Guidence needed for a new member

[EricDownunder]

My son-in-law want's to build an electric guitar for himself and asked me for guidence!!! I am quite capable in most woodwork projects but never atempted a musical instrument before. He is a well accomplished musician looking for that something different. What I have decided to do is build an acoustic guitar alongside of him and re kindle an old passion of playing the yippi-stick for fun. Looking around my shed for timber I found the following Blackwood (my son-in-law claimed this one), Hoop Pine, A large plank of Jelly, Fiji Mahogany, Pacific Maple, a piece of ebony, Jarra I have had for 25years or more, Rosewood, Spruce from an old piano sound board late 1800s, Maple or Oak that I have trouble and identifing from the same piano plus many others I am still trying to identify. My son-in-law has his under control but my first acoustic build I would like some advise, cost is an issue so I would like to use what I have if possible, my thoughts were Jarra back and sides, top not a clue would the old piano spruce soundboard work or would the joins mess with the sound, neck 5pce fiji mahogany with jarra centre and a thin line of pacific maple either side of the jarra and possible a truss bar, ebony fretboard, ebony or jarra bridge. As we both intend to get deeper into building our own yippi-stick's we will need some equipment such as side & purfling bending equipment plus other stuff, I have lot's of woodworking gear for normal joinery work and hobby stuff, making kids toys for example for my kids now my grand kids.
Any advise would be much valued.
Eric

[rocket]

Hi Eric
Wow you sure have a nice selection of bits and pieces in your garage don't you. From what you've described i'd probably go for the piano rosewood for back and sides if there is the quantity and the piano spruce for the top, wouldn't worry about the joins.
If there isn't enough rosewood for b/s maybe you could use the maple for the back and use there rosewood for the sides.
Once again, depending on quantity available, maple neck or maybe laminate some of the jarrah in there or Fijian mahogany and jarrah, sounds like you have a bit of choice. Ebony or rosewood f/b, ebony headstock veneer.
Good to have a new member on here, good luck with the gits, let us know what you decide on, and don't forget we like lots of pics.
Cheers,,,

Rod.

[Lillian]

Welcome to the forum Eric. There are several books available for building your own electric guitar. See if your library can get any in to have a look at and see which building style works for you before you buy one.

[68matts]

The Jigs and Fixtures section here is a great place to start if you want to DIY a lot of your equipment. There are plans and ideas for lot of very useful jigs to be found in there ( there's a lot of smart cookies on this forum who are happy to share their ideas). A basic bending pipe can be made with a 500w halogen globe inside a piece of pipe clamped in a vice, simple but effective. I also built a fox style bender using heat lamps from an IXL for less than $50, it's not as flash as the store bought ones but gets the job done. Good luck with it all. Keep us posted.

[EricDownunder]

That's what I want to hear Matt, simple but effective home made tools I tend to make as much as possible it's much more satisifying than useing a piece of plastic card, roughly what size pipe & guage did you use and did you elongate the pipe.
Eric

[Trevor Gore]

Eric, I think you have plenty of choice for your acoustic build. For a little inspiration (perhaps!) have a look at this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3842
Jarrah moves a lot with humidity, so probably not the best for a back at the thickness it will end up.

For a bending pipe, see if you can find a bit of yacht mast. Not sure where you're based, but there's a lot of yacht riggers on the east coast.

[68matts]

Eric, my pipe is just a leftover length of 2" water pipe that I found at work ( pretty much all my jigs, moulds and templates have come from leftovers and offcuts from work ). It's only about 6"s long, which is not long enough for guitar sides once you clamp it in a vice, but I only use it for bindings and uke sides so it works for me. I've left it round for now but as trevor said a piece of aluminium mast, with it's differing radii, would be ideal.

[jeffhigh]

Whearabouts are you located Eric?
Tempting as it may be to use the piano bits for the soundboard, I would spend the money on a soundboard, doesnt need to be expensive, most of the tops I have cost me no more than $35.

[woodrat]

Welcome to the forum Eric.....Its a great craft to discover and you will find it fascinating . Trevor's Shed guitar is definitely an inspiration and a great example of what can be accomplished with whats available. I would steer away from the jarrah too. While its entirely possible to use the spruce soundboard from the piano and make a multi piece top (Trevors Shed guitar has a 5 piece top) Jeffs advice to buy a top is good too. A nice A or AA grade top will not cost too much and you only have to do the one join. I would use the soundboard from the piano for the bracing of the back and the top though...just split it before you use it with a hatchet or similar and then plane to the split face and your away.
And the last thing is to be very conscious of humidity,,,,find a truly dry place and try to find something accurate to measure it if you can. There is lots to read about humidity and the role it plays in building guitars on the forums....if you catch the bug badly (like quite a few on here) you will be constructing a dry room for your subsequent builds....

John

[needsmorecowbel]

Do you guys find jarrah produces a very 'muddy' tone? What I mean is that the notes of a chord for example would meld into a mush rather than each note being quite distinctive in itself?

[Kim]

Welcome to the forum Eric

Do you guys find jarrah produces a very 'muddy' tone? What I mean is that the notes of a chord for example would meld into a mush rather than each note being quite distinctive in itself?

I reckon there's too many other components with greater potential to influence tone than the species of wood used in back and sides or in a solid body could ever do, and there are just too many variables of those things and in the properties of the wood of any species to allow any blanket statement of their effect.

Must also mention that being from WA, I have worked with Jarrah quite a bit and I think it gets a bit of a bum wrap as far as its stability goes. Yes some will move around, but you can usually pick which boards will be prone. Much of the problem is a result of how the wood was milled. Every single twin blade or bandsaw mill I have been to in the southwest of the state would 'only' cut 'through and through' which produces mainly flatsaw and skew sawn boards. This is because that is all they were set up for as the traditional demand for their product had mostly been for railway sleeper and scantling for use in the building trade for roofing and stud frame work. All of that stuff is used green, if its bent or twisted you just push it in plce with your foot and whack another nail in it to locked in place and sleeper are packed out on all sides with ballast or dogs and rails so movement is not a consideration there either.

On the other hand I have demolished hundreds of building pulling out window and door frames and other joinery that are still solid as rock after 70 or 100 years and will 'never' move. There was a joinery shop that backed on to a stair manufacturing company I once worked for. The back of that place was cleared 'acres' of fenced off stacks of carefully stickered jarrah. It would come in green from the mill at one end and be placed under sprinklers to keep it moist so it would begin to 'season'..as it should, slowly and without end check or cellular collapse which can introduce instability into a board.

After a while the stack would move into the factory to be dimensioned down a little with a skip dress. This allowed them to cull out the crap and to make sure the next stage of stickering would be very even and straight. The stack would then go back out in the yard covered with sheets of iron on a low frame to allow air flow and then, after 'years' more 'seasoning', the stack would be moved into the factory to produce some of the most stable joinery you could possibly image...but we don't have 'time' for that anymore do we. It's not the wood, jarrah is bloody good stuff.

Cheers

Kim

[simso]

Dont knock the jarrah.

We have just entered negotiations for building a custom line of guitars made from jarrah.

Proto type is in development for customer as we speak.

[needsmorecowbel]

Cheers for the response Kim I have certainly not used it enough to merit any sort of comment on my part but it is interesting to hear your thoughts none the less. I have only built one electric with Jarrah and that of course is an electric so the influence on tone is Perhaps even less (not going to open that can of worms haha).

[EricDownunder]

Wow, different opions on Jarrah I wanted to use it because it's Australian no other reason, the Tasi blackwood I have has dark oily like stains and wouldn't make a good example for a guitar build, Last night I had a close look at the piano soundboard I have and decided it was not good enough for a top and agree it will make good bracing and possibly lining, I found some type of cedar boards in the rack about 6" to 8" they have a very strong odour similar to western red but much stronger. I want this yippi-stick to be something to be proud of and enjoy so I have no intention of making something half hearted. A piece of yaught mast for bending purfling what a good idea, my next door neighbour is right into sailing, maybe it's time for a beer and a bbq. Finding bits at work is always good as so much it chucked out these days, example, currently I am thinking of building a work bench out of pine pallets made from 4"x2" and 4"x4" about 3' long (sorry 100mm x 50mm & 100mm x 100mm, x 900mm) as their only thrown out, theirs also cardboard tubes about 500mm diam about 900mm long and up to 20mm thick that I haven't found a use for yet. Now with my shed (THE SHED) I designed and built myself with a good woodworking area in mind and I am in the process of setting it up, a 6mtr x 5mtr room inside the shed with one external wall facing south and a small 900x1800 window and a mezanine floor above for a ceiling, hoping it will be dry enough, so far all my machines are in roughly were I want them but no benches or timber storage all my stuff has been stored in a container for a few years now, unpacking is a lot of fun you find stuff you have had for such a long time and try and make projects to use it all, Tonight I plan to get all my woodwiking books unpacked and into the glass doored magazine cabinet we put in last night (an old china cabinet from the side of the road).
I really apreciate the input I am getting from this forum, later I might ask opinions on my 40year old Gianini, sounds great but need a lot of work on the body putting it out of tune above the seventh fret, I think it's called pot belly where the top is wharping behind the bridge cuasing the bridge to twist.
Keep Smiling everyone and have a nice day.
Eric

[Paul B]

Hi Eric, welcome to ANZLF.

Your first stop should be your local library, they should have a book or two on guitar making.

You can probably get away with making your own specialist tools for the most part. The commercially available luthier tools are great in that they do help you get a better result (I'm thinking of items like a fret press caul Vs hammering in frets). If you have lots of time on your hands but not a lot of cash you can build most tools yourself with a little scrounging around for parts (electric motors for example).

My first guitar took around 18 months to finish but a lot of that time was spent building tools. You can spend a week of evenings and all weekend building a jig that you use for 5 or 10 minutes and get a perfect result, or spend a lot longer wishing you had built a jig.

It's all good fun and you never stop learning. It does get addictive tho.

Good luck!

[woodrat]

Finding bits at work is always good as so much it chucked out these days, example, currently I am thinking of building a work bench out of pine pallets made from 4"x2" and 4"x4" about 3' long (sorry 100mm x 50mm & 100mm x 100mm, x 900mm) as their only thrown out, theirs also cardboard tubes about 500mm diam about 900mm long and up to 20mm thick that I haven't found a use for yet.
Eric

Hi Eric....a lot of pallets that come from Europe are Spruce and can yield some nice bracewood ...the cardboard tubes would be useful too . You can hang them up and use them to store bindings, linings and purflings or anything long like that.

John

[EricDownunder]

Finding bits at work is always good as so much it chucked out these days, example, currently I am thinking of building a work bench out of pine pallets made from 4"x2" and 4"x4" about 3' long (sorry 100mm x 50mm & 100mm x 100mm, x 900mm) as their only thrown out, theirs also cardboard tubes about 500mm diam about 900mm long and up to 20mm thick that I haven't found a use for yet.
Eric

Hi Eric....a lot of pallets that come from Europe are Spruce and can yield some nice bracewood ...the cardboard tubes would be useful too . You can hang them up and use them to store bindings, linings and purflings or anything long like that.

John

Some pallets do come from Germany I'm going to look at that

[woodrat]

Also Eric, places like The Good Guys that have lots of pallets to get rid of may be good to check out. Again pallets from Europe will likely be spruce... ....

John