One step closer

Hooray for me, I finished the soundboard!  Just sanded the last brace tonight.  I know I'm jumping ahead and haven't finished with the rosette yet, but I thought you might like to revel with me in this little triumph.  I stopped over at a luthier friend's house last night and got a lot of good pointers and picked up my next back and side set - figured cocobolo!  No sap wood, but it looks great.  Thanks Trevor!!  You can check out his site at http://www.peakeguitars.com/ - he has a Facebook page too but I'm not sure what it is.  Alright, it's late and we're heading out to the cabin in West Virginia tomorrow so I'm going to bed.  Goodnight.

I'm running out of cool titles! Oh wait, rosette me - rosette me not.

So you decided to stick around and see if I actually stood up to my promise of writing again soon?  Well I'm actually surprised I got around to it one day later...  Shhhh, my wife doesn't know I'm goofing off on the computer while she's watching the baby downstairs - I have to type quick!

So the rosette from the underworld - well friends, it was not easy but I don't think rosettes are intended to be easy, they're intended to challange and inspire.  Uh oh, busted - well looks like I won't be able to finish it tonight.  My wife says "Hi!" to everyone.  I guess I'll try to pick up where I left off tomorrow.  Bis bald Freunde.

Soundboard II, the Saga continues...

I must begin with a sincere apology, it has been far too long since I have last written.  Work and baby duties have played a large part in my lack of time.  Fortunately, however, I have been able to find a few brief moments of blessed release to work on the guitar recently.  I am almost finished with the soundboard, but I must first bring you up to speed (I hope to get caught up sometime during the holiday since I will be off work for a week - but if you have babies or wives you know that the best laid plans of mice and men never survive first contact with the enemy...).

So without further ado, on to the guitar.  I last left you with a joined soundboard cut in the general shape of the triple-O body.  I forget now if I told you I followed the same procedure to joint and join the back on my last post.  It was much more difficult shooting the crotch-figured black walnut, it being a much harder wood and being prone to chip out.  I eventually tuned the plane to the right depth for the new medium, got the plates jointed as evenly as possible, then joined them on my homemade platform with knock-off go bars.

If you can zoom in closely, you will see grain separation in parts of the back.  These I will have to fill with a epoxy and saw dust mixture at a later time before I can attach it to the body.  I haven't done it yet so I'll have to fill you in later.

So getting back to the soundboard - the next step I took was to thin the back to the proper thickness.  It ended up being a bad idea when I got around to putting in the rosette, but I'll get in to that in a little bit.  So I started thinning the soundboard the old fashioned way with a toothed plane.  It looked cool and felt cool, but I soon discovered that it's difficult to get a uniform thickness and even more difficult to tell how much you've taken off.  It's kind of hard to see, but the next two pictures show my misguided approach to toothed planing.  I tried it for a little bit and that was enough - knowing I'd have even more trouble for the back I decided I needed to find a better way - enter the power wide belt thickness sander compliments of the Cayce Company, located close to Timonium.

After searching hours on the internet, writing random emails to random shops and luthiers in the greater Baltimore area, I finally somehow ended up calling the good people at Cayce to inquire about purchasing something that might help me.  They informed me that for a very low rate, they would let me use their showroom wide belt thickness sander any time.  So on one of my off Fridays, I gathered up all of my side pieces, the back, the soundboard, and some spalted maple boards I had acquired from a supply mill in Maine and headed to Timonium.  Inside of 20 minutes I was completely done and out of there!  It's amazing what wonders the right types of modern technology can offer.  Building a smaller guitar, I stayed on the thin side of the recommended thickness ranges for each set.  Once I got everything home, I started right in on the rosette from hell.  But, that will have to wait for the next post, and I promise it won't take me 2 months to get around to it.  Until tomorrow friends!

I'm getting ahead of myself

Hello, hello, hello, I'm getting ahead of myself with this latest post because, quite frankly, if I don't speed up, I'll be finished the guitar before I'm halfway through the blog story and since it will take me forever to build the guitar, it will take two forevers to finish this blog...  So, let's fast forward a bit shall we.  (I must confess I'm a little short on pictures too, and who wants to read a boring blog without cool pictures to go along with it?!? I know I wouldn't!)

After I cut the neck out with the band saw and routed the dovetail with the router table I made, I proceeded to carve the neck with a dremel tool to get the rough rounded shape.  After that, I used a series of draw and carving knives to take it down further.  Then I used progressively finer gritted sand papers to smooth everything out.  When all is finished I'll use a cabinet scraper and 400 grit sand paper to put the final finish on the neck.  Other than routing the truss rod channel I have not yet touched the rest of the neck, including the fingerboard or the headstock.  Those will come later because, as I've said before, I'm very ADD and wanted to skip the hard stuff and move on to something more fun.

Which segues nicely into my next picture - joining the soundboard. 

Before I could get to this point I first went to Cayce Industries (they have a huge belt thickness sander) to bring the individual plates down to close the proper thickness.  Once that was done, I had to build a shooting jig (no I don't have a picture, but I can get one) to joint the plates.  This is extremely important as it is what lines up the two plates for joining.  If the common edge is not jointed properly, there will be gaps in the soundboard seam.  It took me a while, but I finally got the knack of shooting, and I finally make a joint good enough to join.  (This step also makes really pretty spruce curls that you can use in your book quality staged photos;-)  Before you glue, make sure you practice your steps so you have it down.  I put a slim piece of newspaper under the seam so that I wouldn't glue the plates to the work surface.  You lay the far plate down first against a stop and fasten it with clamps (I use fiberglass rods), then you put a thin bead of glue on the second plate, lay it down against the first, slide it back and forth, then clamp it from above.  After that you wedge it from the side to close up the seam nice and tight.  I let it dry over night and you can see the result below.

In an effort to keep my posts shorter so that more people may consider actually reading them, not that I hold any real faith that anyone will, I will stop boring you now... 

Aaaah finally he's getting somewhere!

Yes indeed, finally it's time to stop blathering and start building.  Well my first project began with the Honduran mahogany neck.  I purchased a single block large enough to actually cut out two necks (just in case I royally bombed on my first try).  I decided early on to take a purist's approach to this guitar project - time and experience has tempered my visions of grandeur, though.  In this vein I decided to make everything as high quality and traditional as possible - hence the Adirondack Spruce, the other uber expensive woods, and the single solid neck. 

Many of today's luthiers and guitar manufacturers actually build composite necks by cutting the neck completely straight, then going back to cut the head at a specific angle to re-glue it upside down to make the proper attitude.  It's called a reverse headstock (you can see a good explanation at http://www.seagullguitars.com/seagullstory.htm).  This method has been proven to increase neck strength with minimal appearance drawbacks.  I personally, though, didn't like the idea of introducing any more room for errors or weak points than necessary.  Besides, I bought a nice truss rod from LMII and used the best grade mahogany I could get my hands - so the benefit is a wash and I get to keep an unmarred monolithic neck.

I began by tracing the rough outline of two necks on the large block.  After cutting both outlines out with a band saw (thanks for the next five Christmas presents dear!  I'm currently on buying restriction till I die...).  Next I drew the many views (top, side, heel, etc.) from the plan on tracing paper.  I then cut the views out with a razor blade and retraced them on the rough mahogany block.  Once I had the neck drawn I proceeded to tackle the most difficult and important part - the heel.

The heel is one of a few critical structural parts of an acoustic guitar.  It is how the neck attaches to the body and there are many methods to choose from, ie. mortise and tenon, bolt-on, dovetail, etc.  I won't go into them, but suffice it to say I went with the plan instructions given to me - the routed dovetail.  I was not about to go changing the professional designs for my first ever guitar just willy nilly.  I also figured it would be a good excuse to go buy some more man toys (thanks again, dear, for the next ten year's worth of birthday presents!).  So long story short, I bought a Porter Cable router and other needed accessories, built a router table into my table saw wing, and then began to experiment.  I'm usually very impatient, but so far I've been successful at cooling my jets and working slowly and deliberately.  With as much hard work as making a guitar is, I did not want to inadvertently have to start from the beginning again because of a rushed blunder. 

I finally figured out the best way to rout the dove tail and went for it.  It turned out perfectly until I got sloppy finishing up.  The dove tail was done, but then I noticed a final bit of material that needed to be cut off, so I ran past the router one more time.  I should have been paying attention because as I was intent on getting that last little nobbin, I inadvertently shaved a corner of the dovetail.  To this day I don't know if that will ruin the entire connection and whether I will have to start all over again or not.  So far I'm not worried, I think it will be just fine.

Once the heel was done, I cut the taper in the neck to match the future fret board on the band saw.  This I couldn't manage also without making another minor mistake - I got a little too fresh with the band saw and it bit back by cutting into the neck close to the headstock.  It's pretty small though, I think I can fix it with sawdust mixed with epoxy.  I doubt it will be completely unnoticeable, but it's maker's marks just like that which give our creations character!  After carving the neck down some with the foredom tool and sanding it a bit, I decided I had had it up to the chin in dealing with necks and put it down until it was time to attach it to the body.

So ends this first chapter in creating the guitar neck.

Was it the chicken or the wooden egg?

In building a guitar one must first solve this fundamental, foundational, all-important, life-or-death question before he can prove worthy of advancing beyond go: What came first - the chicken or the egg?

If you said egg, you're not welcome here.  Please discontinue reading immediately, you have not proven yourself worthy to view the innermost workings of the mind of a self-professed world grand master luthier.  If you said the chicken came first, well then, feel right at home.

The truth is, dear reader, there are many ways to begin building a guitar.  Every serious luthier that has ever publish has their own method and unique steps and traditions to accomplish the transcendental.  Perhaps I'm already getting a little ahead of myself - there is one place to start, and that is you need to determine what you want to make and out of what materials.  With those decisions behind you, it then becomes like one of those middle school choose-your-own-adventure stories.  You know, the ones where honestly most everyone ends up in one swamp or quicksand pit or another about 10 pages into it.  Well that won't happen to us; I can say this boldly because I have a secret I will share with you...  go ahead, gather in close...  I bought guitar insurance, yup that's right, if anything happens to my project, I'm torching the whole lot in effigy, running to Guitar Center where I will buy the most expensive guitar in the store, will write "Verdani Guitars" on the headstock with a sharpie and draw Tim's own scantily clad art nouveau rendition of Moucha's Muse of Music or Dance and call it a night.

No not really, but we'll see how tough this whole thing actually becomes...  Well again, reader, I digress.  I was limited to guitar style by what plans were obtainable.  The two main websites I looked at were www.stewmac.com and www.lmii.com.  Stewart MacDonald is a little pricier but I could see exactly what I was getting and they had a matching acrylic template for the soundboard and back which sealed the deal.  I didn't want to go with the Dreadnought style - it's just too popular and overrated.  I like the sexy curves of the more traditional parlor and jumbo styles far better.  I figured a jumbo would be too big for the Adirondack Spruce I wanted to use for the soundboard (hard to find large plates in this wood), and they didn't have any "grand auditorium" or orchestra styles so I ultimately decided on the biggest parlor style guitar they had, the Martin 000 with 14 frets to the body (looks more modern than the 12 frets to the body model).

I made my final tonewood selections after I had ordered the guitar plan and template.  I purchases everything initially from Stephen Roberson at Colonial Tonewoods, www.colonialtonewoods.com.  I have to give a shout out to Steve, what and incredible help he was!  Extremely friendly and helpful, I told him what my vision was and we went through a few iterations together until we found the perfect fit - a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind selection of American crotch-figured black walnut, with matching sides, and a unique Adirondack Spruce plate set for the soundboard.  As Steve always said, "that red spruce is the redheaded step-child of tonewoods," and when I got the plate set I knew exactly why - Adirondack Spruce is unlike any other spruce species you see in guitar building these days (Sitka, Englemen, German, etc.) in that it has no consistent and uniform grain.  Instead it can look loose and splotchy, but I absolutely had to have it because up until just after WWII, it was THE wood of choice by luthiers and was only replaced because of it's increasing price and diminishing supply.  I compare my joined soundboard with a Sitka spruce specimen below so you can see the difference.

Well sadly, reader, I must go.  I've whittled away all my available time, without much to show for it other than wordy diatribes and provacative pictures.  Until I catch everyone up to where I currently am in the process, I fear my posts will be extremely scattered.  Thanks for putting up with it.  Until next time, live long and prosper.

In the Beginning...

In the beginning was God... and on the eighth day was God created the harp, forerunner of the steel string guitar, and just like God had to wipe the slate clean with the flood, so too did God start anew when the first luthier forsook all other stringed instruments and created the 6-stringed mecca of musicality.

And so my tale begins, unfortunately not at the beginning, for indeed I have already started - in the words of the great Lord Helmut "Commence to Start!"  I've wanted to create a website to document the construction of my first instrument - a modified Martin-style 14-Fret Triple-O - but lo and behold website's cost money and I've spent everything I have buying baby clothes for our first child and tools for my workshop.

This whole idea came into being when one day (for the thousandth time) my "aging" and hard of hearing father looked longingly at a guitar and said to himself - "oOOoo  that's nice, I'd like to buy that, wish I could..."  You see my father picked up the guitar shortly after I did many moons ago (7 years I think) and was immediately forevermore entranced by its wonders.  As I mentioned, he's extraordinarily hard of hearing, and has thick, cumbersome hands and fingers; even so, he's captivated by the siren song, like a sailor born and bred to the sea.  What he says he lacks in polish and skill, he all the more makes up for in his childlike wonder of the power of music, his incredible vebratto and his sheer overwhelming joy in singing and teasing harmony from chaos.

Well what else could an able bodied and indepted son do but decide to give his dear old dad a gift to bring joy to his heart.  To be honest, I had ulterior motives as well, you see I wanted to make myself my next guitar too...  So for my Dad's birthday last year, I decided to surprise him with a curious present; I bought all the wood components I needed and a copy of the guitar plan, wrapped them in a blanket and threw it in his arms.  With a look of puzzlement he opened the blanket to find the jumbled mass and as soon as he saw the guitar plan his face lit up.  The rest is history, well, history in progress I should say.

You must understand why I gave him the peices rather than a finished guitar, and in doing so you must understand one very important thing about my father - he's an impulsive buyer.  I feared I would spend the next two years secretly working on my peice de resistance, only to show up one day with an almost finished guitar in my hand to show him and a brand new glitzy guitar in his, fresh from the local music store.  The stakes were too high; that, and you must also understand something about me - I'm extremely ADD and can count the number of significant projects I've completed fully on one hand; I'd need a legion of hands and toes to count all the projects that are still PENDING.

So anyway, I leave you now with a short background of my journey.  Soon to follow are all manner of pictures and descriptions and lessons learned, Lord willing, in some fashion of order.  Until then may God bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you, and give you peace.