Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Hi there,

This guitar has been on the bench for sometime. Like over two years. It has caused me some grief through out the build but I am very happy the way it turned out. It is a copy of an old Stella concert size guitar that is 13 1/2" lower bout. John How in the USA builds guitars similar to this one I have come up with. Some years back he posted a thread on the OLF, he described the build included an outlined template with a few of the necessary specs to build a copy of a Stella acoustic and I was lucky enough to download a copy. The most famous was the small bodied Stella twelve string guitar. Anyway, I liked the challenge so I started working on the build.

The first issue was I had two builds on the go at the same time which can be dangerous as what turned out. The dreadnought got the correct size sound hole and Stella as I call her also received the same size sound hole. It took me a few days to get over the mistake but I got out of it by making a doughnut shaped patch and fitted it under the sound hole inside the box and left a ledge the correct sound hole size. I then matched some sitka spruce and inlayed it into the sound hole opeing gluing it to the ledge. I then made up a small jig and routed a channel with the dremel and inlayed some black white black purfling. Phew, issue resolved.

So the build was going along nicely and I was working on shaping the neck profile under the neck at the first fret area and tried to wing it as I was in hurry to go out for lunch and of coarse put the rasp into the truss rod. Not a good feeling. Lunch tasted bad and it took me a few more days to get over that mistake. I then decided to teach myself a lesson not to profile necks without a template so I set to and removed the beautiful figured fingerboard from the stuffed neck. Well that took me the weekend and I certainly had plenty of time to think how big an fool I was. So I made a complete new neck and glued the lovely fingerboard on again.

Every thing was going along nicely and I noticed a flaw in the Blackwood that I thought would sand out. Wrong again and after sanding away fro some time gave up and left it as character before I sanded a hole through the guitar back.

Last mistake was I broke the binding on the last pass near the lower bout on the top and had to join in a piece and trying to get an invisible join on figured maple is not easy so so if you look closely it stares at you! Shit happens.

So I got to stringing her up two weeks ago and started with some 12 to 53 light medium strings as it is a 25" scale and I had left the neck very chunky. It has good volume but was very bright. I set it up and a few mates played it and some liked the brightness and some didn't. She played well though even with a very fat neck that I think added to the sustain of the instrument.

So I like open tuning's and thought how will she perform in a lower tuning. I tried DADGAD and all of a sudden she come to life. Loving slide guitar my next thought was try some medium gauge strings and set her up for slide in open D DADF#AD. So Stella is now a slider, has a new owner and she sounds bloody great!

Blackwood: Back and sides
Queensland Maple: Laminated neck
Sitka: top and bracing
Scale: 25"
Schaller Slot head machine heads

Thanks for looking.

Here are a few pics:

Looks really good Alan. How did you go about fixing the hole in the back?

Col

Thanks Col.

Sorry mate, I exaggerated about the hole is was a a flaw in the timber about the size of your thumb nail. I thought when I first noticed it early in the build I would be able to sand it out but not the case. You have to look hard to see it but there is also a slight dip in the same spot where I tried to sand it out.

Cheers

Alan

Stella has some nice lines Alan and looks pretty damned good considering how many 'little' things went wrong, aah the joys of working with wood. My mistakes always leave me shocked and dumbfounded

Steve

Alan

What finish did you use and did your pore fill beforehand?

Col

Thank you Steve.

Col: French polish shellac finish using a rubber with a 2 pound cut shellac mix and straight diggers metho using equal amounts on the rubber with two syringes. Five sessions each takes about four hours and I go around the instrument four times. Rub back before each session with 600 grit sandpaper. Let it dry and crosslink for four to five weeks and rub out with 400 grit flexible sanding cloth from Stew Mac.

Cheers

Alan

Nice one Alan, thanks for sharing the hiccups on the road to the finished product.

Jim

Hi Alan
Great looking little guitar
I like it a lot
Regard Steve

Very stylish, Alan. Nice work.

Looks great Alan!! Nice work

Hi Al, I think I remember this guitar early in it's journey, it's turned out real nice, nice clean lines and finish.

I have had two guitars that resisted my attempts to get it right. They looked good in the end and after the pain had died away and few years past I could not find the areas of concern anyway. One I still play [30 years on] and I think it's one of the best sounding guitars I've built. The other I've had for 10 years [unplayed] it sounds very good too, it's on it's way to my grandson as I type. It sounded so good in a listening test last week against a top of the line guitar of a well known manufacturer, I thought this guitar has to be played, lucky grandson, and he does not know its coming.

Anyway Al keep up the great work, your creating some nice instruments.

Looks great Alan. Obviously you committed some mistakes sou thoroughly that you will never ever make these again. Oh, and it would have been a shame if you had ended up sanding through this amazing back, I'm glad you stopped before this happened!