Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

as someone who's experience of luthiery is limited to a bit of tinkering with electrics and some general small scale repair jobs I have never felt the need to post before and I have been quite happy to look at everyone else's very cool work and pick up some tips.However I now find myself in need of advise from those much more knowledgeable than I.
I am having a guitar made for me which should have a Ryan style armrest bevel but the makers have reached an impasse after fitting the rest.It seems they cannot work a way out to successfully bind around the bevel in their words ''Your guitar got to a point where we just couldn't get over the problem of the binding around the bevels, the practical and aesthetic problems''.I am assuming this means not only how to bind around the bevels but also how blend in the veneer matching the binding I know this subject has been broached previously but does anyone have an in depth guide to fitting the binding around armrest bevels and matching the binding into the veneers.
At the moment the guitar appears to be stuck on the workbench and going nowhere soon so if anyone could help I would really appreciate it.
I was also wondering if anyone has experience of making an adjustable soundport with a sliding door and how you might practically achieve this.

Thanks in advance.

There are a few ways of doing this but i like mat mustapicks method.
he also show in detail on his site how does it on a few occasions.

look here and you will see the first part
http://mustapickguitars.com/50fitzgerald/5/index.htm

and here you will you how he matches the binding.

http://mustapickguitars.com/53ruble/7/index.htm

the luthier should really have known how to do this before taking on the commision as its your money he,s wasting if it doesent work out.

I hope they manage to get it sorted for you,

joel.

Hi

thanks for the links hopefully they will help my builders out with whatever problems they have.From what I have seen as long as the purfling is fairly simple and straight forward it doesn't look outrageously challenging.

Thanks

it depends on the method they have used and how experienced they are at doing the job.

also all sorts problem can occur when doing any given job.
its how we get round them that makes us good workmen.

hopefully your luthier is good at what he does and will be able get the problem sorted for you.

Joel.

Binding and purfling are the whole ball of wax on an armrest bevel. I don't know of any good tutorial for that part of the job, but ask Tony Karol; he posted some good stuff on it a while back. It should go without saying that if the builder took on a job that is beyond his skills and is stuck for how to proceed, you should get a full refund if that's how you want to go.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Please figure out an easier way to do this and let me know...

The main challenge is to end up with a solid beveled surface for the veneer, and yet to have good right-angle purfling ledges. Here are some pictures to go along with the description below…
http://mustapickguitars.com/47paskins/3/index.html
http://mustapickguitars.com/47paskins/4/index.html
http://mustapickguitars.com/47paskins/5/index.html
http://mustapickguitars.com/47paskins/6/index.html

1) With the rim assembled and in my outside mold I took a bit of mahogany neck blank and traced the outline of the inner surface of the side in the area that was to become the bevel onto the neck blank. Then I sanded cut and sanded the neck blank into the shape of the side so that it matched the shape of the side.
2) On a belt sander, sand away the side to a nice smooth graceful line that looks right to you.
3) The edge where you sanded will be about 10 degrees off square relative to the side. This edge is going to serve as your purfling ledge...so use a sanding block to square it.
4) Put the profiled piece of mahogany back where it was, and, with a pencil, trace the profile of the sanded out side onto the mahogany lining.
5) Doing your best to maintain a steady angle for the bevel, use a belt sander (I have an edge sander) to sand to the line. If your traced pencil line of the side profile is smooth and your hand is steady with respect to the angle of the bevel your sanding in...you'll naturally get a nice smooth curve for the top as well. Just keep an eye on that as you're going along.
6) Now you have a smooth curve on the top-side of your mahogany reinforcement that will establish the shape of the top. With a pencil, draw a line offset from this 1/4" in. This is the ledge where your top purfling and top will glue onto. Cut and sand to that line. Make the cut perpendicular to the top (parallel to the side) so that it's easier to clamp to the side.
7) Sand the side-height of your reinforcement to whatever makes sense to you, (perhaps no less than 3/16" below the lowest point of the bevel).
8) Glue-clamp the side reinforcement onto the side. Glue the kerfing/lining on elsewhere as you normally do.
9) Hog off all that unnecessary wood from the part of the reinforcement that's inside the guitar that was left square for clamping purposes.
10) Trace the profile of the kerfing-lining and bevel reinforcement onto the underside of your top...very precisely.
11) Brace the top and prepare it for assembly to the rim. I did not tuck the x-brace into the bevel reinforcement...I let it thin down to nothing at that juncture.

At this point, the *exact* location of the top needs to be nailed down without margin for error so the next two steps ensure that it will glue down without the least bit of uncertainty...
12) With the top in its exact place, drill a hole down through the top and into the headblock. Use a toothpick that can stick into the headblock and up through the top to lock in this location.
13) Use some light adhesive to tack down something to the underside of the top so that the bevel reinforcement can rest against it as a precise stop for purposes of locating the top while the glue is setting.
14) Before gluing the top into the rim, very slowly and carefully sand away the area of the top at the bevel so that it's line matches the presented by the line presented by the top of the reinforcement. Continue sanding to this contour until enough room is left that presents a ledge for your top-side purfling to rest on.
15) Glue your top on oh-so-precisely so that the purfling ledge you've left for the top is lined up just right.
16) After you've glued on the back, rout your binding and purfling channels in the usual way so that the channels disappear into the void left by the bevel platform.
17) Trim-sand your binding at the proper sharp angle so that it will intersect properly bevel veneer. It's hard to talk about clearly, but not so hard to visualize when you're standing there playing with the ledges and purfling and the binding and making things fit.
18) Glue the binding-purfling on in the usual way. You'll be starting at the tailblock with just a short piece of binding that quickly dies away. In the area of the bevel you'll need to continue gluing on the purfling but without the binding there to act as a clamping call. I found that I could easily just "massage" it into place as the wood glue tacked up. Once you’re past the bevel, you just continue with the other side with the binding that you've prepared.
19) Thin your veneer for the bevel. I found that with koa I could thin it to .060". This was thin enough so that it flexible enough to just flop in without any prebending, but thick enough to fill the space left for bevel.
20) This is slightly tedious...you've got to shape that bevel veneer so that it just fits inside the area left between the binding, with the backside of it beveled to rest against the the side and top purfles. In order to arrive at the approximate shape for my veneer I put a piece of butcher paper over the area and used a pencil to creating a rubbing shape of the bevel. Then a cut out a piece of construction paper a bit oversize to this shape. Having shaped the construction paper, just a wee bit oversized, I then cut out a piece of practice veneer and got it just so....lots of patience, a belt sander, a spindle sander, one inch at a time. Then I traced this outline on my final piece of veneer, but it a bit oversized and repeated. I won't need to do the practice step next time, I just didn't want to learn on a pretty piece of koa.
21) Glue in the veneer with wood glue, holding it down with masking tape the way you ordinarily would for binding.
22) Wait an hour...remove the tape...sand things flush.
23) Pat yourself on the back, show your girlfriend.

I'm just in the process of building my first guitar with arm rest. I thought it would be a nightmare to do, but has turned out to be really simple. In fact I think that it was much easier to do than my first Florentine cutaway. The links provided where some of my inspiration, and as I didn't like the idea of trying to route the ledges for the purflings after the armrest block was installed I followed Matt Mustapick's method.



I routed for all the binding and purling channels as usual. Take care when you approach the arm rest.

I had a look at a bunch of tutorials and then decided that for the armrest area, it was easier to glue in the both purfling strips first, so it wouldn't be like wrestling an octopus.

I thinned my arm rest binding material down to something that would bend very easily on the pipe. Turned out to be about 1.5mm. My bindings are 2mm thick so I needed to make up a bit of thickness. I had some thin veneer that I use to make purflings with that would give me the extra thickness that I needed. I didn't need to bend the veneer, but I did bend the binding material after roughly sizing it to fit. I gave myself about 1 cm extra all around for leeway.

Now comes the really simple part. Take some 2" wide masking tape and lay it over the armrest. You might need to use a few strips to cover the entire piece. Get it to lay down nice and smooth without puckering. Take care to press it into the corners created by the purfling. Then take a sharp blade and cut the tape so as to make a template of the piece you need. Carefully peel it out, then transfer it to the material you want to inlay. Cut to match and glue in.

For the veneer I just cut the piece square. For the rose wood I place the template on the back as this was going to be the exact size needed for a snug fit. As the thickness of the piece would mean that if I cut to this line, then the outside "show face" would be underside with large gaps. I used a bobbin sander to sand a bevel by holding the piece at what I estimated the correct bevel. It takes a lot of time and trial fitting, but far less that I had initially imagined.

Glue in with your preferred method. I used Titebond and SM binding tape. Once dry I cleaned up the ends of the bevel with chisels, and needle files to make a nice transition for the rest of the binding to fit in.

There just isn't any way that you can rush through this type of job. Take your time and enjoy the challenge.

Unfortunately I didn't take many photos of the process, as I wasn't sure it was going to work, but I will be sure to the next time around.

_________________
Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

One of the things I suggest is to carefully lay out the bevel and bindings before you start routing and cutting the channels and end up in a position where you don't know where to go from. Aim for a 45-50 degree angle for the bevel to be more comfortable and stick with darker woods to make the transitions less visible.

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Hi

thanks to everyone for their advice I will pass the information on and see if my luthier can make any progress.

Sorry .. cant help much on double bound armrests with veneered fronts .... I pretty much only do armrests with either the internal sp cedar block showing as natural, or all blacked out with the finish if the binding is ebony, and I dont bind the side wall anymore - only ever did this once, it was a royal pita .... and then it was blacked out ala Laskin anyway, but the purf lines showed on both edges.

So mine maybe dont look quite as sharp as a fullly bound rest, but my clients want it for comfort, and my impressionis they dont really mind how I do them. They play the guitars more than they look at them. That said though, it still looks pretty good.

Matts method is pretty cool, but as he states, an easier way would be nice !!!

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Being in the midst of doing a Ryan armrest, I can attest that its design is amongst the hardest things I've attempted. Getting the purfling line that defines the new top contour to blend well with the waist while allowing it to emulate the full bout to maintain the look of the guitar and ease back into the other bout is very difficult. This stuff all should be done on paper long before you even think of touching the guitar. I did a half a dozen drawings -- both top and side, including making templates, so I could see how it was going to look on the guitar before I made the final fixtures -- and that doesn't count the pushing around the curves as I made each draft.

There isn't a fudge factor here folks, or at least not much of one. The transitions from primary (before the bevel) to bevel to primary (after the bevel) purfling channel should blend seamlessly. The beauty of Kevin's design, and what makes it work so well, is that it is a seamless transition out of the waist and back into the lowerbout both on the top of the guitar and in the case of the sides, back into the endgraft. It looks as if it belongs there, not as if its an addition. My personal feeling is that too many of the Ryan armrest interpretations are so busy trying to look like their own thing that they miss the elegance of Kevin's design. The results are less visually satisfying, less elegant solutions.

Doing a Laskin armrest by comparison in certain respects is easy because the top contour of the purflings can be established by a router bit, as can the sides. The difficulty with the Laskin is making the radius cuts on the sides to blend with the primary binding, as well as making all the miters -- not an easy feat.

Anyone attempting one of these should take a long time to design it and think through how they are planning on accomplishing each aspect of the design. Once you're at the binding point on a guitar you've bought the farm, so you better get it right.

David D. Berkowitz
Berkowitz Guitars

Here is a tutorial on how I do mine:

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=15994&hilit=armrest+bevel+tutorial

Basically I carve the bevel, glue a veneer overlay on the bevel, and then use templates and a router to route the purflings.

As for the soundport, the common consensus is a door is not needed! The open soundport improves the sound coming from the main soundhole at the same time.

I believe Linda Manzer has some pics on her website and may answer some question if you ask! You might want to invite her to the OLF when your at it too!

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Hi

after after contacting the builders making my guitar they explained rather than keeping the purfling simple which was something I told them I was quite happy to do if it made the job more straight forward they decided to go with thier normal multi purfling.The problem with this though is they didn't fully think through all the problems of this style in relation to the bevel and now are in a situation where they feel a satisfactory outcome is unlikely.After waiting 16 months and only hearing this when I decided to see what was going on I have decided to cancel the order,I feel if they can't finish the first build and I don't feel inclined to start from scratch this is a reasonable enough request,I also expect to have my deposit back.I supplied the Brazilian set as well which is now unusable for another guitar but I am willing to write that off to experience if they cough up my original deposit.
The guitar in question was going to be a nylon hybrid with a wedge,bevel and soundport I note Matt Mustapick is a member of this forum and his nylons look very cool,I was wondering(if you are reading this Matt) if this sort of style was something you have done previously.
On a different matter lately I have been appreciating the work of Paul Mcgill especially the Super Ace but I can't find a price list.I think I remember seeing a used Super Ace for about $10,000 which is out of my price range,but I was curious to see if anyone knew what these list for new.


Thanks.

If they can't finish the body off, and you supplied the Brazilian, I'd be doing my utmost to get the uncompleted body back as well as the deposit. You supplied it in good faith, plus a deposit. They were unable or unwilling to complete your guitar. They are the ones who should be out of pocket. Some of their time and some spruce is a small price for them to pay for this stuff up.

You may get to a point where you might be able to tackle the binding, or find someone who is. If not you might be able to get some good Brazilian head plates out of what's left.

Just my 2 cents.

_________________
Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Hi Westcountry1,

Yes, I have done this before. You're very welcome to give me a phone call or drop me an email. You'll find my contact info at my site.

Cheers,
Matt
http://www.mustapickguitars.com/