Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all,
Just registered and thought I'd introduce myself. The Sloane book got me interested years ago and after a few aborted attempts I moved on. Now about fifteen years later with the Benedetto book as my guide, I'm determined to finish an archtop.

My intent is to go through the entire process with the tools that I have and see how good I can make it. I have a pile of old black walnut to use, some basic skills, a few planes, and some mediocre power tools so we'll see what comes of it. So far the tough part has been turning warped boards into usable pieces to join into a top plate. Cutting long thin side pieces on my small band saw is a challenge yet to come.

I am wondering about the different ways to rough cut the arch in the top and back plates. Mr. Benedetto uses a drill press to drill holes of appropriate depth around the top, then uses a chisel to remove the excess. Another youtube video shows the use of a safe-T-planer to remove different levels of wood. Are there any other commonly used methods used to rough out the arch curve?

Keith Lally
Long Island, NY

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Keith Lally
http://krl-guitar-building.blogspot.com/

Keith,
Welcome! I've never made an archtop, so I can't help you there. However you decide to go about it, make sure you have fun!

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George :-)

Hey Kieth!

Like George, I'm a flat top guy(for now), so I can't tell you how. I can tell you to go to the Board Index and take a look in the Video and Picture Tutorial Forum. There you will find two excelent tutorials on the second page. One is by Jordan Aceto and the other is by Chris Verhoven(verhovenc). These will put you well on the way to completing that archtop.

Steve

Welcome Keith. My first archtop was walnut back, sides & neck, also made straight from Bob's book, and i play it almost daily.
While a bit laboureous, I think it's best to make the first strictly by hand, using gouges & thumbplanes. Start with a template for the long axis, and when that's right, use the lateral templates to get the profiles correct at each station. Then smoothly arch the transition areas between. (A trick is to chuck a pencil in a drillpress and draw "topographic maps" at various heights around the top.... you'll soon see all the bumps/hollows you have to correct as you go.) This is not hard and teaches you a lot about grain, lines etc. For the inside, set a pin under a bit in the drillpess, "stopped" at about 3/8", and then carve out the holes.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Welcome, Keith. You're in good hands with Dave...I've seen his arch-tops and they are top self indeed!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Welcome to OLF, Keith.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks all for the warm welcome. I'm making wooden arch templates from the paper outlines in the back of Bob's book today and will do much of the carving by hand as Dave suggests.

- Keith

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Keith Lally
http://krl-guitar-building.blogspot.com/

Keith-
Welcome to the OLF!
Looks like you have a good start on your project with the sides bent.

I'm part way through building my first archtop after making about a dozen flat-top guitars. It's pretty interesting!

Dave Stewart is a very accomplished archtop builder, so you should probably take his advice.
A Safe-T planer is a very useful tool -put it on your 'list' - and I had one already, so I used it to establish the perimeter rough thickness and some very approximate contours. Then I used a small (flat) plane to get the longitudinal contour as Dave suggests. I've used a grinder/coarse sanding disc quite a bit in the past so I went to that to get rid of quite a bit of wood. This is very dusty- if you have to work inside, use planes and deal with shavings instead of dust!
Be careful with a gouge unless you have quite a bit of experience, since it's easy for things to get out of control.

Cheers
John

John makes a very good point ...... this is a place where "power" can enter the equation. I use a slot-cutting bit in my router table to create a 1/4" lip around the perimeter before carving. When almost there, I redo it to a 3/16" lip as final.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Welcome to the OLF Keith!

welcome to OLF you will find it a very friendly and open place full of ideas , wisdom , advice , and several other things

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