Official Luthiers Forum!

Sometimes you see these wonderful jobs and I wonder how they are made:
http://www.guitargal.com/sites/default/ ... wgahd2.jpg

Elegant!

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

It looks like an Olson to me, except most have his newer guitars have his logo on the Gotoh 510's. inspecting one of his guitars up close was pretty humbling for me. The attention to detail is something to behold. Tim

Olson had a different headstock. Looks more like a Ryan. Really elegant

It is a Schwartz guitar. I don't know if I am allowed to post links. Anyway, it was not my intention to advertise anybody. I could have pointed to some other luthier. The question is how do you get that smooth curve on the rear of the headstock? You start with a thicker headplate and smooth it on a drum sander? Then you need a perfectly shaped caul to glue the veneer.

That's how I did it on the last one. Though it is important to note that my work is nowhere need the same league! I cut close to the curve on the bandsaw the. Fed the headstock face down into the drum sander. I made s shaped caul close to the curve then clamped the rear veneer with some high density closed cell foam between the headstock and caul. It all got clamped down really hard and the foam made up for the not perfect fit of the caul. It came out nice and I will use the method again.

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Might use a vacuum to glue the veneer.

Tutorial for a similar one here:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=25874

cheers

Looks similar to the one in my avatar.
I thickness the headstock on the drum end of my belt sander (with a jig) and bend the backplate to fit the curve left behind the nut area.
Then glue it on using a 18 mm birch ply plate (lined with cork) curved to fit. Shape freehand like in the tutorial above.
Some people do them on their thickness sander or a drum sander/fence in a pillar drill.
Slipped in a bigger picture:

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Thanks for the replies and the great tutorial. That was exactly what I was looking for. One question: what is closed cell foam high density? Thanks

Hey Arnt, thanks for posting the link - great tutorial!
I am going to use this:
"Fitting a nut before the final shaping of the neck is always a good idea"

Back of the Tenor headstock I'm building for the newbie challenge.....

Just toook it down to 1.5mm, bent it of the pipe, and found a scrap of wood that more or less fit the curve, and clamped the sucker on there...I've done a couple like this and found that making the bend a tiny bit more open...ie: a gap in the bottom of the bend while the two ends touch well, allows the veneer itself to seat nicely when the bend is clamped in tight....

Don't know if that description made sense.....

My friend Joel Stehr here in Spokane does this. He shapes the rear of the headstock and glues the laminates with a caul as described above.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Wow, nice.

What if you thin the headplate to thickness, then bend it in a bending iron so that it's slightly less curve than the headstock back curve (ie. a little bit of spring back), then just glue it on like normal, the spring back would provide some pressure to keep it tight...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Wish I had seen this thread before. I ended up with the same technique(s) illustrated with trial and error. Not that hard to do for the uninitiated.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

I like the nice curves but have never been a fan of back plates

http://www.avtcomposites.com/cgi-bin/co ... FR4305.250

This is closed cell high density foam, it is quite strong, pinching it between your thumb and forefinger requires most of your strength before it dents, so I can see how it would help match the caul to the work. I did just vacuum one of these last week with nice results.

_________________
http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

Here's one I've got in work. It's ebony and I did it just like in Arnt's tutorial. Not too hard at all.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have been putting backplates on my last several guitars. I found if the laminates were no thicker than 40 to 50 thou, they would conform to the back of the headstock with a tight fitting caul. My upsweep is not too steep, just 15 degrees to put the smile volute on the same plane as the neck. I typically used two contrasting lams to provide a pin around the profile of the headstock. I glued the laminates on using epoxy prior to routing the headstock profile. However, the customer of one of the guitars I just strung up wanted the koa laminate bound. This forced me to revisit my approach, and I bound the back plate prior to gluing it on. It's a cool look, but does require some extra effort.

Ken

_________________
http://www.casperguitar.com

I had forgotten about that "turorial", nice to see folks still find it useful. One thing to keep in mind with these vulutes or whatever you want to call them, is that depending on their geomtry, they can get in the way of a McKenney type capo, if you intend to store them behind the nut when not in use (Tony Rice style). If you make it "short" enough, its not a problem, but you have to consider it when you design the thing.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin