Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone,

I have been lurking around a little bit and have not posted yet. I wanted to greet everyone and introduce myself.
I currently play classical (2 years now) and have always been realy good with my hands and handy in projects, hobbies, and around the house. I like to create things with my hands. So it is fitting that I have now embarked on building guitars.

I have the Cumpiano book and I have read it a couple of times. I have not bought any real tonewood yet but I plan to.
I purchased some poplar from Home Depot and have been working on making a practice neck. I am using the instructions found on William Cumpiano's website, "how to make a neck with a table saw" . Creating the heel profile, I successfully practiced. Although I cut my 15 degree neck joint and glued it back together to make my scarf joint. Well my leveling job was not good enough, and I knew that going in. But today when I checked it out - it was worse than I thought. I need to get more clamps, and I just picked up a smalled block plane, I used a #5 before. So I sawed it apart. That was a mistake as it took too much wood from one side...argh... so my 15 degree cut is all muddled up. I guess I will try to cut another 15 degree cut on each side and join them again.
Like I said it is just practice so I may just start over further down the neck. I will probably end up with a heel well shaped and a scarf joint 6 inches away. But at least I am learning!
I am happy to be building and part of the board !


John

!

John,
First off, WELCOME to the OLF and coming out of the closet so to speak...lol

Good for you to practice on scrap wood. It gets you a feel for how things fit together before sawing up some nice pieces of mahogany.

Could you tell us what tools you have. I guess you have at least a table saw. Bandsaw? beltsander? Jointer?

Ight den,
happy building, it can be addicting. And wanting to accumulate tonewood is worse yet.

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

Hi and thanks -

I have a table saw - Ryobi 10" contractor type model... not very accurate but workable if you measure properly first.
No bandsaw unfortunately.
16" scroll saw which will be useful for the headstock
Jig saw

a few clamps (buying more today)
coping saw
backsaw
a palm sander
a handheld belt sander
a block plane
a #5 smoothing plane

I plan and look forward to doing most of this with hand tools.

oh and the fun part - no router - so my bindings will be cut with a purfling cutter and chisel... I actually look forward to this as the speed that you can make a mistake with a router is much faster than the cutter and chisel.


John

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Welcome and greetings!

First...props to you for taking on the challenge of a mostly hand-tool based instrument! I haven't always got the patience for that myself.

If budget and space allow, a good band saw is a priceless investment. So is a router/laminate trimmer...if nothing else to help making jigs and forms for later.

Mastering a hand plane will serve you very well in all areas of joinery and may be the answer to your dilemma as well. Getting one 'tuned' and the iron honed to a fine edge is the first thing to get really good at. I have goobered more than a few projects because I didn't check out/tune the tool first.

The folks here have TONS of great info about getting your tools up to par with what you want to do with them, as well as some great construction ideas/techniques. All in all...enjoy it!


-Matthew

John,
Part of your problem might not be your joinery at all. Lumber yard wood typically is not dry enough for use in musical instrument projects immediatley after purchase . I suspect that this may be part of your problem. When you cut the scarf you now have a wedge of different thicknesses and if the entire board is acclimated to the RH (relative humidity) in your shop then the thin edge of the wedge will dry and curl, taking your flat surface and making in now contoured. I hope you get the picture! Anyway, ensure that any purchased wood, even from us "reputable tonwood suppliers", is accliamated to your environment before you use it make things that are required to be constructed to the close tolerances of musical instruments.

Good Luck, I am sure that you will do well at this!

Shane

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Canada

thanks Shane -

I was looking at your site after watching the video of you splitting the billets, or was it a slideshow...memory fails me. But it was a great documentary on how you harvest your product !

I am interested in probably picking up a "AA" cedar tops to practice on - I'll let you know when I decide...

thanks

_________________
It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Hi, John-
Welcome ! I hope you realize you have picked an 'addictive' hobby.

If you're not planning on using a lot of power tools, I'd suggest getting your hands on a copy of Classic Guitar Construction, by Irving Sloane. (LMII has new copies, and you can find them used on Abebooks- there's one copy listed right now for $1.) Although it's not as 'complete' as Cumpiano (which I find very hard-to-follow), it does show how to do everything (including neck scarf) with hand tools. I built my first (classical) guitar with the instructions from Sloane in 1977, and it is still going strong and playable today. Bogdanovich is a newer book with good illustrations. Books are part of the 'toolbox' for me.

In your list of tools, you don't mention a vise and bench, which you will find very useful for working on necks and bridges. You can use a metal-type vise if you make a set of hardwood jaws for it. A sturdy table will do for a bench, especially if you add some weight by adding shelves underneath.

A laminate trimmer with some home-built bases and guides will be very handy for doing rosettes and binding, though you can certainly do both by hand, with home-built blade tools.

Also, I'd suggest buying some wood from Shane Neifer or one of the other tonewood suppliers, fairly soon. Even for practice pieces, using cheap-but-decent wood will make things a lot easier. Most of the suppliers will have (unlisted) lower grade wood which you can usually get for a good price, especially if you are adding the practice wood to an order of good instrument wood.

Cheers
John

You could also invert your belt sander to flatten both glue faces, just make sure to use a marker to mark the faces and make sure its square.

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

Todd's diagram is the way to go for the scarf.

Two quick additions to what others have said: first, make sure the back of your neck is dead flat before gluing and, second, if you don't have enough clamps you can do what I do (not for lack of clamps but because it's quick and easy) and clamp using string and wedges. I use a couple of pins to keep everything aligned, wrap in waxed string, then knock in a few wedges. Works great.

In your tools list you are missing 2 key component of hand joinery....

A good high quality precision Square and straight edge.
While this may be an oversight... it is extremely necessary to getting these joints squared up and straightened out...

The power tools are nice to have, but you can make fine scarf joint necks with hand saws, planes, and scrapers.... Typically, you still need to have the planes, scrapers, etc... Saws just don't leave a clean enough cut for the joint right off the saw.

Cumpiano's method works well -- I have done it 3-times exactly as printed... but the accuracy of the final job is only as good as your tools and the patience you take with the job... Specifically, your square must be true... and many cheap adjustable T-squares just aren't.

My advice is to saw it apart and re-square it up with hand plane, scraper, and a hard sanding block.... Take your time and it will come. Put your emphasis on getting the sawn cuts squared up properly so that it you can achieve a nice tight joint.

Tell us how it goes

John