First guitar build

[P Bill]

Hi all,

This my first guitar, I've wanted one of these for a long time. No cutaway this time to keep things simple. Besides the 7th fret is around as far as I ever get and I'll most likely be keeping this one.

Sometime in the near future I'm going to make an archtop bass. I've seen and heard an Ibanez archtop model, and as usual with acoustic bass guitars, it wasn't much chop without an amp. I saw one handmade acoustic bass at the Brisbane Guitar Show two years ago that was incredibly loud acoustically. It had one of the biggest bodys I've ever seen. A fair bit of research to do yet on this.

Although I've used purfling before, binding is new to me and I was caught out a few places. The mistakes have been fixed and I think I'll get away with it.

The timbers: top -imported toona
sides -blackwood
back -fiji mahogany
fingerboard,
tailpiece,
bridge,
veneers -solomon blackwood
neck -blackwood and maple
binding/purfling -mostly timber


I hope you enjoy the photos.

[AidanHarris]

hey

looks like a very successful build at the moment. I just have to say that your spindle moulder looks pretty savage, sure it works well but its a beast. I compleatly overlooked using a spindle moulder for all the neck shaping. so thankyou for the idea...next time haha.

keep us posted and looks good

Aidan

[P Bill]

Aidan Thanks, so far so good. The spindle cutters are 55 mm and staggered just enough to make the cut. If something starts going wrong I'm fully prepared to just let the job go and raise my hands high.

[kiwigeo]

Nice gat.

Looking at where you let those butcher birds sit I hope you've got them toilet trained.

[Kim]

Great post Bill, everyone loves to follow the image based building blogs and this one gives us some great insight into your workshop and techniques.

Keep it coming mate, we appreciate the effort. (especially considering you are on dial up)

Cheers

Kim

[ozziebluesman]

G'day Bill,

You have inspired me to have a go at an archtop sometime soon. Love your work and the bird life is a special touch. We have the butcher birds here in Townsville and I get to wake up to there music often. Thank you so much for the post and I will be watching your progress with great interest.

Cheers

Alan

[rocket]

A very neat looking construction there Bill, and also a very serious looking workshop
Cheers,,, Rod.

[Mark McLean]

Hi Bill. I am loving the look of that guitar. I am especially impressed with that workbench!
cheers
Mark

[P Bill]

Thanks for the comments fellas . I'm trying to not let the side down , as i've said before there's very high standard been set here.

[DarwinStrings]

You have reminded me that I miss the sound of the southern magpies up here. Nice looking build, do you know which Toona it is? Hmmmm, spindle moulder, are those butcher birds waiting around for a bit of stray meat?

Jim

[Kim]

Hmmmm, spindle moulder, are those butcher birds waiting around for a bit of stray meat? Jim

I use to use one of those buggers on a daily basis, often running length after length of handrail. No power feed, just a couple of well placed featherboards and push the stock into the whining stump maker by hand....I still shudder when I think of it Great machine all the same, but surely the most lethal in any wood machining shop.

Cheers

Kim

[Nick]

Hmmmm, spindle moulder, are those butcher birds waiting around for a bit of stray meat? Jim

I use to use one of those buggers on a daily basis, often running length after length of handrail. No power feed, just a couple of well placed featherboards and push the stock into the whining stump maker by hand....I still shudder when I think of it Great machine all the same, but surely the most lethal in any wood machining shop.

Cheers

Kim

We have an old (and when I say old....I mean ancient) 18 inch jointer planer at work. 3 phase power, 2 blade head, fire that baby up & they ring from the 8th floor wondering what the hell the noise is! (building's concrete so the vibrations go right up through the building's columns) .

Making a nice job of this Bill, should be a great gat when you've finished & will deserve a place high in the gallery.

[Puff]

Spindle molder got converted to spindle sander. Buzzer/jointer on 40-year old Tanner buzzer-bench saw combo was converted to belt sander and linisher same time as the saw blade was replaced with a disk sander setup.
Little bits lost heal much faster Big planer blades plus big speed equals big danger

[P Bill]

The spindle requires a lot of caution. Turning it into a sander is a brilliant idea !

Kim, featherboards sounds like you might have using compression / slip collars as well. That's what I learned on. Many more accidents in those days. I have a safety head for serrated cutters, and with an automatic feed, it's a very safe machine. But open spindle work is still open spindle work. I bandsaw extremely close and only make trimming cuts. I don't use it on my bass necks because they're so wide and too many ins and outs. In fact it hasn't much use at all since I've been making basses. This seemed a good place to do 3 jobs in one go,although the next one will be more substancial.

Nick O, these flush cutters are very quiet, but I have 100 mm cornice knives that push a lot of air and sound like a low-flying aircraft.

Toejam, I think this Toona is Surian, it's very furry and masking tape pulls out fibre. I get my Toona and PNG Rosewood from a friend who has a joinery. He sets aside the nice bits and I do work for him to pay for it. The last lot from a year ago was Kalantas and further back Vietnamese Cedar. Those two seem to be very close to the Aussie. (The Viet.cedar does tend to occasionally throw a bit of lead.) I'm trying to talk him into doing Western Red Cedar joinery.

I think about keeping my fingers all the time. It can happen very fast, to anybody, anytime on any machine.

The build has come to a grinding halt till this weekend, when I can cut the fret slots at my mates workshop. I've made the tailpiece and a Benedetto violin-style bridge and it's been fitted. That's about all I can do til then, except once again tap the body and run my hands over the back.

[Nick]

once again tap the body and run my hands over the back.

That & talking about your nuts are one of the few things you can get away with saying on a luthier forum (the only other would be a medical forum I suspect). There's something therapeutic about running your hands over the three dimensional shape of an archtop down into the recurve .

[P Bill]

Nick O The body parts references in luthiery are staggering.

[DarwinStrings]

Cheers Bill, I have some nicely sawn Toona ciliata (from Cockatoo Creek Timbers, he was a very helpful man) here that I have planed for a flat top of some description, not because it is some renowned top wood but just because of its rich history in Australia. The thought of building a guitar from the wood that probably beat the sheep to building this country is appealing to me in a romantic sort of way. I would love to hear yours when finished.

Jim

Life is good when you are amongst the wood.

[P Bill]

Jim cilita is a new for me.

Here is a bit of an update. I haven't been idle this week. I did the joinery Wednesday and started reworking the recurves a bit today.














The caption with the instruments should say "my entire acoustic output except for mandolin I built 10 years ago"

[P Bill]

Very close now. I had help with the frets from my friend Phil. It's not something I'm used to doing. Now I know which tools are going to be the most useful. The neck is set and it has one coat of oil. I normally do 5 coats of oil and then french polish, but I want to have it ready for the weekend. With the wet weather we're having I'll be lucky to have any polish on it. I'll dress the frets this morning and start the setup. I can't wait to pluck the first note and strike a chord.

[ozziebluesman]

Looks great Bill.

Which plan or template did you use, or is it one of your designs?

The guitar looks very earthy, beautiful craftsmanship.

Thanks for the pictures.

Cheers

Alan

[P Bill]

Cheers Alan

I used the plans in the Benedetto book . I had them enlagged at our copy shop. They could match the body length but couldn't mesh the width .I did that by hand. On the other thred you were concerned about the 17 in. size . They photograph bigger than they are. I'm suprised how small they really are.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Bill for the update! I will add some wings onto my back set and build the 17" guitar with the Benedetto plan and book. If I can scrape up some spare cash, I will try and buy the DVDs too.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

Alan

[DarwinStrings]

Looking very slick Bill, love the colour, gives it a antique ish look.

Jim

[Kim]

Very nice Bill, so warm it seems a shame to do any more to it..quite beautiful and I could easily see Nick getting a little carried away with himself if you were to let him run his hands over her waist.

Cheers

Kim

[Allen]

Don't know how I missed this one Bill, but it's just a beauty. I'm in love with your wood choices.

Everything about it just screams "Pick me up".

Love your work.