designed to be compact, since his workshop is relatively small. The downside of making it compact is that it's harder to see your work. Otherwise, I might have caught the fact than my X had rotated clockwise a bit. :(

 

The lap joint came out pretty good. The luthier's tip was to draw the joint first and keep your lines visible after cutting/chiseling. That way you should end up with a tight fit -- mine was nice and tight (but then I managed to glue it down to the top a bit cockeyed).

 

The massive bridge plate does scare me a bit. The top was sounding pretty tight after I glued the X on. So I tapered the bridge plate to a pretty thin height at the edge, and I decided to use fewer finger braces and lower face braces.

 

2zq808n.jpg

 

Soundhole reinforcement goes on next, and I'll taper the braces as well.

 

2le4i1x.jpg

 

And I shaped my bridge last night. Inspired by the early Washburn/Regal "smile" bridges.

 

esn6a0.jpg

 

The sides don't go on for a while yet -- he uses the solera method of building, which means the neck goes on before the sides!

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the rosette looks tops ... nice work!

 

He doesnt worry about a braced soundboard distorting when its left lying round waiting to be popped onto the sides? Bill Cumpiano recommends getting the board onto the sides as soon as possible after bracing for this very reason.

 

Good job so far gitnoob :thu: ... dont start humming at your braces now or I'll start to worry bout you :facepalm::lol:

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Thanks, Rick. Good point about the sides helping maintain the dome. Maybe I'll try that next time. The method he uses is fairly traditional, but a lot of builders who use a solera don't dome their tops. In fact, I think even Somogyi is anti-dome.

 

The instructor is pretty good with tap tones. I used my recording / spectral analysis approach, and then I asked him to find the tap tones his way. He was humming and tapping and correctly named the two peaks I found, and then proceeded to find a couple more partials.

 

Somogyi uses his molds as temporary sides while he voices his tops.

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Drilled holes in the bridge without a template. One of them is a bit off, but I think I might be able to clean it up with a reamer.

 

14wbslc.jpg

 

Added the spruce patch on the X. Somogyi calls this the most important 1-2 grams in the guitar. Added soundhole reinforcement. Took a first pass at shaping the braces.

 

a6mbc.jpg

 

Next week, I plan to bring in a laptop for real-time spectral analysis to see how the tone changes as I remove material.

 

I asked the luthier for his tap-tone opinion of my top so far. He says the higher frequency harmonics are currently stronger than the fundamental and that I should shoot for a stronger fundamental.

 

I did the spectral analysis thing at home, and he appears to be right. Several peaks at or higher than the fundamental.

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Thanks, gthom. There was a new guy in the class this week who tackled the spalted maple for his rosette. I wanted to warn him, but I bit my tongue. He sort of finished it today, but he was tearing his hair out and talking about buying a rosette online instead....

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Very cool, original styling in the rosette and bridge. One of the things I find challenging is even conceptualizing guitar components that are at once original and attractive. In the git world, there is an awful lot of "interesting" shaping (mostly in the headstock and bridge regions) that, while certainly original, is also quite hideous. I won't name names. The additional challenge with any original bridge shape is that it also has to be structurally practical. That is a very cool bridge design you've got there. :thu:

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Finally some kudos for my bridge! Thanks, mang. :)

 

It's not totally original though. And I'm pretty sure this guitar won't win any beauty contests -- I have no design sense, so this aesthetic stuff is a real stretch for me.

 

Here's a similar bridge:

 

front.jpg

 

I totally ripped it off, but I figured nobody would notice a rip-off of an obscure 1930's design. :)

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Finally some kudos for my bridge! Thanks, mang.
:)

It's not totally original though. And I'm pretty sure this guitar won't win any beauty contests -- I have no design sense, so this aesthetic stuff is a real stretch for me.


Here's a similar bridge:


front.jpg

I totally ripped it off, but I figured nobody would notice a rip-off of an obscure 1930's design.
:)

 

Well, it's one hell of an original ripoff! :thu:

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Build Mania continues. Finished voicing the top. Thicknessed and braced the back -- about 2.5mm thick and used 3 mahogany braces. No idea if that's reasonable as there seems to be very little literature about guitar backs.

 

These pics of shaving the back braces will bore you to tears, but I find the shaping work to be pretty relaxing.

 

1zzrocl.jpg

 

2vdso0j.jpg

 

And now for the real entertainment. Pics of my classmates' tops!

 

The square rosette I mentioned earlier in the thread. It's going to be a Flamenco guitar when it grows up.

 

14nmwlf.jpg

 

A cedar-topped steel-string 00 braced like a Martin 1-18:

 

2m2z62g.jpg

 

And some asymmetrical thing with a ginormous bridge plate:

 

ir2tsk.jpg

 

Two others were camera shy.

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Nothing too exciting to report since many of these steps are similar to my uke build. Since the process is similar, I've been doing much of it as homework.

 

Gluing up the headstock veneer. Thinking of doing a pretty standard slot-head for this one.

 

2m77uig.jpg

 

Slotted and tapered the fretboard. Bent the sides.

 

wkfptt.jpg

 

Well, I bent one and half sides. I noticed a crack in the end of one of them, so I glued it up and am waiting for it to dry before I finish the bend.

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Do you ever spend hours day-dreaming about headstocks? Yeah, me too!

 

Pick a headstock, any headstock.

 

Slot-head variation of my uke:

le2js.jpg

 

Peghead variation of uke:

scbdzr.jpg

 

1918 Martin slot-head:

17ac7m.jpg

 

A slightly wider slot-head:

acrbf6.jpg

 

And here come my favorites so far. Slot-head version:

24dn4h4.jpg

 

And the peghead version:

34hdzs3.jpg

 

Those last two basically mirror the shape of my bridge.

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That's the way I'm leaning too. Simple, but not too simple. Lets the rosewood take center stage.

 

I did a two-layer veneer, so a slot-head would have a nice reveal. But I'll see what it looks like without the slots first.

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I made a rough cut of the headstock today. Will it be a slot-head or a solid peghead? I'm not sure yet. :)

 

ou07yu.jpg

 

Finished bending the sides. Glued on the kerfed lining for the top. Added a little reinforcement to the kerfed lining a la Charles Fox.

 

25i3r5j.jpg

 

Here's how Charles Fox does it:

 

cfox010.jpg

cfox012.jpg

 

That little strip makes the sides much more rigid than conventional kerfed lining. It also adds a bit more gluing surface for the plates.

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Side slats. Probably the most boring and arcane component in the guitar. What's the deal?

 

The sides are fairly thin because they're easier to bend that way. Being thin, they tend to crack along the grain. The bent areas are made more rigid by the bends -- the cracks tend to occur in the flat spots of the sides.

 

So builders use various techniques to reinforce the sides. Fabric ribbons are often used. I've seen them come off of old guitars. I've also seen side cracks go right through the ribbon.

 

I chose spruce. Strong and light. I put three on each side on the flat spots. I ran them from edge to edge to ensure the entire side was protected. If you don't let them into the kerfed lining, you create a weak spot where the slat joins the lining.

 

2d48jp.jpg

 

I'll put another piece of kerfing on top of the slats, but I'm going to wait until I glue the top on since I aligned one of the slats with the upper transverse brace -- a point I'll need to notch out.

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On the contrary, thanks for posting that. That's exactly what I needed to see and is what I'll do with the mahogany sides on my build because there's still a lot of springback.

 

Am I correct in assuming that you chiseled out the kerfing to accommodate the slats just as you would with the top and back braces? I also assume that you will not chisel a taper in the slats in true Somgyi fashion? FWIW I can see the logic in that. You want the sides to be nice and stiff, right?

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Am I correct in assuming that you chiseled out the kerfing to accommodate the slats just as you would with the top and back braces? I also assume that you will not chisel a taper in the slats in true Somgyi fashion? FWIW I can see the logic in that. You want the sides to be nice and stiff, right?

 

 

It was a little easier than the chiseling you need to do for the bracing inlets since you get to chose your locations and it's a straight cut. Kerfing is softwood, so it chisels out very easily.

 

And, yeah, I'm doing a fairly massive UTB with no taper -- it'll butt against the sides.

 

I'm not aware of anybody who has compared rigid sides to more flexible sides (e.g., by building it both ways), but a lot of the high-end builders go with either double sides or fairly robust side reinforcement -- seems like a good idea to me too.

 

Edit: oops, you were asking about tapering the slats. No need to taper the ends unless you're butting against the kerfing. The taper just reduces the "stress riser" you'd get from the difference in tension/stiffness. I guess it could be a good idea to taper the sides of the slats, but I didn't think it was needed since they're glued on cross-grain-wise.

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