How I spent my weekend

[kiwigeo]

Not alot happening on the building front Im afraid. Work has been going crazy of late and Im not getting any quality time in the workshop.

Guitar No 4, a classical has been causing me endless problems with the finish on the back of the instrument. French polish failed most likely due to oil trapped in the pores of the Indian Rosewood. I tried sanding back to bare wood and cleaning with Shellite but same problem. Changed the shellac and changed the oil...changed just about everything bldi thing except the back...which is what Im now in the process of doing. Gory pics attached of the back coming off. The jig in Pic 1 is a Luthier Tools binding cutting jig attached to my Porter Cable trimmer. Its the first time Ive used the jig and its great. To prise the back off I used a pallet knife heated on a heat gun. The glue is Titebond II and it came a part fairly easily with minimal splintering of the back. Hardest part is working the back free of the tail block and Spanish foot.

[Allen]

Oh I feel for you Martin. I had to rout off a set of cocobolo bindings on my 3rd guitar because they just didn't end up fitting they way they should. Hope it all works out for you.

[kiwigeo]

I neglected to mention.....this will be the third back for this guitar. The first back lost its arch and had to be replaced.

This guitar has proven a test of both my patience and skills as an amateur luthier. If I get it finished before I die I'll be a happy man.

[Serge]

Hang in there Martin, you will only get more seasoned out of this experience, my current build, also no 4 has given me more problems than the previous ones also, had to rework the neck heel a couple of times, maybe are we too confident after the first 3 guitars? I don't know but i would suggest that it is a good test of patience my friend.

Serge

[Ron Wisdom]

That's kinda strange. I had no problem with my first three, either, but the fourth was tough, tough, tough.

Ron

[Craig]

You should be very proud of yourself Martin showing enough patience to 'get it right'. Hang in there mate . A lessor man would be discouraged by now.
I go without using any oil when french polishing. Give it a shot, or spray the U-Beaut hard shellac.

Cheers, Craig

[Hesh1956]

I agree with Craig Martin - getting it right is something that you will not regret and my hats off to ya M8 for your high standards.

Once a year I try to build a guitar that is more of a show piece in terms of difficulty and nicer zoot. These are the ones that always fight me the worst or should I say best.....

[kiwigeo]

You should be very proud of yourself Martin showing enough patience to 'get it right'. Hang in there mate . A lessor man would be discouraged by now.
I go without using any oil when french polishing. Give it a shot, or spray the U-Beaut hard shellac.

Cheers, Craig

Will spray hard Shellac on next steel string. This one is going to get French Polished even if it kills me.

[Allen]

Number 3 and 4 were by far more difficult for me to build than 1 and 2. In my case it was pushing myself to try more challenging things, and there were many times that I had to walk away to have a chance to cool down and have a think. There were several times that I should have done that sooner instead of continuing work and stuffing something up. I said the same thing to myself Martin. I'll get this as right as I can if it kills me.

Hands up, any one else find the same thing.

[Tom Morici]

Martin,

That was a tough call to make, you should be proud that you where able to make it. All of us have been there, for me it is more times than I care to recall. re-do's just suck no matter what they are.
A tip of the hat to ya.

Tom

[James Mc]

Hang in there Martin… my third and last guitar was only one I spent real money buying good timbers for and it was a dog. Spent more time pulling it apart trying to make it sound right than I did with the original construction.

When I decided I was going to get back into making guitars the first thing I did was look for tutorials on French polishing. The guy that trained me made me spend about a third or more of my time learning how to do it properly, but that was 20 years ago so I figured a refresher course wouldn’t hurt. Of the sites I visited and books I looked at the very good tutorial on this site seemed most like how I was taught http://www.milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html

As a general rule the less oil you can get away with the better, use good grade olive oil or nut oil. For open pored timbers it’s best to use very fine pumice when you grain fill after your base coat. Most of the problems I had when I was learning how to french polish (and there were plenty of them) seemed to stem from not having a heavy enough base coat and trying to use too coarse a grade of pumice. Remember it’s ‘french polish’ and you need to be firm with the French.

[kiwigeo]

Hi James,

The Milburn tutorial was the building base for my FP technique. The pumice grain filling is a pain and IMO epoxy or Robbie Obriens sawdust technique are far easier. I pumiced my first classical and it turned out ok but I wouldnt go back to pumice.

Cheers Martin