Archtop Build

[AidanHarris]

G'day all

First post here and would say from the quick look through it looks like there are some very skilled and smart people on here for me to pick their brains.

So the story goes a bit like this...

once apon a time there was a young boy fasinated with music and woodwork, he never could afford or get access to decent woodworking tools. All during school he wished he had time and money to make his own guitar but things never went to plan.

At his last few weeks of school he came found a school that was a woodworking school and applied to continue his dreams of working with wood as a career. (Australian School of Fine Wood, Dwellingup- have a look if your interested) during the course he had no choice in projects but honed his woodworking skills untill finally for their final piece they get free choice in design and construction. YAY!

From that you should gather that I for one am only 18 and secondly im making a guitar right now.

I want to share my experiance with all you people interested in reading and looking at some pretty pictures when i get them up.

Im making a archtop guiotar from Tassy blackwood and western red ceder and from the limited knowledge in tone woods i hope i chose well. Im also following the Benedetto book for help but mostly making it up as i go along for fun and a challenge (not that i dont have one ahead anyways)

Ill get some pics up this weekend, and will write more as i go.

Thanks for reading and giving me help if and when i need it.
Aidan

[sebastiaan56]

Congrats!, Good on ya!, bring it on! etc, etc

Enjoy your build, keep us posted and there are plenty of guru's here who freely share their knowledge, use them, they're showing off anyway.

[Lillian]

Welcome Aidan. This is a wonderful place to hang out. Thanks for the introduction. Its always nice to get to know a bit about the people behind the avatars.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, our corner of the world was set on it's ear just recently. The forum serve was hacked. Bob has done a brilliant job of getting us back on line, but he is still wrestling with getting things back to normal. So don't let the 2009 date on treads throw you. This is a very active forum.

Looking forward to seeing your work.

[Clancy]

G'day Aiden,
My first build was an archtop in blackwood & king billy. It sounds fine and so should yours with your tonewood choices.
Wish I'd gone to woodworking school before I'd started.
Keep us all updated.

[Nick]

Welcome to the forum Aidan & congrats on sticking with your dream. We will look forward to watching your progress here (we love piccies! ). You are right, there are alot of skilled builders on this forum & I'm sure they will help if needed or be keen to see an archie come together. Craig & Rod (apologies to anybody else I've forgotten! ) are our resident archie builders & I knock up the occasional one also but haven't used the Aussie timbers so those two guys are better equipped for answers
Bob's book is an excellent book to be working from & if you follow his example you won't go far wrong. I did have a few questions as there are a couple of area's that weren't very clear but I also have the DVD set so that helped fill in those gaps & added some more to my knowledge pool, so if you have an opportunity to watch them, I would fully recommend them.

[rocket]

Aidan,, good on you for having a go, Nick's right, Benedetto's book is a great place to start and this forum is full of people who are very experienced in building many types of instruments and who also are too happy to share info with others, be they experienced or not. Looking forward to some pics of your build.
Cheers,, Rod.

[AidanHarris]

I am having a few techinical troubles with camera and such, photos are taken but are yet to be uploaded.

Im sure you all can hang on one more week. and if you do i shal reward you with more photos in one big hit

[Nick]

I am having a few techinical troubles with camera and such, photos are taken but are yet to be uploaded.

Im sure you all can hang on one more week. and if you do i shal reward you with more photos in one big hit

We wait with bated breath I'm sure one week in the life cycle of a build isn't too long.

[AidanHarris]

pictures are here, so far so good. Its been a big learning curve so far.

[AidanHarris]

pictures are here, so far so good. Its been a big learning curve so far. and the photos got jumbled but. but you can get the idea of whats going on.

I dont have a bending iron but the workshop has a steam box. so i used that. Are there or will there be any problems with that?

This will be a pretty quick build. The project has to be done by the 3rd of December for an exhibition so ive been working pretty hard to get it all done.

For any one how lives in perth. i will post details about the exhibition and you are more then welcome to come have a look at this in person and see the other stuff that myself and other students have been doing over the past 2 years.

Aidan

[DarwinStrings]

I dont have a bending iron but the workshop has a steam box. so i used that. Are there or will there be any problems with that?

G'day and welcome Aidan, I have only even used a steam box to bend much larger pieces of timer than would be used in a guitar but there should be no problem with the method you have used other than burning your fingers when you get it out of the box. Any method that gets it bent without breaking it should be fair enough.

Jim

[rocket]

Looks like you're doing very nicely there Aidan, i like the sound hole set out you have too, looking forward to seeing more pics as you progress.
Cheers ,,,Rod.

[Ronald_Handmade]

Wow. Just wow...

I like the use of the drilled holes in the back - which I assume is about getting the thickness/depth of the carving consistent, right? I had wondered how one would go about that. An elegantly simple solution!

The f-hole design looks fantastic - just a bit different without anything too extreme/radical. The choice of timbers should look good too IMHO.

If this is your idea of a simple first build, I for one can't wait to see what comes next!

[AidanHarris]

hey, thanks, it is shaping up.

the drilled holes are for getting the arching close on the top, and then holes are drilled in the bottom to get an even thickness to start with.

lets hope future guitars get better im hoping they will. I have a few things stacked in the shed that could be turned into somthing nice.... I hope

Aidan

[AidanHarris]

This last week has been a little slow in progress, I glued up the body and have been sanding and shaping the last bits. I was a bit nurvous scraping the re-curve and probably havent gone down deep enough with it in places but im scared of going that little bit too far and getting another sound hole in a place i dont want it .

I glued up the neck, cut the dovetail and glued in truss rod and now have to wack on the fret board. I got a prefretted one from Gilet guitars and it looks really good, ou of all the guitars i own none of them have an ebony fretboard. It will be good to have a change.

So far there havent been any major problems or mistakes. Just the minor ones that you expect along the way with a first build.

I was thinking about spraying this guitar in nitro but after doing a bit of reading I dont think I have the time to wait for the laquer to dry properly before this needs to be finished. Also im not very good at spraying. Is there any problem with oiling a guitar apart from upkeep and such? I use Livos oil on all my furniture and have been getting very good results with that and im more confident in using it.

Again, technology has gotten the better of me and decided to break. I only can get one photo to work. Bastards! But i guess its ok., there wasnt really much to show this week.

Aidan