Official Luthiers Forum!

If you want info, go to the master. Right?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I love that book. I have bought it twice. Both times, the binding has failed after some use. Wonderful content, but I hope Bob uses better glue on his neck joint than he's using to bind his book!

BTW, Bob's DVDs are well worth the money. They have a lot of details that go beyond the book. And watching him work is really inspiring. Highly recommended!

I've had the video instruction series since they came out in...well....in VIDEO. In short, I've had them a long time. I agree that they explain many of the procedures in a way that the book doesn't. I guess it's not really the explanation, but the demonstration that makes them so worthwhile. A notable example is when he taps and scrapes the closed box--you can really hear it opening up. But there's one omitted procedure that I was eagerly anticipating: Carving of the back. I wanted to see how he tackled the procedure of planing that highly-figured maple. When that part of the lesson came around, they gave me a screen card that said words to this effect: "Back carving has been omitted in the interest of time. Refer to top carving procedures."
Oh, well. It is still a very informative series.

I've done lots of maple back carving. I have a cheaper version of of these...

http://www.feinewerkzeuge.de/palm-planes.html

...with a toothed blade and regular blade. Takes material off fast, once you have gouged (or routed) the rough shape. For particularly stubborn grain, sometimes I dampen the area I am working on, but most of the time not necessary. Since you are not making long cuts, you normally cut diagonally to the grain in short strokes. You can tell when you are going the wrong way quickly. Just turn it around.

That's my favorite guitar construction book. It would be even more useful to me if I ever built archtops!

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim, you should try it. It's not as complicated as it might first seem. It's very sculptural and I found the carving process to be the most enjoyable part of the entire building process.

I'd like to, but the combination of it being a hobby, too much real work (nothing for a scientist/engineer to complain about!), and a backlog that I can't get off the bench, ... well, so it goes. I do like my classical builds and wish there were a more obvious local market for flamencos.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu