Official Luthiers Forum!

Been lurking here for a long time. Thought it was time to get off my duff and build my first. My first attempt at pictures so i may need to redo this post later.

I have had this wood for a long time. Contemplated a lot about using it for my first, but you never know if it'll be the last so why not go for it.

Back and sides is a nice figured ziricote From Hibdon Hardwood.
Top is a premium LS redwood I picked up from Hank Maul.
Had this wood sitting around for at least 5 years and every now and then i'd take it out and sigh.
When i bought it, it was an arm and a leg. Now, when i see where the prices are today, I laugh at how cheap it was!

The guitar is going to be a small jumbo.
14 fret.
Venitian cutaway
Wedge
Like the idea of a soundport but havent decided yet.
Haven't decided on the fretboard. Like the idea of sticking with ziricote but haven't found the right set yet.
finish will likely be zpoxy and French Polish.

I did decide to use the expert guidance of a 'local' luthier and am building in his shop. It's about a two hour drive but well worth the time. I get to work every other Saturday and sometimes throw an extra one in.


Some pics so far....

The top: LS Redwood


Top cut out and brought the thickness down to 4 mm.


Rosette glued.


I made the rosette from an old redwood burl my wife bought me as a pair of bookends. The wood was surprizingly hard...


Scraping the plane marks after bringing the final thickness down to 3.2 mm at the top to 2.8 mm at the tail.


Laying out the bracing pattern (double-x) and the soundhole and bridge braces.


Getting glued! NEED MORE STICKS!!!!!!
Bridge plate is persimmon. Just a piece of lesser needed trivia.


Seems that an extra image gets attached and i can't see it to edit it out... oh well!

Seems to be a 7 image limit...?

And the back....
Joined and thinned. Ziricote is hard stuff! That's about 4 hours of shavings there.
Reminded me I am not as young as i was. Found muscles the next day i forgot I had...


After cutting out and scraping...


Gluing on back bracing. Mahogany bracing.


So that's where she be. I thinks it's been 5 or 6 Saturdays so far.

Great progress so far!
Really like your rosette...that that ziricote looks killer!

Really nice....keep the pics coming!

trhat back is amazing ! i'd be afraid to use it too

Excellent start! You've selected some beautiful woods.

_________________
George :-)

Thanks for all the comments!

Overall, the rosette was the nost difficult part. The burl was so hard i had to go out and buy new sandpaper for thinning it down to 2 mm. I used a belt sander w 80 grit but it did little to thin it. I then bought a ceramic 80 grit and that worked like a charm!

I made it extra wide, about 15 mm so i could cut it down to 13, but every time the knife got close to cutting through, it would chip on the bottom. I ended up with 9mm when i finally got it right. Maybe i should have scored it once form the other side?

The one thing i do not like is that there was some compression of the top when i cut the rossette channel. Tried scraping it down but it didn't seem to go away and started to see some flaws from the back side of the rosette show through. Most of the compression will be under the fretboard so we decided to let it be. Over-all I am 95% happy with it. If i had daily shop time I would probably do it over, but I do want to keep moving forward. I can always redo it in the future if it really bugs me.

I wasn't afraid of using the wood, just never had the time and money (at the same time!) to take a class from a professional. Things finally fell together and I am very happy with my choice. I start thinking about what's next about a week before my next session, counting the days down. LIke a kid at christmas time!

Rob, congrads on finally going into labor - ziricote is really beautiful stuff and sounds like you're on the right track to delivery. The redwood burl looks great in that top.

Nice work! It will be a beauty. Enjoy.

Starting is the hardest part, at least it was for me. Congratulations, you are off and running now. Progress looks great.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

quite an auspicious start, congratulations!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Enjoy the process!

I love ziricote and that is a sweet looking set. Beautiful wood all around on this one. Can't wait to see it finished! Keep up the good work!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Great looking wood! The Ziricote is beautiful, but I'm really loving that top!

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Yeah that is a great looking chunk of Z.

_________________
Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Just noticed there's a Doc-U-Build forum. Should I (and can I) move this there? I do plan to use this throughout the build...

looking great so far . keep up the excellent effort ,

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Spent another 8 hours in Al's shop working on the Guitar....
Doesn't look like much got done but i don't want to rush anything.

For 8 hours of pushing i got:

- Soundhole cut out
- Bridge plate beveled and cleaned up
- All the top bracing cut and glued.

I am pretty satisfied at all the joints of the top bracing. There was only one cut that I screwed up and left a bit of a gap. That's the second time i cut to the line i scribed instead of inside and then chiseling to the line while making fit checks. Hopefully it's the last time!!! I can be dense i guess.

The toughest cut was the UTB where the two top braces pass through to the neck block. I was sure i was going to screw up those angles but it all came out tight and snug to the soundhole plate. VERY happy about that.

Today's bandwidth killers...

Looking great!

Thanks! AND I am having fun!

Where did your luthier get the hand-powered sound hole cutter?

I'll have to check... though i do remember Al saying that it's not made anymore.
I do like that it has a nice wide surface to prevent marking the top. It's a bit awkward (To me) to set up in that there's multiple set screws in the side to loosen the main adjustment screw and there' a bit of play in the adjusment screw so that by time i set it, the diameter had changed slightly and i had to reset it a couple of times to get the diameter just right.

I'm sure if i used it all the time it would work just fine, but I found myself thinking I could make one that worked better. I have seen a few designs here on the forum that i thought would do well.

That's one of the old style LMII 'Schneider' cutters. They don't make those any more. It's a pretty good tool, although, as Rob says, it could certainly be improved.

I've got the newer LMI cutter and have used Alan's older model a few times now. While the newer style is easier to adjust, it just doesn't seem as solid as the older style. It's not as heavy and doesn't seem to turn as smoothly. It's also not as adjustable. I couldn't adjust it small enough to use on a uke rosette or cut out it's soundhole. Overall, while I do like mine, I like Alan's better. Once you've used it a couple of times, setting it up does get easier.

I was looking at your ziricote back when I was up for class 2 Saturdays ago. It sure is nice.

Matt

Thnx Matt... I was just glad i don't lose all the sapwood on that back trying to get the joint to Al's standards. Each time i brought it up for a check and he'd send me back to the table to try again I'd die a bit inside... I think they were about 4 foot wide each when i started. One of the dangers of using nice wood for a first try!