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Binding the body....

I have some old veneer I got from Constantine's when they were still in NYC. It is thicker than what you generally get these days and I used that for the purfling.


I cut the binding and purfling channels with a Dremel and the StewMac base. I superglue a washer to the base so the bit sticks through the whole. A simple quick donut to keep things square with the arching of the back and especially the top. I sand and buff the washer so it doesn't scratch anything. I need to made a base with a better guide on the body sides. I had a lot of fitting with a chisel once the routing was done.


Still need to improve this whole setup....


I used what I always call strapping tape (the string reinforced stuff) and fish glue. I had no trouble pulling things tight at the waist. The cutaway was another matter so I cut a caul to fit and padded it with some "rubbery" kitchen shelve liner (all kinds of uses in the shop). This cushion applied pressure nicely where there were any discrepancies in the caul. Worked very well.


Same with the top except there was purfling here as well as the binding. I glued them both at the same time. A little more trouble but the fish glue gave me plenty of working time. You can see the bottle of fish glue and a pale of warm water in the photo. A rag dampened with warm water cleans up the fish glue nicely if you rinse it frequently, even the next day once the glue has dried. Tried just wiping it dry with paper towel ..... ouch.... then you have paper towel fragments and fish glue to scrape and sand....

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Chuck Kish

The bound body....

Selmers typically have binding/purfling here at the neckblock. I am considering a binding strip on the non-cutaway side where the neck attaches to make a visual separation between the body and neck wood since they will be quite different. We'll see once the neck is ready to on.






A little more scraping to do.

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Chuck Kish

Sealing and filling pores with shellac. The pores in the bocote are small and I want the filler to be clear so thought this unwaxed shellac sanding sealer would fit the bill. So far, so good. Just takes a few coats....

Selmers typically have more elaborate purfling than I am using on this copy. A white/black/white/black purfling around the top and back and at least a white/black on the sides, all bound with black biniding is common. I chose a simple black binding on the back and sides. I tested all different combinations against the bocote and thought the simple black was the best fit with the grain and overall look.










The top is usually purfled (is that a word?) like I described above. I wanted to bring in the red from the rosette. Again, after trying a bunch of different combinations with red, black, and white, the simpler red/black purfling with the black binding fit best for my tastes. Not as "fancy" perhaps, but I like it better.

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Chuck Kish

Thanks, JF. Looking forward to seeing you build.

The paddle works great. A bigger sanding surface without a huge wide sanding stick just made a lot of sense to me.

I don't recall offhand if Collins described coating the inside or not. But Slemer lacquered the inside with at least a light coat. So, I just sealed it with a light wash of shellac.

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Chuck Kish

Exciting progress there. Keep them coming. I'll bet your eyes popped when you saw that shellac "wake up" the bocote!
Patrick

Nice worke there!

could you explain how you get the right angle using that method?

thanks,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Thanks, Miguel. This is my first Selmer so we'll see how how the neck fits when I get there. I am building it according Michael Collins book. According to that, the neck block is cut with a 5 degree angle at the back. The neck block actually has a different angle on almost every side because of the way the neck joins the body on Selmer guitars. The angle on the top of the neck block is 2 degrees. The cutaway side of the neckblock is also angled in 2 different planes.
According to Collins, doing this and then basically centering the sides gives the correct neck to body geometry. So, once the rim is done, you hold the sanding paddle at the angle already set by the bottom of the headblock and prop the tailblock end up to that height so you can then sand the sides and kerfing and then blend the headblock angle gradually to the sides angle as you move away from the headblock. The top side is then done the same way with the 2 degree angle.
I hope that makes some sense.

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Chuck Kish

thanks for the reply, it makes more sense now, although i guess i still need to think it over a couple times more to picture it clearly. i really like the looks of your work,looking forward to the next pictures.

BTW, where did you get the inspiration for building a selmer? do you play manouche?

cheers,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Thanks, again, miguel. Yes, my inspiration is from playing the music of Django. ...or at least trying. I am anxious to get the neck built and the guitar put together.

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Chuck Kish

This is looking really nice. The Bocote looks great. You're really going to love playing this guitar.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Really nice looking, Chuck.
Bocote is beatiful wood!

ok, that makes sense... gypsy jazz seems to be kind of a small niche - it´s one of my favourite styles to play, though (rythm guitar, that is - soloing is still too daunting) and i only wish there were more playing it where i live.

i´m also "a neck away" from finishing my 1st classical guitar, it indeed is a moment of great expectation. i´m shure your guitar will turn out great - your work seems very good so far, and is making me think of building one myself. thanks for that.

keep us posted!

miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Rhythm for me too. Working on soloing but it's tough to keep it going at most of those tempos. I play with a friend who can handle the soloing really nicely. Definite niche genre, but growing. A couple of years ago, I arranged with a local pub to host an open gypsy jazz jam, then spread it on craigslist. Got about 12 people, some real good players who actually understood the music came out of the woodwork, too. So many people just wanted to come and play whatever they were used to without considering what the genre was all about that it got discouraging after a few sessions. I arranged to be there 30 minutes uearly to introduce the ideas, teach a few tunes we could jam on, etc. No one came early, people just wanted to come and do their thing. BUT, I connected with a few like minded people and have been playing with some of them ever since. So, there is hope to find gypsy jazzers around.

I didn't notice where you are from when I started typing this, but in the northeast there is a fantastic gypsy jazz "camp", Django in June, in Northampton, MA. Workshops with some of the best from the US and Europe. Workshops all day, concerts, jamming to whenever.... Folks come from all over the US and even Europe. Can't speak of it highly enough. If you like gypsy jazz, check it out at:
http://djangoinjune.com

Let's get those necks built, eh? I just slotted the fingerboard and inlaid the dots today..........

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Chuck Kish

On to the neck. After reworking the StewMac fret slotting miterbox a bit and making some fretting templates today, I slotted and dotted the fingerboard.

The slotting templated in the StewMac setup worked great.


Selmers were not consistent with their fingerboard markers at the 9th and 10th fret. Neither are today's copies, it seems. My Gitane has a dot at the 10th fret. My friends Del Arte at the 9th (like a "normal" guitar). I went through the Charle book and noted every numbered guitar to see if there was rhyme or reason to which got the marker at 9 and which at 10. Some oval holes were at 9, some at 10; same variation for the grand bouches. If I recall correctly without looking at the info, the ovals were more often at 10 while the D's more often at 9, but not enough to really conclude that they did it on purpose almost. Same with 12 fret and 14 fret necks.

So to avoid continued confusion with the people I play with, I'm putting the dot at the 9th fret, "like a normal guitar."

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Chuck Kish

Tapering and binding the fretboard....

Tapering the fingerboard.


Checking the fretboard/body joint position.


Gluing the fretboard end binding.


Gluing binding to the fretboard sides.


Bound fretboard "in the rough".

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Chuck Kish