Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone from the Midwest coast of Western Australia,
Congratulations to all Obama supporters. We live in interesting times. Hesh flushed me out of the lurkers bushes and I said I would post some info on my first build. It is my own design, narrowed in the lower bout a little when I realised it was too wide for the top when I joined it. I set out to make an all Aussie wood guit and purchased an almost complete "rough" kit from Tim Spittle at Aussie Tonewoods here in Perth WA. It is Tasmanian Blackwood back, sides and neck; Queensland Bunya pine sound board and West Australian Jarrah for the face plate, finger board, bridge and bindings. B/W/B purfling and green and white veneer under the jarrah face plate and for the home made rosette (which I mucked up a bit through rushing but decided to leave as a slow down reminder).
I worked from the wonderful Cumpiano/Nattleson book to draw my plan and then followed procedures which were perfect for the limited space and tooling I had to use. I made a few mistakes but they are all cosmetic and I was over the moon when at first string up it sounded so good and the intonation and action all came out pretty well spot on. I finished with French Polish and added a K&K Pure Western pick up and have since played it quite a few times at live gigs to a very heartening response. All in all it took me from Mid May to end of August working nights and Saturdays and I can't wait to start the next one however, the Ruler of the Manor says I have to wait until after our son's wedding at the end of November but I can still build in my head.
I am going to try and put up some pictures and hope they work. Thanks for reading and a special thanks to all those at this great forum who have helped in many ways to sort out some of the curly bits.

Archie.

Welcome aboard Archie !! Your first build looks great. It's always a tremendous learning experience (at least it was for me..) and now I'm sure that you are looking forward to the next one.

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Peter

Hey Archie that is a very fine looking guitar my friend!!!

Very nice. The curl on the back is beautiful. I've messed up my soundhole rosette too, my guess is we aren't the only ones.

Darrin

Nice guitar Archie !
The woods look great!

Don't worry to much about making a mistake.
We all do it.

Welcome to the addiction site for guitarmakers!!!!

That's why were all here.

-Is the heel cap 2 pieces?

Mike

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Mike Collins

Hey, Archie,
I wish my first guitar looked that good! And I'm only now contemplating my third! The thing that really blows my mind is that you finished it in one summer of nights and weekends. Clearly, you had many more nights available than I did. My archtop took two winters full of weekends to complete. (In the summer months, I was mostly mowing grass on the weekends.
I offered to buy my wife her own lawn mower....not my best moment, but she declined with good humor. She thinks I'm funny. She's the perfect woman for me.) Anyway, it's good to see your new axe, and I am sure you are salivating about the prospect of the next guitar. It's an addictive hobby, isn't it? Now...I, too, am salivating about the prospect of my next guitar.....
Patrick

It was late last night that I posted and this morning I was wrapped to see the replies I received, thanks a lot.
Darrin, I stuffed up the rosette from being over eager and not letting it dry enough before leveling it, that veneer is like blotting paper with glue. It is left there as a constant reminder to take it slowly.
Mike, thanks for your kind remarks. Yes the wood looks lovely and came out much as I imagined when planing it. The heel cap is a 5 piece sandwich of jarrah, white and green veneer to complement the rosette and head stock color combos. By the way I am a great admirer of your work, it is inspiring.
Patrick, this is certainly addictive and it is only that I have my own small business, kids left home and I'm virtually retired from playing both music and golf that I could even contemplate doing this work as it is all consuming once you begin. I really enjoyed working out ways to overcome the various challenges with my limited resources and my wife would laugh when she came into the kitchen and saw all the weird scribbles and drawings on the white board as I jotted down flashes of brilliance when they struck. She was very kind when I would proudly march into the bedroom at 10pm holding my newly made bridge or whatever. She diplomatically declared that it looked just like my old war horse 35 year old D18 when it was finished??
I did all the work with hand tools, small bandsaw, bench sander, drill press and dremel with Stew Mac attachments for rosette and binding. I put a new top on an old bench at the end of my old garage under a shaded window looking over the garden. A small island bench and vise was added and it was on this and an attached work board that I happily toiled. The bending was done on a piece of 3" exhaust pipe with teflon sheet wrapped around it heated with a small gas torch attached to my barbque gas bottle, worked like a treat. Mind you, the shed was just a work area and I kept my work and waiting timber inside at all other times.
Once again, thanks for your kind replies. I shall post a couple more shots of the guitar plus the work space. The shot of the work board shows some of my practice necks etc that I worked on for a few weeks to get a good system together before the real thing. Hesh, my shed is the ying to your yang, we need balance in this world.
Cheers,
Archie.