What I've been up to

[Dominic]

I have been working hard (when real work lets me) on 5 guitars, retopping a dred and an archtop since March. Here is where I am up to. From left to right, Blackwood L-00 13 fret cutaway, 2 MJ cutaways in EIRW and cocobolo, 2 hauser classicals beautiful figured narra and EIRW and a flamed maple archtop body. They all have patches so i can cut sound ports.

June11 004 (Custom).JPG

This pic shows some of the tops and backs, EIRW MJ, a dred for retopping an earlier guitar with hauser narra back, coco MJ and blackwood L-00 (check the beautiful figure, this is a set craig gave when we resawed some lovely boards he scored). I have all the necks ready to fit the heel and then carve, all the fingerboards are slotted and radiused. Been making more planes for carving the archtop plates and I have the top roughed out ready for F holes.
I still have to glue the braces on the 2 Hauser's. Then I can get carving. It will be interesting to carve them all together, particularly the MJ's as I'll be able to reference them from each other. Real work permitting, I'll have the boxes all closed and ready for finishing in a couple of months.
Cheers Dom

June11 007 (Custom).JPG

[Bruce McC]

Dom

Looks like you are a very busy man. Being Canberra based I would like to
catch up with you one day if you have the time. Perhaps a PM if we could meet.

Bruce

[Nick]

5 guitars at once? Geez Dom, thanks for making me feel rather inadequate all of a sudden!
Dready's got a large bridge plate, having never built one is that the standard?

[Mark McLean]

Fantastic stuff Dom - and no two alike!
I, too, feel a bit in awe of that productivity.
Some of those tops are going on cutaway bodies - I was surprised to see them braced up as if for a non-cutaway. Do you just chop off the excess bit together with its section of the UTB? I have only made 1 cutaway and I cut the shape of the cutaway into it from the start.

Looking forward to seeing this family of instruments finished. Do you have buyers lined up for them?

cheers
Mark

[christian]

Wow great stuff Dom, all coming along nicely
5 at time is the way to go, I found you learn so much from each when you build them together
look forward to seeing them finished.

Cheers,
Christian.

[Tim Mason]

Very nice, i really wish i had the know how to make a tidy acoustic guitar, all that bracing, clamping...Amazing( one day ) , and 5 at once

Cant wait to see them come together

[stopper]

They look good Dom,
Hope you get time to put up some pics of the necks and assembly. Very interesting.
cheers
steve

[DarwinStrings]

Looks like all your spare time is earmarked Dom. Those extra logs you have in the cutaways, do they sit on or off the sound board? and are they ply?

Jim

Life is good when you are amongst the wood

[Clancy]

You have been busy mate.
Interesting bracing on the cut-away bodies.
I assume they're your take on the 'flying buttress' scheme.
Any chance of a closeup?

Mark, the cutaway section would be above the UTB on the tops.
You can see on one of the MJ's how the UTB has been angled for the cutaway to fit it.

Oh. And glad you like the Blackwood Dom

[Dominic]

If you count the archtop body there are 6 guitars. I think 3 or 4 would have been better. But once you are set up for a process like bending sides it does not take much more time to repeat it. As long as you don't make the same mistake 6 times.

Yes, Craig is correct. I traced the body outline onto the tops before I braced them so I could fit the UTB. The MJs are angled slightly. I wonder if they even need to be there on a cutaway, you have this very stiff side supporting the top under the fingerboard on one side so a much smaller brace could be used.

But, cutaways are inherently weak and the neck is more likely to move sideways under tension as the cutaway side acts like a spring while the bass side is stiffer. So I made up some flying braces with good quality ply that connect from the waist to the cutaway and drilled out large holes so they didn't impede the air flow too much.

Jim, they clear the top but are angled to best transfer the string energy to the side. I'll stain them black before i close the boxes so they are harder to see. I used some carbon fibre rods on a completed L 00 and you don't notice them unless you look hard. On the coco MJ I also put one on the upper bout and laminated the top with IRW because I am going to put in a sound port so it will look nice when you look in there.

I’ve also run carbon fibre roving around the kerfing under the top using fish glue and used some thin myrtle strips over the kerfing on the bottom to stiffen up the bodies.

I’ll get some more pics on the weekend, using the flash at night is not the best for details.

Cheers
Dom

[Dominic]

Nick, the bridge plate is as on the plan. But it is large so I have thinned it out quite a bit in areas not under the string balls or saddle. I've only made a couple of dreds and the one after the one I a re-topping came out great and its owner loved how it sounded. The one I am re-topping was over braced and having tried carving the braces down still does not do the beautiful flamed narra body justice. So I stuck with the large patch as it worked but I should try something smaller on the next one. But I have a few guitars to finish before I get to another dred.
Cheers
Dom

[DarwinStrings]

Nice one Dom, those logs I made for my two balsa jobs work well but they are time consuming to make and I do like a nice piece of ply so may use something similar to yours myself next time.

Jim