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Chuck, Looking good. Hey, that's not a fiddle. Don't you just love rosewood and maple. My last combo too, on my son's graduation guitar. Sure is fun seeing everyone's early efforts.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hello everyone! I am fairly new to building instruments. I started making a hammered dulcimer in 2005 (which still has not been finished), then decided that since I play guitars it would be cool to make one. My first real project was a simple electric bass (it didn't turn out that great, but I had to start somewhere). Now I am slowly working on a carved top electric guitar. Lately I have been very interested in acoustics. I am doing as much reading as I can and hope to start my first acoustic by the end of the year. Here is a pic of my first bass.

PS. Did I post the picture correctly?

I don't know Mason your bass looks pretty good from here!! Really like the red!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I'll second what Billy said. That looks really sharp mason! Welcome to the OLF.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Mason - Welcome to the OLF!

Like the others, I don't see any problems visually with the bass. What were you unhappy with?

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Chuck H., I'll try to answer your question of "How I made a red oak guitar a cannon for Bluegrass". First, I would like to say that the guitar is loud and has a somewhat dark tone, somewhere between that "cutting" Mahogany tone and the darker/richer rosewood tone. A friend of mine has a Martin d18 golden era guitar that he picked out after trying several other golden eras, and this red oak guitar is just as loud. I won't try to BS anybody as to the how to build a loud guitar, but I do try to build a very light weight guitar. I know that oak is not a traditional tone wood and it is somewhat heavy, so I made my sides somewhere around .070 and the back about .080, the top is about .110. I make all my back braces 5/16 thick and about 9/16 tall shaped to almost a knife edge on top, they are sloped to about a 1/16 where they meet the linings. the top is braced in the Martin x brace style with a maple bridge plate about .100 thick. I scallop my top braces to almost nothing at the ends where they meet the lining. On my first few guitars I think I tended to build things too heavy, they all sounded good, but nothing special, so I'm always in search of tone,,,, and volume. I think that just about any decent woodworker can build a "pretty" guitar but tone is where it's at to a real player. I make my neckblock with Mahogany with a traditional dovetail joint, but the tailblock is made of lighter weight western cedar, scaled down a bit in width, just to try to save some additional weight. I make my kerfed linings out of lightweight basswood and scale their dimensions down a little from what is typical. Bone nut and tight fitting saddle, tapered bridge pin holes with ebony pins. As to tap tuning, thats still a mystery to me, but I do attempt to get a dull tap, not a ringing musical sounding note, I want the top to vibrate at as many frequencies as possible, does that make sense? I use a small, homemade wooden hammer that is lined with several layers of felt to do my tapping, I found that if I use my finger, I hear my finger hitting wood instead of what I'm trying to hear. The felt hammer doesn't add it's own sound to what you're trying to hear. Bottom line is, I try to build as light as possible and try to maximize vibration of the top, nothing magical about that, that's what we all try to do. Probably what really happened is that all the variables of building a loud guitar just "by chance" came together on this one. Tone is a subjective thing, what sounds good to one person may not to another, but I really like the sound of an oak guitar, I've built four oak guitars and they all have a pretty good tone, and oak is plentiful and cheap in price. I'm not tied to traditional tonewoods for back and sides, and from time to time people will give me a big board of whatever, if it's half way quartered and pretty, I'll turn it into a guitar. I have more time than money anyway.

Mark L.

Mark L.

Thanks for all the compliments guys! First of all, call me Mike, I just used my last name for my username. The bass turned out mostly ok, but there were some minor things that I didn't like. The action is too high (although I should be able to fix that, just haven't gotten around to it yet), there are a few rough spots in the finish on the inside of the horns where I didn't do that well with the final sanding, and the whole shape of the body is kind of rough. I didn't use any templates, so the sides are kind of uneven. But, this is a learning process, so hopefully a few guitars from now I'll have improved.

Also, my picture seems pretty big. Everbody else's pictures seem to be smaller, and not direct links. Is there a required way to post pictures here?

Mike - Your picture is fine. Those of us with bifocals need large photos. Those of us from Oklahoma need large photos.
(Disclaimer: I am from Oklahoma)

If the picture uploads then it is fine.

Now, get to building!

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Great looking bass, Mike.

There are two ways to post a picture. You can upload them from your computer, one at a time, up to 8 for a post, using the "Browse" at the bottom of the reply window. For those, the size has to be below 256K. Or, you can link to pictures at another location, i.e. photobucket, picasa album, etc. Those pictures appear larger in the post. When you upload, it puts a thumbnal in the post, and when you click on it, it goes to full size. My best luck has been using Image Resizer(Free from Microsoft Power Toys), and uploading resized images from my computer. You can resize a 3MB image to a nice sized full size image using the "Large" selection within Image Resizer, and it reduces it to an excellent quality image at a good size, and only about 90 - 130 KB.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

hmmmm....sorry if I step on any toes, but stairs are pretty straight forward mathematical problems...the trick is to determine the true elevation of the top relative to the starter step...i.e. simply measuring the height of the landing/2nd floor/etc is not accurate, you have to use a level to go to the point where the first step is to know the true 'height' which is of course very essential to the math used..the same applies (in its own way) when determining the run....

yeah, its real 'fun' to have to come behind an idiot framer and add furring strips to a lot of the treads, etc, to make it work right...its even more fun to have to fix a curved stairway where the framer was clueless about where the handrail sits relative to the edge of the tread (more shimming and such)...the most fun (and no sarcasm is included in this concept) is to be able to rip out all of the moronic framer's work and do it right (and get paid for it)...

don't mistake me, a good stair man is invaluable, but its really not all that hard if you have a grasp of how to deal with the simple math and know how all of your goosenecks, volutes, etc are supposed to work!

just my 2¢

Yeah, that's right. The first question I gave my seven years of building classes was, "How many of you can read a tape measure?"

Of course, the entire class, not wanting to look stupid, hold up their hands.....

Then I hand out 25 tape measures, and 25 sticks with 25 marks on both sides, bingo, 50 question pop quiz on Day 1. Thirty minutes later only half the class has finished. I hear ya Mike, you must be one of the brighter ones.

I like the challenge of a set of stairs, but they get the best of even good carpenters when you are talking rise and run, plus overhangs, and over-easings and under-easings, newell posts, and ballusters and even spacing and perfect installs. Stairs create brain farts in the general population. Let's put it this way, when you see a crappy install on stairs, just know this, There is Art in that Math.

And, while we are on it. Why would anyone put in hand railing on a second story under 42 inches in height? Anything waist high or lower is asking for it. The human form carries most weight above the waist. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.... newbies and guitars. Enjoying the thread you guys....

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

[img][img][/img][img][/img][/img][img][/img][img][/img][img][/img][img][/img][img]http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg114/piiman1/DSC02216-1.jpg

I guess it's my turn
Sorry about the image sizes. It's taken me hours to do this imaging. I am computer challenged!

This is my #3
It is Engelman spruce top
Jatoba back and sides
curly maple bindings.end graft and heel plate
herringbone purfulling and rosette
first try at french polishing on the back sides and top.
The neck is tung oiled.
On the whole I'm quite pleased with things, it plays quite nicely is very loud which is good for me as I play mostly bluuegrass and fiddle tunes. It's lacking some punch in the midrange but as it's only been strung up for 4 days and I'm hoping that will come around.

Thanks for looking.
Peter

Peter, Nice job on that drednought. Great color on the wood. My first thought is how clean it looks. It's the Englemann. That is white wood for sure. I'm glad you like the way it sounds. You did get some of the pics to come through, good job. Never heard of your town before. Anywhere close to Rod? I've purchased a bunch of wood from Vancouver, big leaf.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Wow Peter, that is ONE NICE looking getbox....thanks for sharing these pictures. I love that guitar. What's the backstrip made of?

Hutch

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

Peter,

I'm with Bruce and Chuck, nice clean job on the Dread.
Tim

Thanks guys!
Chuck, the backstrip is IRW and maple. I wish I could take credit for it but it was a purchased item.
Peter

[img][img][/img][/img]

Here a couple of pics that I couldn't get to work yesterday.
Peter

sorry about the size of the pics

Here is my latest.

Steve Calder

This is all great!!- Do you have any MP3's of these oak wonders??

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

Steve, Incredible Headless Guitar
Tell us about the woods and all the hardware.
Great job, not off the rack for sure!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hello Bruce,

Definitely not off the rack.

The body is made up of a lacewood top and back. The body core is mahogany.

The bolton neck is a one piece mahogany with a rosewood fingerboard.

The tuning hardware design is a collaboration of myself and friends. One of which did the machining.

The bridge is a schaller; pickups are seymour duncan.

The finish was done in poly.

Regards,

Steve

Hello All,
I'm new here at the OLF, I've been lurking for awhile though. I have noticed a few friends here from other forums as well. So for those that don't recognize my real name I'm "MiKro" on the others. I have posted my first acoustic build (sorta of) on the Reso section, as I am building a roundneck Reso. I figured that the bending of sides and such were much the same as some other aspects of acoustics as well. The bracing is obviously different and not as complex but I thought it was a good place to start. So with not much more fan fare, here is my progress on the build.

http://www.mikrovisions.com/reso/index.htm

Thanks for looking and any constructive criticism is welcome. That's what learning is all about Right?

Sincerely,
Mike aka "MiKro"

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I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

MiKro's Reso

Now that is a great looking box Mike.

I followed your link to the building process and it all looks......

...... so familiar!

Congratulations on a great looking tone producing machine, ay!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Thanks Bruce I appreciate the compliments, Like I said, some know me from other places. LOL!
Mike aka "MiKro"

also here's a link to some of my other builds.http://mikrovisions.com/builds/index.htm

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I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

Okay, new to the forums, reading through old posts - lot's of interesting stuff in here But I thought I'd respond to this one to let you all know where I come from. This Strat was done 20 years ago this year. I lived in an apartment at the time, so I didn't do the woodworking, but had some wonderful help speccing the parts. It amazed me that we got what we asked for and then some. Body - swamp ash. we asked for 3 piece max and under 5 lbs - came in at 2 pieces and 2 1/4 lbs. Birdseye neck and fretboard - some of the prettiest birdseye I've seen. And we went from there. The finish was done by Dennis Rauen here in Milwaukee.

Future plans? I'm currently reading, researching and learning in preparation for the project I've always wanted to do... Build an acoustic. It will be my present to myself for my 50th birthday, and hopefully, I'll enjoy it so much that I'll want to do more So expect to see me around here asking stupid questions.

Will