What you doing?

[Dominic]

Hey, too much talk about very unluthier like things going on around here. Back to business.

Its raining in Canberra so I can't do any gluing. Thought I'd show you what I am working on.
Someone posted a lovely Spalt maple CS336 a while ago and I instantly wanted one.
I have a nice piece of maple from Perry Ormsby for the top and I have a 3m slab of Sapele which I use for bodies. Here I have glued up the maple top and roughed out the Sapele body. I still need to make the routing templates.


Here is the maple top. This will look great with a stain. The Gibson web site has an up speced CS356 in red with gold hardware that looks great.
http://www.gibsoncustom.com/flash/produ ... S-356.html
I could go for something like that.






I have also been making an MJ. Carp spruce top and blackwood B&S. I have followed the plans very closely including the brace scalloping.





But I have used a large foot on the head block that is dovetailed into the block to increase glue surface. The idea to stabilise the neck block area with a foot is from an article in the Winter 2007 GAL journal on Eugene Clark. Very interesting article btw.

In theory it is trying to do that same thing as flying braces like Mr Turner et al. The end of the foot will meet up with the upper cross brace to help distribute the force from the strings over a larger area and prevent the neck pulling up over time. That's the theory anyway!



Dom

[Dominic]

and also,
Julie has been hassling me to use some nice striped Macassar ebony she got me for my birthday a few years ago. So I decided to make an L00 and i started that today.
Glued up the back and put the sides through the sander.
Here is what it looks like.

Back


and sides



Dom

[Taffy Evans]

Hey Dom
Thats one busy piece of tone wood, gonna be great to see it come together. My latest two/three guitars, two with three piece backs, recently started look boring in comparison.

[matthew]

This is what I was doing earlier:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OKKhx89MCqs

[Hesh1956]

Great progress Dom my friend and that wood is just killer!!!

I have been busy taking care of the last details to make my new shop pleasant.

One of the details is installing some nice speakers and I have this pair of 30 year old Ohm's that needed the surrounds replaced. So I have been repairing these speakers and gluing in, with rubber cement, new surrounds.

It's a nice break from what I usually do in my shop, other than the fumes from the cement.... and they are looking great. I'll know how well they sound, or if they work at all, later this morning.





Also my friend JJ made me a plaque out of some awesome cherry that he milled. This plaque is for my Aberon hygrometer. This device is pretty good looking so I wanted to do it justice and have it mounted on some nice zoot.

Check it out:



The last thing that I am doing is to put together or obtain a decent first aid kit. All I am finding on the web is junk that is filled with crap that is not likely to get used or not specific to the kind of hazards and risks that we guitar builders face.

Last night I found a great article written by a Doc and posted on Fine Woodworking's site in which he has put together and listed a proper first aid kit for woodworkers. Since you can't buy this as a "kit" I have to piece meal it together which is fine - at least I have things in it that will help with the type of injuries that are more likely to happen in a guitar shop.

Beyond that it's 12F here this morning and 75F and 46% RH in my shop so I am happy as a clam.....

[Allen]

Matthew, is that your latest bass? Why is the top coming off?

You do make it look easy though.

[sebastiaan56]

Nice timber Dom, I gotta get me some of that stuff.

Matthew, Pete Townsend did it much more quickly than that!

Hesh, those clips are not evenly spaced around that speaker....... maaaaate.......!?!.....

As for me well.......... my eldest picked up a set of PA speakers from the side of the road and now wants the mother of all setups for his Yamaha Strat clone. It took a lot of explaining that he needed an amp....., that it had to have the power to drive the speakers, unlike his 3W baby box, etc, etc. So we wasted hours looking at circuit diagrams for Fender amps and now decided that on his budget $19.95 from Jaycar was a good option. And we got more chooks. The foxes have got the last three lots so I dont know why we bother but.....

As for lutherie, well Ive got the resaw blues. Ive got some Sitka, some Meranti, WRC and Cooktown Ironwood to resaw. Hunted around and went to a local friend's place (http://www.tonyward.org/ , his work is amaaazing) but the bloody saw wouldnt cut straight and his 3:1 blade was effed, so all a bit frustrating really. Apart from Gerard Gilet (he is 2 hours drive from me) who in Sydney resaws for luthiers?

We also visited some friends who I built a nylon stringed kit for a year or so ago, the guitar sounds fabulous and plays well but it was finished with the old formula Hard Shellac so it has crazed big time, he is in R&D at Wattle so it was an interesting conversation!

[kiwigeo]

Nothing happening here. Sliced my little finger open on a food processor blade omn Friday so cant make or play at the moment. Was helping out drying some dishes at local cafe when the accident happened.

[matthew]

Allen, it's my first bass, about a year old. It is just too bright-sounding - good for pizz playing but really scratchy with a bow. Now I'm a better bass maker than before, I can regraduate the top, thinning it in places where I was nervous about thinning before, to make it more flexible for a darker sound. And I have Mr Chladni to help me:

[graham mcdonald]

Sebastiaan,

Can you tempt your friend at Wattyl to develop a water based finish for instruments, or at least suggest what in their current product line might be suitable. I keep on looking at all the water based clear finishes in the hjardware/paint shops and wondering which might be suitable, at least for a flat/ semi gloss finish

cheers

graham

[ap404]

to make it more flexible for a darker sound

( In 400 yr old Jedi voice ) Hmmmph ... toward the darkness, you must turn.

AP

PS: No mo this November Matthew?

[sebastiaan56]

Hi Graham

Shall do, he has been checking out the TruOil formula so lets see what he can come up with,

[Allen]

I had a bit of a bludge this weekend. Installed some frets, did a neck reset on an earlier guitar, that I wasn't happy with the set up on, and took it easy the rest of the weekend.

It was so freakin hot and humid up here that even the lizards didn't want to come out an play. Hottest day in November on record, and today was even worse. Got to be 43 in the workshop at 80% RH. My tounge was dragging for a beer by 10 am.

[DarwinStrings]

Hi Sebastiaan

Good luck re-sawing that ironwood, it is a true pig to rip.

Hi Graham

I have tried just about every water based polyurethane on the market in Australia. The stuff from Wattyl just foams when you try to spray it. I recently tried a new Orica product and it sprayed well and its not bad but still not as hard as I want.

There is hope though, I am just about to try another new product made in Australia, it is a crosslinking water based polyurethane and is said to be "too hard to sand after 4 days". It has no di-isocyanates and meets the world strictest VOC requirements, "fully complying with Californian legislation".

I am waiting on a gun (I am assured it is "in transit") with a 1.4mm tip as this is the manufacturers recommendation and I only have guns either side of that, plus I'm in Darwin and have to order just about everything in from "Down South".

When I have had a bit of a experiment I will post on the subject. Also will be happy to cut up my experiment and send a few samples to anyone who is interested.

Jim

May the toilet of life never splash back at you.

[DarwinStrings]

Oh and I also meant to mention that I started a project this past weekend that has been in my head for a long time. It is a Semi-Acoustic (I find that a strange description), the body from the front is the size of a Telecaster and the volume is about 40% of a Dreadnought. The back and sides are Acacia Ariculaformis which is the Northern Territories Black Wattle ( I don't think it has ever been used for a guitar before, but could be wrong about that). I want to use one of those 18V D-Tar Piezos and put 24 frets on it. I'll show some pics when I get a bit further along, which could be a while cause it is amongst a handfull of other projects.

Jim

[sebastiaan56]

I await your findings with interest Jim, I will feed back to my mate so he can see what he can do for us.

[DarwinStrings]

Some pics

Here is the start of the Semi-Acoutsic. I have never bent this wood before (Acacia Ariculiformis). To look at it reminds me a little of Qld Walnut except a tan colour rather than brownish.The bend on the upper bout on this design requires a 30mm radius and I decided to just go for it with the wood being about 2.8mm thick, the results are shown in the pics. For the even tighter bends of the Cutaway I thin that section of the side to about 1.5mm and then rebuild it after bending with Veneer and Epoxy glue (Mega Poxy), next time I will thin the 30mm radius bend too.

Pic 1, Too much crack is not good


Pic 2, After crack rehab, a dose of Urea Formaldahyde


Pic 3, Thining the side to bend the tight curve for the cutaway


Pic 4, After rebuilding the bend with a piece of Sassafras Veneer


Jim

[kiwigeo]

Nice save on that cutaway Jim.

I think 2.5mm is probablly a bit thick for a tight bend like that. I work down to at least 2.0mm on normal bends on my classicals and steel strings (using IRW).

[Bob Connor]

This is an OM we're building for Tony O'Neill. Tony is the owner of the prototype mando we built a while back.

This is Tiger Myrtle and it'll have an Adi top which has already been built and voiced so it shouldn't be too far away before we close the box up on this one.

[DarwinStrings]

Hi Bob

I'm looking forward to seeing a finish on that Tiger Myrtle.

Hi Martin

I knew I was pushing the limits there and grinned when it snapped. I'm not sure if you understood because you said "nice save on that cutaway Jim"....it was the left hand upper bout that I snapped the cutaway side I thinned to 1.5mm and bent easily.

Jim

"Are we there yet" .....mine and about a billion other kids.

[sebastiaan56]

Bob,

Was the Tiger Myrtle from your foray to Tassie? it is fairly spectacular.

[matthew]

Oh, yum ...

... so does that stuff come in double bass sizes?

[Allen]

A double bass in Tiger Myrtle.

Now that would be a thing of beauty. Live and dream Matthew. Maybe you too will have a neighbor find the Lord, and leave you a cubic meter of the Tassy Tiger.

[Bob Connor]

That's from a really nice piece I got a few years ago and unfortunately there's not much of it left.

Matthew - most of what I get is 30mm thick. If it is left much thicker than that it's a bastard to season. Plus it's really difficult to get Tiger Myrtle in long, clean boards. There always seems to be some checking or rot that makes it difficult to get a reasonable yield from it.

What size do you need for a bass? I'll keep an eye out for some if you want me to.

[DarwinStrings]

H h h hmmmm........ammmmm excuse me Bob but if you come across anything like that, that because of checking or rot is too small for guitars, I would be happy to use it on a mandolin. Just yell and I'll come running.

Jim