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I finally got my head back in the game after dropping the last guitar on the floor during finishing a couple months ago. I just finished up a rosette. This is attempt #3 at my first build after 2 failures. Hopefully the 3rd time is a charm- persistence beats resistance!

Pretty rosette!

Very pretty! You might request that Lance move this thread to the Guitar Building Forum.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

That is, unless this is a classified top secret build

Rosette looks great. Like night sky over a desert

Nice! How much?

Lol

Sorry posting from my phone and I must have been in the classifieds by default

Lovely rosette! I can still remember the pain I felt for you when your last one met its end. Glad to see you back on the horse!!!

Just in the process of finishing my take on a 1936 L-OO

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http://www.bobmatthewsguitars.co.uk

Thanks man, it took a while but I am indeed back on the horse. Admittedly I don't do well with failure. That was a painful loss of a year's worth of work! Hopefully I've learned from my failures.

That is awesome, great taste. Thanks for posting, these threads always get me motivated to produce the best work that I can because of work like yours.

My thoughts exactly. beautiful work, Bob!
Nor do I. Slightly different take on an Einstein quote... "He who has never made a mistake has never made anything!". And that was a guitar sized tragedy, not a fair mistake at all!



As for what I did this weekend... I officially started work on my challenge build (hoping to do it in two onths but it may be finishing touches on Halloween! )! Started making a headblock and cut a tailblock and bridge blank, split and cut up some braces (English-grown Cedar of Lebanon!!! Intrigued? I'll start the thread soon!). Also did some finishing touches to the mould I made last weekend.

Today I had a lovely day at a Fun-day organised by the local football team to raise money for http://www.autistica.org.uk. BBQ, football match, bouncy castles and face painting for the kids. I was photographer (I'm also emergency-no-other-options goalkeeper but my services weren't required today thankfully! ). And thankfully we had one of our few days of summer today so fun was had by all! And more than a few beers. All for a good cause.

I am finally starting to finish my medium sized Gore steel string. The picture is after the pore fill. I am working on the bridge as I get time this weekend as well.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

That's a beauty John

Last year I had a real setback on the bass viol that I'm building. An extreme humidity even effected the fish glue, and after a few days, I had too many spots failing. There was not finish on the instrument yet, so I decided to remove the plates and get it re-mediated. In the end, I decided to make an entire new back, which meant that I had to redo all of the inlay. This work has to be fitted in-between other work so its taken a long while. I am just finishing the inlay now.

I also have a few Tele thinline bodies underway using figured and spalted maple drop tops on walnut bodies. They'll have walnut necks as well, with Ziricote fingerboards.

Finally, I am working on some cigar box inspired guitars, just for fun.

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

John I've been following your build on here and on the KMG forum. Good job buddy


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Really like the wide herringbone...

Finally polishing a Chinaberry Tele.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Closed the box on my first!



I've also been working on making my own bridges, this is my second attempt and came out pretty clean so far. I'm still trying to decide what kind of slotting jig to make.

I've got an 13 fret 000 box I built about 4 years ago that I decided to finish. I glued it up with a 25' radius at the UTB so the neck angle was not correct. I fixed that but in the process messed up the rosette. So I fixed the rosette and then decided that I wanted abalone purfling instead of BWB so I changed it again - ha.
I also finished the fretboard and headstock inlays so I can get the neck done in the next week or so.

Neck angle fixed but at the expense of the rosette


Rosette fixed with original BWB purfling.


Rosette with abalone purfling - yep, it's Zipflex

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Seriously!!! Doug that must have been a tough one to swallow. That was some incredible inlay. But what about the glue failure? I've done probably 15 guitars and all the glue used on the top work was fish glue. Was the humidity combined with really high heat. Hearing that and seeing another humidity fish glue failure thread is making me think again about fish glue.

I don't know where to post this so I'll try here. This is what's happening in my shop. Actually I have two shops. One is my front porch completely enclosed for my power tools,and the other is a bedroom that my wife lets me use. I got AC in my bedroom shop yesterday as the AC in the front of the house didn't reach all the way to the back room. So increased the size of the AC allowing me the smaller one for my shop yippee.


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This morning I finally glued in the last of the back inlay piece! Photos to follow.

Yes, seriously. Second time around on this one.

I'm not blaming the glue, but some of the circumstances and my failure to recognize their significance.

My shop is not humidity controlled. I do the best that I can by working when the humidity is in the right range.

However, last summer...

The viol was hanging near an open window of the shop. I had been leaving it open 24/7 for the fresh air and breeze while working. The problems happened in July, the instrument was in the white, there was high humidity, and during the night the humidity would spike as the evening cooled off.

So, the net effect was like the instrument hanging for prolonged hours in a cool steam. The glue was softening over several days, and then one day it just couldn't take it anymore and it let goo too much to leave alone. I decided that it would be easier to remediate by taking the plates off while the glue was soft rather than leave it and let the glue harden up again.

By the time that all the scraping and sanding had been done cleaning the inlay for finish, the inlay lines were quite thin. Some of them were now coming loose in wonky ways. The back wood wasn't very well quartered, so I figured that it would be better to make a new (and better!) back.

The new back wood is better, thicknessed better, and the inlay is better executed.

Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and move forwards.

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

That's a tough redo Douglas but good on you for opting for the right solution. Not sure if I would have been ready to completely redo that much work although I have gotten to the point where I'll take a top off of a guitar if I don't like it.

I still really enjoy seeing the progress on that instrument and forward to your next batch of photos.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That bites. That was some of the nicest work I've seem on the OLF. Growing up just down the road from you I remember some of those sweaty, humid nights lying in bed. Funny, here on the coast with all the water around us and all the rain in the winter we seem to have some of the least fluctuation in humidity.

You're in for some serious points when you finish that one my friend.