Official Luthiers Forum!

With many of us being snowed in this past week hopefully we've had ample time to do our thing in our shops. I know that I certainly had lots of quality shop time in between moving snow and chasing a deer...

Let's see what's happening in YOUR shops folks?

Here is what's happening in mine:

Getting ready to attach a back to the rim with my trusty nail gun.... :



Made a simple wooden rosette:



Inlaid said simple wooden rosette in a nice WRC top that I received from an OLF auction:



Though technically not in my shop this deer consumed 1/2 a day trying to get it rescued because someone shot it in the front leg very recently and hunting season ended here Jan. 1.....



Received a guitar back from Joe White and will get on the final set-up/assembly as soon as it acclimates to my shop:





Started a little finger style OM and have the rim and back completed:



So that's it for me for this past week.... Let's see what's happening in YOUR shops?

Thanks

I have some new residents in my shop that's taking most of my time. They got here last Sat. I have managed to get two butt wedges put in along with a rosette in a sitka top. I'm braceing the top right now.

Quail?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hesh - a little off topic - but it your gobar deck on a swivel on some kind?

Can you post some photos of this please?

thanks!

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Wow Mark - you are a Papa!!! Yeah what kind of birds are those?

Here you go Paul - BTW this idea of using a TV swivel was suggested to me by OLFer Dean









Also Paul Kathy Matsushita has a great video of this kind of go-bar deck in action on her excellent web site:

http://home.comcast.net/~kathymatsushita/movies/gobarswivel.mov

Back to our regularly scheduled What's Happening In YOUR shops programing....

Chickens.

Guess they're bigger then I thought.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Not snowed in here....

Two guitars curing in the booth...

Making a new top for a OSJ I've been working on for about 1.5 years....

Nothing happening today......

I'm going to the Olympics BABY!

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Design classical rosette, glue up the 'log', sand radius into log, cut into tiles.....so far, so fun.

Finally got the new bandsaw wired, setup, and running. Its a very nice machine, smooth and precise. During my first test cuts I cut veneer .25 mm thick consistently. Also ripped some bracing stock.

Just finished gluing the top on #4, last night, and took it out of the solera, for a look-see, this morning.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I've been building my entry for the MIMF $100 Acoustic Challenge.

Its an exploration of the Torres FE17 with Tornavoz, but simplified greatly. One of these fine days I intend to do a full blown FE17, but that day is not yet upon us.

Nice Pine top, Ash body, Mahogany neck with Lacewood head plate, will be making my own pegs.

I used the plantilla drawn by Luca Waldner from the original, and have been receiving some very generous advice from Gerhard Oldiges in regards to getting the Tornavoz thing right. I will not enter any discussion about the benefits, function, etc. of the Tornavoz. FE17 had one, so will mine.

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

I'm ticknessing and bracing a bunch of guitar plates. I have a simple home made drum sander, but I do most of my thicknessing with hand planes. If the plates are extra thick, like this EIR back, I start with a jack plane that is set up for coarse shavings...


...before smoothing things out a bit with a 604 1/2


Here's a nice Aussie blackwood back, the figure really comes alive once planed


After most of the wood is planed away, I run all the plates through the drum sander. I have no automatic feed system, so the process is rather tedious...

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Wow Arnt you are a machine my friend! How many backs and/or tops are in that stack? That's some great batch processing!

Douglas I see some really cool details in your work - very cool!

Waddy great looking work and great looking pics too. What are you using for your HHG bottle?

Edward congrats on the new saw!

Doug great looking rosette in process there!

Rod remember your OLF bros like pics when you go to the Olympics please...

Lets see some more of what's happening in YOUR shops please?

I'm still slowly plodding away with build #1.

I waited a while for some stuff to get shipped over from LMI and when it finally arrived I was on duty at work for 7 days straight.

I got some stuff worthy of note done today though.

I made perspex templates for a few of my plans. No pictures but they came out pretty good. This way i can make moulds and do things a lot easier.

I got around to scrapping the rosette down and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper. I am pretty happy with the final result.


Here is my Peruvian Walnut back thickened down to where I need it. I then cut it out roughly 3/4" away from the template line.


I then glued my spruce back strip on. I don't have a go-bar deck so I improvised using my weightlifting set. I placed a 4"x2" on the back strip, then stacked heavy weights on that. The result was a solid glue joint . I've scrapped back the overflow of glue and voila. I'm now just waiting for Tracy at Luthier Suppliers to send out my brace maker and a few other bits and I can get the bracing done.


I am working all weekend and my next day off is Monday, so I plan to make a new mould. I have already cut out a 3/4" ply template so all I need to do is spend some time getting dusty with the router. If I get that done quickly enough, I hope to spend Tuesday bending my sides with the pipe bender for the first time . I'm still somewhat unsure of how to go about tapering the before the bend though as I'm concerned that I could end up with slightly lob-sided sides...

Looking great Peter!

Here is a trick/method for gluing the back joint reinforcement that I learned from a Frank Finochio and his excellent DVD set. I no longer glue mine this way because I have a go-bar deck but this might help you out until you build a go-bar deck.

It starts with making a stick, quartered and put a 25' radius on one edge. Then write "save" on it so you don't cut it up and use it for other things later.... Don't laugh I had to make this stupid stick 3 times....

Anyway you simply support the back from below and use the stick, radiused side down to clamp the back joint reinforcement by clamping the stick at both ends mashing it down and taking the radius out of it. Because it is proud in the middle it adds clamping force to the back joint reinforcement all along it's length.

Take a look:





Make the stick about 1/2" wide if your BJR is 3/4" wide so you can get at squeeze-out easily on both sides.

Hope this helps next time.

That's a good idea, I will give that a go next time (if there is one, which I hope).

If you don't mind I'll send you a PM with a question.

So Filippo is that made from Delrin and UHMW (or Nylon)? I'm going to have to steal that one

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hesh, I'm using a 6oz US Plastics bottle. I use them, because you told me I had to when I first joined OLF. Did I do something wrong? I love those bottles. I use the 2 oz, the 4 oz and the 6 oz ones, and I use them for glues of all types and for shellac for French polishing. The little tops are perfect for counting drops of shellac or alcohol or oil, or whatever. I took the top off and used a brush for putting the glue on the tentellones though.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Well, I have "the pedal to the metal" so to speak.
I signed on with Denis Merrill's Sonic Sitka Project last year. Denis had about 80 sets of bearclaw sitka, all cut adjacent to each other from one section of the tree. His idea was to have a number of luthiers build guitars and then submit them for sonic testing, both current and ongoing, to see what effects age, amount of playing, etc etc etc will do to the various instruments. They will all have tracking microchips placed in them for future reference.
Well, I misunderstood the time line for this and Denis called last week and asked if I'd be ready for the Florida show April 15. SAY WHAT?
Anyway, I started everything yesterday and here are some photos of what I've got today. Hope to have the box closed this weekend.
It's my Rubicon model with Cuban mahogany and the Sonic Sitka bearclaw top, a conservative rosette of lacewood and I'm going to keep the color palette in the brown/tan/chocolate hues through out the instrument. Also going to do a varnish finish if time and weather permit.
All this while doing all the other chores around here and keeping normal builds on course.

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Hank Mauel

Thanks!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Waddy I meant what are you keeping your HHG bottles in to warm it?

Looking great Hank!

Machine, me? (I'll be baaack...your rat is dead... )

Its plates for 11 guitars, but it is only semi batch processing I guess; I plan to thickness, inlay rosettes and brace the plates, and then build each instrument separately. Of course, I also cut and glue up necks, make fingerboards, kerfed linings, back reinforcement strips etc in batches, I find it saves a lot of time. I couldn't stand to actually build and finish 11 instrument at a time though, I'd have to have a lot more jigs and things, not to mention be better organized! That's like...work!

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

That would be a baby bottle warmer, Hesh!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

After seeing Kathy's go-bar deck on her web site, I built one like it last week.

I used a TV swivel that I found on ebay for $59. I like the new go-bar deck....makes it much easier to get to all sides when doing a glue-up.

http://cgi.ebay.com/EZ-Fit-TV-Pull-Out- ... 5ad67116ef