Four Part Harmony

I haven’t had much opportunity to post any updates on my guitar- and mandolin-building projects lately. For good reason I guess, I’m finding it a lot harder to find appropriate times to even get down to the basement to get anything productive done, much less update the blog about it. Usually, the best free time comes when Milo is asleep, but then using the power tools isn’t an option. I’ve taken to planning out a list of cuts I need to make on the bandsaw and things that need sanded (the shop vac is the loudest thing ever), and go down for an hour on a Saturday or Sunday morning and crank it all out as quick as I can. Then I fill in the quiet work of cleaning up the cuts, planing, measuring, hand cutting, gluing etc in 20 minute bursts here and there or in the hours after everyone goes to bed. It works out pretty well.

I’ve been spending most of my time working on Anna’s guitar, mostly because it’s easier because I kind of know what I’m doing. The body mold is very nearly done, I’ve just got to finish making the inside spreader clamps and I’ll be ready to bend the sides.

I’ve got the headblock and tailblock cut too, so I’ll be able to bend the sides and glue up the whole rim assembly pretty quickly.

Several weeks ago I was able to get the top completely finished up. I started by laying out the channels for the rosette I wanted to make. I started this guitar with the notion that I didn’t really want to use premium materials, since it’s intended for a kid, and I fully expect it to get beat up, banged around, dropped etc. I used pretty inexpensive woods, and have kept things pretty simple for the most part. But I really wanted to do an abalone rosette, and I figured this would be a good chance to get some practice doing one. Here I’ve already routed the channels and layed in two thin trips of purfling as a test fit.

And here’s the finished rosette. It came out pretty nice! (Those openings on the left are intentional. They’ll be covered by the neck, and there’s no use wasting beautiful shell underneath the neck). It’s a shame I didn’t take more pictures of the inlaying process. It went pretty smoothly, I’ll definitely want to do a few more though…for practice.

With the rosette inlaid and the soundhole cut I roughed out the bracing, glued it up, and carved the braces. This is my favorite part by far. It goes too quickly. I’m currently trying to decide whether to leave these braces a bit heavy (for stability/strength/resistance to destruction) or trim them down a bit (for potentially more responsive top/better sound). Probably better leave them heavy for this one.

The back bracing is all done too. Wow, I guess I’ve done more than I remembered…should’ve taken more photos.

Since I haven’t been quite ready (or willing) to start on the side bending yet, I’ve also started in on the neck. I’ve cut and glued up the scarf joint at the headstock, and glued up some pieces for the neck heel block. I just need to lay out all the measurements on the blank, rough cut this on the bandsaw, and I’ll be able to start in carving.

Looking forward to doing the bending. I’m planning on doing it by hand with a torch and pipe (old school). I’ll pretty much need to do the mandolin bending that way, so I better practice. Bending guitar sides seems easy by comparison.

Speaking of the mandolin…I’ve made a little progress, but I haven’t been working too hard at it lately.

Several weeks ago I cut most of the templates I will need.

I’ve also cut out and been working on a body mold for the mandolin. This hasn’t been easy, and I’m not sure at this point how well it will work, but I’ll likely give it a shot.

I cut a set of blocks from mahogany, which will form the internal structure of the mandolin, and will be what the bent sides are glued to. I had to put a 1/4″ blade on the bandsaw to cut the scroll and it came out pretty rough (I’ve subsequently learned that most people use an 1/8″ blade). As a result I’ve been filing and sanding away at the inside of the scroll trying to fair out that curve. Unfortunately, as I do that it gets further from matching my template exactly.  This may or may not be a big deal, and at this point I could just cut a new block. Or I might just fair out the curve and make that the proprietary shape of my new scroll…we’ll see.

I’ve had better luck with the neck. I’ve trued it up, glued some “ears” to the peghead, for the oversized headstock, and laid out the neck on the neck blank.

I fashioned and installed a cross grain “scroll strengthener” at the peghead scroll location. Now I’m ready to install the ebony peghead veneer.

I’ve also built a crude “sled” for the neck to ride on as the peghead is cut out so that the cut stays parallel to the fretboard. Once the peghead veneer is glued on, I’ll be ready to cut the neck out and carve the neck.

Well, at this rate, the next time I manage to post any updates the instruments will be finished, so be sure to ask me about them in person if you’re interested! Adios.

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As I mentioned a while back, we’re starting to get into fall/winter rainy season project mode here at the old homestead. Nicki’s been doing quite a bit of sewing, felting, quilting, all kinds of stuff…I think she has at least five projects going right now (maybe more). Anna’s mostly into…tape. Stickers too, but mostly scotch tape. She’s really been breaking some new ground in it as a medium…sometimes she sticks to the paper/tape/marker combination, but sometimes it’s more of a sculptural or performance piece…nothing in any of the local galleries yet, I think she’s shopping around.

I’ve got my shop all cleaned up and have started work on two projects.

The first is a 3/4 size guitar, modeled after a small bodied guitar that Martin makes (or made) called a Style 5. I think it’s also called a “Terz” guitar (some info here). Basically it’s got a smaller body, and a shorter scale, so it’s tuned a third up from a standard guitar. It’s intended to be a guitar for Anna, and she seems pretty excited about it so far.

I’ve joined and thicknessed the top (sitka spruce) and back (Honduras mahogany) plates so far.

Thicknessing with the top with a hand plane. I think the top started at about 0.150 inches thick and I took it down to about .100. This process generated an astonishingly large pile of spruce shavings (this is about 1/4 of the total). I think my hand planing technique is still pretty marginal, but I’m definitely improving.

I’ve cut a few of the templates I’ll need. I started cutting pieces for the body mold, but ran out of plywood and haven’t had a chance to pick any more up. This’ll be pretty much how the body shape looks though. It’s an interesting profile. At first I didn’t totally care for it, but it’s grown on me.

In the coming weeks/months I’ll be working on finishing the body mold, thicknessing and bending the sides, figuring out what type of rosette to use on the top and getting that inlayed as time permits.

I’d probably be making better progress had I not started a second project a few weeks ago. I decided to try my hand at building one of the more challenging stringed instruments…an F-5 mandolin, hopefully one something like this one here, or maybe this one. The F-5 mandolin is a real thing of beauty, both acoustically and aesthetically, especially those built in the early years by Lloyd Loar. They are spoken of in hushed tones among the old bluegrass set…Bill Monroe played and recorded with one, and the sound of that mandolin defined much of what became the sound of bluegrass. I’ve always had a somewhat irrational fondness for the F-5, and so I pretty much knew that I’d have to try and build one. It’ll be a bit different from the guitar (aside from the obvious differences). It’s got a carved top and back for one thing, so I’ll get to do quite a bit of carving.

Here’s about all the wood I should need. Some big-leaf maple for the back and sides, Adirondack spruce for the top, some more big leaf maple for the neck, and some ebony for the fretboard and peghead. Aside from the hardware, fretwire, nut. strings, etc, this should be just about all that I need.

I’ve started making some templates in hardboard. This is the headstock. All that scroll work is going to be a pain…still, it’s just so pretty…worth it I think.

Here’s the neck template on the neck blank. Nice flamed maple.

Roughed the neck out on the bandsaw.

Started planing the back plates prior to joining. This took a lot of work and trial and error (I’m still not very good at planing). I’ve now joined the top and back. I feel pretty confident about the joints, but that is definitely a skill I need to perfect, it’s so critical to the stability and function of the instrument.

Still working on templates. I’ve got a lot of template work to do, and I need to build a mold similar to the one I’mmaking for Anna’s guitar. Got to get some plywood first though.

Progress on both projects has been very slow, and that’s just fine. In general, when I have had a chunk of time to work on the guitar, things have gone a lot faster because I already kind of have a workflow, and understand somewhat what I need to do…not so much with the mandolin however. Still, it’s all for fun.
I plan on trying to continue posting photo updates along the way, so stay tuned.

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Well, as I mentioned the big day finally arrived this weekend. I got the guitar sufficiently put together to actually put on some strings and call it “done”.

First though, I wanted to post these last few pictures that I took as I was finishing up the last steps. As I got closer to the end I seem to have neglected my photo-taking responsibilities, but I did manage to remember to get a couple.

With the finishing process done, and the body and neck all polished to their final state, I took the masking tape off where the bridge was to be glued. I had to drill a couple of precision holes in the face of the guitar with my handheld drill, which gave me a minor case of the nerves. Everything went fine though.

Here’s the bridge clamp I made to glue up the bridge. It’s a pretty simple design I had seen other people use, and it worked out great.

Here’s the bridge clamp in action. Actually locating and setting in the bridge is another one of those precision measurements measured in 1/64ths of inches. It’s also one of the glue joints that is going to have the most direct stress put on it when the strings are up to pitch. I measured and remeasured several different times, and even did a dry run to make sure everything was going to work prior to actually putting the glue on the bridge (I’m becoming such a model woodworker). As careful as I was, though I managed to put a couple of small dings and scratches in the top already. The spruce is just incredibly soft, and the shellac finish is so thin, that there isn’t a lot of protection there.

With the bridge glued on, I set to work on all the final fret work, leveling and re-crowning all the frets to their finished dimensions. I didn’t get any pictures of that work though.

I installed the tuning machines, which really started to make things look finished up. In this picture (which was actually taken after the guitar was finished and strung up) you can also see the nut which was the other piece I carved out of that moose bone. That was the last thing I had to do, and the guitar had sat for a couple of nights with just that one last piece missing. I actually did the rough carving on Saturday after our hike, and did the final shaping that night. I strung the guitar up a couple times as I was fine tuning the size of the nut. Nothing exploded and I took that to be a good sign.

Here’s a back view of the headstock with the tuners installed. I’m really pleased with how the whole neck and headstock turned out

Here’s a shot of the bridge, all glued on with the saddle shaped. I’ve subsequently been taking the height of the saddle down to try and get the action a bit lower. When I first strung it up, the action was so high as to be almost unplayable (to me) in the first position. I’ve been working on it some, and it’s starting to get closer to what I would like. Depending on how well I did my fret and neck work, I may or may not be able to achieve the ideal low action I’m looking for.

And here it is, the finished guitar. I had to take it out while the sun was shining (sort of) to get some pictures.

Here’s the back view. I really like what the shellac and the french polish did to the look of the guitar.

A close-up of the back.

And another view of the front of the guitar.

I’m still working with the set-up, so I don’t know when I’ll actually say that it’s “done”, but I guess I can sit on the porch and play it now, so it must be pretty close to done.

I don’t want to pass judgement on the sound yet, as everything I’ve read says that newly built guitars generally “open up” in sound over the course of the first few weeks and months of playing. It really projects, and has some nice trebles. I worry that it’s a little too boomy in the bass ( a common flaw of dreadnoughts I think), so I’ll just hope that gets tempered somewhat during all of this “opening up” that is going to be happening. Maybe I’ll try to post some sound clips.

Thanks for reading along with me as I did this project. It’s been pretty fun for me. I suppose now I’ve got to go do something productive with my spare time…like paint the house or mow the lawn or something. Actually, I’ve got a couple pieces of mahogany and spruce in the basement that I hope to turn into a little 3/4 size guitar for Anna…so I’m sure I’ll be back down there working again before too long.

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Well, I’m continuing to make slow progress on the guitar. Actually, it’s mostly a test of my patience at this point. I’ve been really enjoying the french polishing, and the guitar is starting to look pretty nice. I think I’ve nearly got enough “sessions” finished, so I’ll soon be able to polish it up and move on to attaching the bridge. I think I mentioned I’m finishing the neck and headstock with tru-oil, which is a gunstock finish that guitarmakers have adopted as a neck finish (I guess you can even finish an entire guitar with it). I’ve gotten it to the point where there should be enough coats on it, so I need to let it sit for a couple weeks before polishing it up. Once it’s all polished I can go ahead and put the tuning machines on, which I’m pretty excited to do because it’ll really start to be looking finished. For now though…patience.

So I started making the bridge.

Here’s the ebony blank, which I sanded flat prior to laying out the bridge outline, saddle slot, and bridge pin holes. There are some pretty critical measurements involved with laying out the saddle slot. I think I spent several days reading and deliberating before I went ahead and routed the slot. It seems to have come out ok, but as with everything, I won’t really know until I string it up.

(editors note: Nicki says I need to make it clear that the saddle slot is really supposed to be crooked like that. It’s like that to compensate for the fact that the strings vibrate differently due to their differing thicknesses.)

Drilling the bridge pin holes was pretty straightforward, though as you can probably see one of them got a tad off center.

Then I rough cut the bridge outline on the bandsaw. It’s tough to see, but I also countersunk the bridge pin holes. I had purchased a set of countersink drill bits when we were installing our kitchen cabinets way back when. At one point, the bit that was getting the most use snapped clean off just past the countersinking part of the bit. I was pretty bummed at the time, but hung on to the broken bit, and subsequently that busted bit has become more useful than all the rest of them. I was able to use it here, and it worked great.

I started in carving on the bridge, but was having a pretty tough time. Ebony is pretty hard and heavy. Not very easy for chiseling. Still I wanted to remove the bulk of the material from the wings so I didn’t have to sand it all off. Once I had most of the material removed with the chisel, I did most of the rest of the fine shaping on the little belt sander.

Here it is after some fine sanding and polishing.

I also set to work carving up the bone, which seemed like it was going to be tough, but really wasn’t all that bad. I got a thin piece cut out to the appropriate rough dimensions, then fine tuned the shape until it fit snugly into the slot.

Here’s the bridge and rough saddle. The saddle height is still oversized, and the final shaping will be done when I’m doing the final set up. Which, if all goes well, could be within the next few weeks or so…

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I’ve been spending some late nights in the shop these past few days, getting started on the finishing process. It seems a bit strange to be doing the finishing when there are still unfinished pieces of the guitar, but it’s just the way it makes sense to be done I guess. It’s easier (some would say) to finish the top before the bridge is in place, so you don’t have to work around it. So I’ve carefully and accurately marked the bridge location, taped it off with masking tape, and gave the guitar it’s first sealing wash coats of shellac. I’m using an amber shellac, which is pretty dark. I was worried it might be too dark, but I actually am really liking it. It has a warmth to it.

As I mentioned before, I decided to try my hand at french polishing this guitar. It’s a traditional method of finishing all kinds of musical instruments, basically consisting of building up a thin layer of hand rubbed shellac over the entire surface of the instrument. While most production steel string guitars these days are sprayed with nitrocellulose lacquer, some high end steel string guitars and most high end classical guitars are still french polished today. I like it because the shellac is non-toxic and there are no fumes, save the small amount of alcohol that the shellac is dissolved in. This means I can pretty safely do it in the basement without fuming out our house or causing an explosion. Lacquer, by comparison, is pretty toxic stuff. The hand rubbed finish is really nice too, the trade off being you have to kind of work for it.

Here are the high tech polishing materials I am using. The primary tool of the french polisher is the “muneca”. I made mine from a few scraps of a wool sweater that Nicki had picked up at the thrift store. I also sacrificed one of my old t-shirts (the older and more worn the better apparently). The wool is used to hold the shellac and deposit it onto the surface of the guitar in very small quantities under pressure.

Prior to any application of finish, though, the most important step is in preparing the surface of the guitar by filling all of the pores in the wood. Rosewood is very porous, and if the pores aren’t filled, then I guess the shellac will just sort of sink in to them over time. The traditional way to fill pores for french polishing is with some fine pumice and alcohol. The alcohol dissolves the shellac from the wash coats and the pumice abrades fine fibers from the wood. The resulting mix of material is then gradually (very gradually) rubbed into the pores. That’s the idea anyway. I spent three consecutive evenings working at this, each night ending with a pretty sore arm and shoulder. Still, eventually I got the entire back and sides filled. Thankfully, the spruce on the top is a closed pore wood, and didn’t require filling.

Since completing the pore filling, I’ve managed to get the first “bodying” session with the shellac finished. Compared to the pore filling, this has been much easier, and much more enjoyable. There is definitely an acquired skill to it. You have to strike the right balance of shellac, alcohol, and olive oil (a drop or two as a lubricant) on the muneca to get the shellac to flow properly. Maybe I’m lucky (or maybe I’m not doing it right), but it has been going pretty smoothly.

Here’s another view of the back after the first session. In theory, I’ll do about four of these bodying sessions before switching to a lighter cut of shellac and smoothing out the finish. In between sessions, I need to let the shellac “gas off” for a day or so.

Here’s the top, which has taken on a nice amber color.

Here’s a view of the top and sides. You can start to see the reflections as the finish builds.

And here’s another view of the back, where you can really see the reflection. Hopefully I can keep the finish looking this good as I do subsequent sessions.

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We’ve been sort of preoccupied this past week or so, and I feel like I haven’t gotten much done on the guitar. But then I look at the pictures I’ve taken, and the last time I posted anything, and I’m realizing I’ve come quite a ways really.

I started in on installing the fretwire, which wasn’t too bad a job, although I won’t really know how it came out until I get around to doing a final setup. I first cut all the wire to length, then had to cut the fret tangs off the ends, since I had bound the fretboard. Once I had them all cut I just started hammering them in.

You can see that, since I chose to bind the fretboard, I needed to trim the tang off the fret at each end where it overhangs the binding. It took a bit longer, but wasn’t really too bad. You can also see that some of the frets aren’t seated all the way in this picture. I ended up having to go back and individually apply small amounts of super glue to the end of each wire and clamp it down to make sure that they were all seated.

And here’s the mostly finished fretboard. I filed the ends flush with the edges of the binding, but will hold off on recrowning or shaping the frets at all until closer to the final setup. With the fretboard done to this stage though, I was starting to think that I was ready to take the big step and glue up the neck. Of course I hemmed and hawed for a night or two…wasn’t sure if I’d thought of everything, wasn’t sure my neck joint was perfect enough (it likely wasn’t). After a couple nights of minor tweaking I got up the nerve and installed the truss rod in the neck, put the neck into position, positioned and aligned the fretboard, and glued and clamped everything up.

Of course I didn’t get a picture, but in the morning it was looking something like this. I’ve done some subsequent work on the neck with scraper and sandpaper, and I’ve actually now gotten everything sanded to 400 grit and ready for finishing. Which is great! Except for the fact that I don’t know much about that part yet. I need to do the finishing prior to gluing on the bridge though, so I’ve been reading, and will probably be able to get started on it in the next few days. I’m planning on trying my hand at french polishing with shellac, and possibly using tru-oil (gunstock oil) for the neck. Prior to starting on any of that, though, I need to fill the pores in the rosewood and mahogany, which is what I’m reading about right now. For anyone that needs to know, here’s a great tutorial on french polishing guitars.

Here’s the back, all sanded up and ready for finishing. Even the neck, I think I’ve finally gotten it to the point where it feels pretty comfortable in my hand and I don’t want to mess with it any more.

A couple more photos, since I have them. This is a moose bone that my dad brought out from Minnesota which a friend had given him to give to me (thanks Pat!). I’ll use it to carve out the nut and saddle for the guitar. Nuts and saddles on most higher end guitars are made from cow bone (cheap ones use plastic I guess, in the old days I think they used ivory). Moose bone is reportedly denser and should make really nice material for making nuts and saddles. If I’m able to work with this bone without screwing up too many times, there should be plenty of material here for several guitars too.

And here’s the piece of ebony I’ll be carving the bridge from. Between this and the nut and saddle, these are the last pieces I still need to make for the guitar. Everything else is finishing and setup. I haven’t decided yet what kind of bridge to make. I’ll probably stick with a design pretty close to the standard Martin bridge though, in the interest of keeping it consistent with the rest of the guitar.

As much as I feel like I sort of see the end in sight, I still feel like there are a lot of little (and big) things to be done, and a lot to be learned.

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Work on the guitar has really slowed down this past week or so. I’m not sure quite what to attribute it to, but it’s likely due at least in part to the fact that I’m treading in to uncharted territory somewhat. I’m really getting to the part where I need to work on tasks that are going to significantly affect the playability of the guitar, and it’s daunting. A week or so ago, though, I did manage to tackle an inlay project on the headstock of the guitar, and even remembered to take a few pictures while I was working on it.

I had been kicking around ideas of potential designs practically since I started building, but I had never come up with anything that really struck me. But the other day, Anna and I were coloring and one of our little scribblings started to plant the seed of what eventually became this design. I sketched something up and got out my little scraps of mother-of-pearl and started cutting. The infinity/figure eight symbol was really the main piece that I wanted to see if I could do, and I kind of tried to build a simple design around it. I started cutting simple shapes and dots, and then arranging and rearranging them on the headstock until I came up with something that seemed like it would work. The layout I finally decided on wasn’t at all much like the one I initially drew.

This picture and the one above show the routing process already underway (I didn’t think to grab the camera until I got to this point). The routing was as painstaking as I thought it was going to be, and much more frustrating than just routing out those little squares and diamonds on the fretboard. I ended up with quite a few places where I ended up outside my scribed lines.

And here’s the finished routing job, you can see a few places here where I nudged the bit outside my lines. I was hoping that the old ebony dust and superglue was going to be able to work its magic again.

Here’s the pearl all glued up with the ebony dust. It always looks pretty bad at this point. I went to bed hoping for, but not necessarily expecting, the best.

And here’s the finished product. I have to say overall I’m pretty pleased with it as a first try. The dust and superglue did a great job of seating everything, though in some places the gap was just too big to be unnoticeable. In person, in good light, the pearl pieces really shine and I think they’ll look pretty good with the rest of the guitar as a whole.

Well, assuming I get myself down into the shop at all in the next couple weeks, here’s what I’ll be working on:

-further refining the neck (just one last time)

-installing fretwire, dressing frets and finishing fretboard

-once fretboard is finished, glue fretboard to neck and neck to body.

-make bridge, nut, and saddle

-finishing (much to learn here).

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I’ve been down in the shop a bit less as of late. We’ve been pretty busy I guess, both with work and just general stuff around the house. Also the weather’s been pretty nice.

Still, I’ve found a bit of time to get some work done, and I’ve mostly been continuing to refine the neck. I had assumed that this part would take some work, but I have still been somewhat amazed at how long it has taken me to get it to a “finished” state. It seems most nights I’ll work and work at it, and when I finish at the end of the night I’ll think “Well, it’s not quite done, but it’s pretty much there.” Then I come back the next night, do just as much work and think “Well, it’s not quite done, but it’s pretty much there.” Still, each time it does seem to get a little bit better.

Here’s some photos.

This picture is over a week old. At this point, I’ve just started carving the neck volute, and made the first passes at getting the neck to it’s final dimensions. It took several hours to get to this point, and I’m pretty sure that when I went to bed I thought “Well, it’s not quite done, but it’s pretty much there.”

Here’s a shot after a few more sessions of carving. I say carving, but I actually use a file and a scraper for most of it. I did use a chisel to carve the volute near the headstock, which is starting to take shape in this picture. The neck heel is still way too thick, and the actual neck itself is far too thick. More scraping is in order.

Here’s the neck as it looks today. It’s close, but still needs a bit more work. The heel is much better. It’s nearly symmetrical, and much thinner. I’ve also got the overall neck thickness almost down to where it needs to be. I’d say maybe just one more session of working at it, but of course it’ll end up being 3 or 4.

One cool thing I did manage to do is get the fingerboard mostly completed. I neglected to get any pictures as I worked on this, which is too bad. I had been anxious to try my hand at some inlay, but wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off.

I really wanted to do all the inlay work myself. The little squares and diamonds can be bought very cheaply pre-made, but I wanted to try my hand at hand cutting them. I figured I needed the practice, especially if I am going to end up trying to do any inlay on the headstock. I ordered some small pieces of mother of pearl and hand cut the little squares and diamonds, which turned out to be a total pain, but worth it. The first few were really bad, but once I got going I got the hang of it. I even got confident enough by the end to throw in an abalone diamond at the 12th fret.

I routed the channels for each of the inlays, doing my best to keep a tight fit, which proved to be a tall order. When I dry fit the first inlay into the first channel, the fit was close, but far from perfect and I was worried that it might not look very good. But following the instructions that I have read in various places, I tacked the inlay into the channel with super glue, pressed a bunch of the ebony dust from routing into the channel all around the inlay, and then flooded the inlay and dust with superglue.

The resulting blob looked pretty bad before cleanup, but the next morning (of course I finished this job about 1:30 am) I got the sandpaper out and…Everything worked out really nicely! I was amazed actually. The lines are nearly invisible, and everything seated well.

And here’s a shot of the finished fingerboard, ready to be installed onto the neck (once it’s ready). I’m actually at a critical point where I will be able to permanently seat the neck to the body, along with the fingerboard and truss rod. Along with the overall shape of the neck this will really effect the action and playability of the guitar. This is part of the reason that I am making slow progress again, and spending so much time working on the neck. Well, that and the weather’s been nice.

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As I was mentioning, I spent the good majority of the past weekend working on the guitar, while Nicki and Anna were in Cincinnati. Nicki brought the camera along, so I had dug up our old one to try to get some photos while I worked. I had forgotten, though, that our old camera is kind of on the fritz, and really isn’t all that interested in taking pictures any more. Still, I managed to get a few pictures taken as I did a bunch of work finishing up the box of the guitar and continuing to work on the neck.

For starters, I made this jig to rout the mortise for the neck to bolt into.It all looks so simple and straightforward as I look back on these pictures, but you wouldn’t believe how nervous I was with that router cranking full blast into my nice clean guitar top. It turned out pretty good, but it may need some cleaning up.

I finished sawing the tenon and drilling the holes for the bolts. It fits fairly well in the mortise, with possibly just a little bit too much side to side play. I’ve still got a lot of fitting to do, as this is one of the more critical pieces of joinery in the guitar.

I set up my router table again, and routed out the headstock shape. It looks pretty nice, though I did get a few small chips that tore out. I’m not too worried, I think I’ll be able to smooth everything out.

I had my bending machine back out, as I bent the bindings and the herringbone purflings. I had been sort of simultaneously dreading and looking forward to doing the binding. The prospect of routing multiple channels, measured in hundredths of inches, into the top, back, and sides of the guitar just seemed like a tragedy waiting to happen.

Here’s a (pretty bad) shot of how the binding channels came out on the top. The back was a bit trickier, due to the 20-foot radius which makes it so that the router can’t cut a perpendicular channel to the proper depth. I struggled for a while, but eventually figured out a way of making it work.

With the channels cut, and after much fussing to make sure that they were uniform etc, I was able to glue and tape the bindings into place. Here’s how it looked on the back.

The top was even trickier, as I had to glue the binding in simultaneously with the herringbone purfling along the top.

Once the glue dried, I took the tape off and set about scraping all the dried glue off. This took forever. Actually it’s still not even quite done, but I’ve had to move on to other things for now. I go back and work on it in short bursts.

Here’s the top looking mostly done.

And here’s a view that shows the back and sides, as well as the end wedge which was tricky. I actually mitered the narrow side purflings to meet and not cross the end wedge, but it’s not really all that noticeable for all the effort I put into it. Still I think it looks better this way. You can also still see some of the glue that still needs to be cleaned up in this photo.

Another view of the top and sides.

I also managed to get the fretboard mostly put together. Here I’ve got the fret locations all laid out and ready to cut. I managed to cut all the fret slots, cut the taper into it, and glue on the bindings. I still need to sand it to radius and do whatever inlay I am going to do on it, which is what I’ve mostly been working on recently.

This picture shows the fretboard and the guitar body as it looks today. It’s really coming along. I’ve also been working on the neck the last couple days, and it is coming along pretty nicely.

More pictures probably coming soon.

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Got some old photos that I’ve been taking as I’ve been (very slowly) working on what has been the toughest part of the guitar so far…carving the neck.

It started out easy enough. I had a big old chunk of mahogany, from which I sawed off a ~1″x~3″ blank. I did my best to square it up with a hand plane.

I opted to do this as a multi-piece neck, though my piece of mahogany was large enough to cut as a single piece. The neck joint is stronger this way, and it saved quite a bit of wood. I’ve got enough wood left for at least one more neck. This photo shows the scarf joint being glued up, which establishes what will be the headstock of the guitar. It sits at approximately a 15 degree angle from the fingerboard. In hindsight, this all went pretty smoothly, but I had to be very careful in making the cut, truing up the surfaces and gluing everything up perfectly square.

Here’s the finished joint. Everything worked out great, stayed square etc.

Then I needed to glue up the heel block, on the end of the neck that attaches to the guitar. More squaring and agonizing over what really should be pretty straightforward. Still, when you’re messily spreading glue all over a piece of wood you’ve been sort of carefully fretting over, you can’t help but be a bit nervous.

Again, everything worked out pretty great though.

This is where it’s gotten interesting. I’ve started carving on the back of the neck. Here I’ve roughly sawed off some excess wood from the back of the headstock, and have started carving what I hope will become a diamond volute where the headstock transitions to the back of the neck. I could have chosen something much simpler, but I really wanted to do this diamond volute thing (again, like the old Martins). I have to admit I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m just sort of slowly working, reading, and waiting for enlightenment.

But, as enlightenment can sometimes take a while to come around, I decided to move on to other parts of the neck. I needed to rout the truss rod, and was in desperate need of a router table. I had some brief grandiose plans of building a really nice fancy one, but realized I really just needed something quick and simple. I saw a plan for a similar setup in a book, and just decided to whip this thing together. I basically just routed a shallow slot for my laminate trimmer to mount underneath a sheet of 3/4″ plywood, and used a straight section of 2×2 pine for a fence. It’s ugly, but it worked like a champ.

Here’s the freshly routed truss rod channel.

And here’s the neck so far.

I’ve subsequently managed to glue on the ebony veneer for the peghead, and make a template of the peghead shape. Soon, I should be able to cut out the peghead shape and begin carving the rough profile of the neck. First though, I need to do some work fitting the neck to the guitar body which is now all glued up.

I know, I never got around to taking any pictures as I glued the top to the back and sides. I didn’t even get a picture of it prior to trimming of the excess material (messy job). Still here it is, the nearly finished soundbox. All that remains is to do the binding (a big scary job…the last thing I feel like doing is taking a router to this thing now that I’ve come this far.)

Here’s the back. You can see where the brace ends stick through. These will be covered by the binding.

Oh yeah, before I glued everything up I had to sign the inside of the top too. It almost seemed a little pretentious or silly or something, but it’s tradition and I figured I might as well. I gave this one serial #001. I thought three digits would be better than two, just in case I become prolific in my old age.

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