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Hello there! This is my third acoustic build, an in progress OM. It started out as a Carpathian Spruce/Guatemalan Rosewood build but has moved on to it's current EIR back and sides after I experienced some.... bending issues. Trim will be Ebony headplate, fingerboard, binding. Rosette and end graph are very much inspired by Kostal's amazing work, I believe he refers to it as 'patio stone'. Using Amboyna Burl and black fiber.

My personal history - after restoring a few half dead electrics I started building my own in 2010, I have built a LP jr, strat and tele. In 2012 I started my first acoustic and there's no turning back now! This is acoustic number three. The first was an LMI kit build (D28ish), second build was a scratch build Brazilian/Sitka dreadnaught, again trimmed in herringbone, it was french polished.

Here are a few of my 2nd build, it's my go to in the house, I sold my factory guitars when this one was finished. I don't actually have any photos of it finished which is funny considering how many I took of the build...

Now, to the current project...

The woods... Here is the back joined up and sanded down, ready for braces. Did a standard OM 4 ladder brace back.



I took a page out of Bruce Sexauer's book for the tonebars. I've followed Bruce's threads elsewhere and this always made a lot of sense to me. Another deviation from the standard Martin pattern - the soundhole braces run right through to the neck block to make an a Frame. The idea here is that hopefully the fingerboard extension will have better support. Again, I think I saw that in another build thread somewhere and decided to try it myself. All brace stock was 1/4 inch if memory serves... The X was capped and all braces were tucked.



I really feel my joinery has come a long way in this build. The X brace fit really well, the top and back joints are nice and tight. Here's a shot of the traverse brace with the aforementioned A frame running through it.



Last shot for today, I love this photo. My brand new and expensive drum sander died on me when I was about to run the bridge plate through. I was totally ticked off! After 20 mins with a sharp scraper and block plane I was almost glad I had a chance to slow down and thickness this beautiful piece of wood. I felt bad putting something so pretty on the inside of the guitar!




That's it for today, tomorrow I'll upload some photos of the rosette, which turned out really well!

Here are some photos of the rosette being put together.

The raw material - Amboyna material


Fitting the pieces together. I just winged it, I'd sand pieces down on my Rigid sander until I hit the desired angles. I'm sure there are better ways to do it but it worked for me and was pretty fun.



Almost finished. It took me two nights to piece it all together. Sometime after I finished this I discovered CA glue accelerator - what a fantastic product!



Once it was finished I routed it out with the Stew Mac circle/rosette jig.



Here it is inlayed into the top with BWB purfling on either side. I really love this top, it's only sanded to 100 grit here and you can still see the nice silking. The only defect was a large pitch pocket which was just outside the waist, almost right through the top.

Very nice job on the rosette, Murray. It will really pop when thee finish goes on!

Alex

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I really like the rosette, your second looks great as well.

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Thanks guys! Here are some more photos....

Bent the sides in the LMI jig with heating blankets, it went really well, though I think I may have 'over cooked' them, they came out a little dark and smelled a bit 'roasted'. I've since scraped them down and the colour came back. Spanish Cedar kerfing and mahogany side stiffeners . Mahogany blocks.



The end wedge, matching the rosette. You may notice a stray piece sticking out at the bottom after I had trued it all up... I dropped it on my floor and it broke in 3 pieces! I couldn't believe my carelessness, most of it just needed some CA glue but the bottom piece cracked and I had to add another in.





Here's another of the back all trimmed up, I really love this EIR, it's been easy to work and is quite beautiful.

That's nice, Murray. Keep the progress pictures coming!

Really gorgeous work!

Alex, Nick, John and cphanna, thanks for your kind words. I live in a ski town and don't have any other luthiery types to chat with (that I know of) and it's nice to share some thoughts and pictures on a forum like this.

Ok, where were we... let's say the neck! Last year I bought some cocobolo from a guy on craigslist. It wasn't really instrument grade so I decided to pass, but he was pretty insistent and just wanted the stuff gone. He had a big pile of lumber and offered to give it to me for $200, I couldn't resist. In it was a board of English Walnut with a bit of figure in it...


Two year's ago in a similar transaction a gentleman was selling 'brazilian rosewood'. I think he truly believed it was BRW but I knew it was EIR, and his price was quite reasonable, so I bought 4 boards. I took the smallest board and resawed it for a 'stringer' in this three piece neck. Here are the boards before I glued them up.


Here's the neck after coming off the saw, should be plenty of wood for another neck left in the blank.

Oooh, I'm searching for a nice bit of English Walnut just like that at the moment! Jealous!!!
If anyone happens to know where I can find some, please let me know.

(Agreed about how great this forum is! Without it, I'd have very little contact with the lutherie world at large.)

So after this post we're basically in real time to where I'm at right now... I have the month of May off and am pretty confident there will be strings on this baby soon.

Here was the plan for the fretboard... I'll be binding it with ebony and white purfling.


A close up. I've done a test with the binding on a piece of scrap and it looks great, don't seem to have a photo though. The white strip between the binging and will close in the inlays and it looks real nice.


I've been looking at designing my own headstock but I haven't been very inspired lately. I've decided I'm going to do a Martinish headstock, black ebony overlay with my logo in gold MOP. I'll put small MOP side dots in the board.

Next steps are to route dovetail joints and fit the neck, then I can finish the board, headstock and inlay and we're on our way to finishing! I'll be doing a french polish again, they seem to get better every time so I have high expectations.

Very nice inlay and color scheme!

+1!

I very much like everything I am seeing in these pictures.

What have you got planned for the purfling? How are you gng to carry the theme from the fingerboard, butt wedge and rosette through to the bindingl scheme?



Dave

Thanks guys,

The binding is on - ebony. Looks pretty sharp! I did a very simple purfling scheme, just a strip of BWB on the soundboard, same as I enclosed the rosette with. I had originally planned something a bit more interesting but decided there was enough flash on the guitar already.

I plan on routing the dovetail tomorrow, hopefully everything goes well! Thanks for the encouragement, pics tomorrow hopefully.

Murray

So here we are... Bindings are on, and scraped. Board is now bound. Dovetail is routed and fit, but not yet glued up. I need to do some work on the neck and heel before I glue it all up.




Check out this spruce! (Carpathian)


Here's the purfling scheme - as mentioned a very simply BWB on the edge of the soundboard.



Steps for next week...

Headstock overlays (ebony with B and W fiber sandwich), shape headstock and cut headstock out, tuner holes
Headstock inlay
Route truss rod extension into soundboard
Carve heel, then glue up neck and fingerboard
Finish carving neck

Neck is now on, I started carving the neck today, I will finish tomorrow. I really like how the dark woods look, the pictures don't do it justice. It feels nice to sit and hold (as if one were playing it) and imagining how it will sound in a couple weeks or less! It is definitely a tad neck heavy as I expected but not to the extent I had imagined - and I still have some more wood to remove tomorrow .

The one hang up I have right now is that I thought I had some gold MOP side dots, no idea where they went but they have ghosted on me. I don't want to wait to order some in, so I'm thinking either white plastic (seems too pedestrian given the other appointments) or trying to put some amboyna dust in drilled holes, then fill with CA glue. I'll test on scrap tomorrow and see how it looks. Any ideas?

Interesting idea; easy to switch to another side dot by drilling out so risk free as well. One idea that I have seen in pictures was to use a small brass tube (craft store size maybe 1/8") in the hole and fill the inside of the tube with ebony dust and CA. I have also seen this tubing at the big box hardware stores.

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I love the fret board and fret markers , Way cool!

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Yes - I have seen that somewhere, possibly on the AGF. A fantastic idea! Unfortunately, I feel a bit of pressure on timing and although my fancy little ski town has many amenities, I doubt I'll find any brass tubing. I love the idea though and it's in the memory banks for future consideration. IF I had some of that tubing I'd fill the center with Amboyna dust

I found some small side dots in the mancave, they appear to be MOP or pearloid, I think they are going to be the winners by default as the dust in the hole idea didn't look great on scrap (needed some brass tubing or something to frame it)

Thanks, funny you should mention those markers... I spent the better part of my evening doing some rescue work on the 12th fret markers. I had to sand the board at the bottom a bit to tweak the neck angle very slightly and the 12th fret markers were too shallow, sanded through the purfling and some of the amboyna burl. I think I fixed it fairly well all things considered but it was frustrating! I'll post pics of the 'repair' next time I have my camera upstairs.

Enjoying life has been getting in the way of moving this guitar forward! We have had lovely weather in Whistler and I acquired a new mountain bike so my already limited free time has been spent in the saddle, not the shop!

Finally started getting some finish on this baby, french polish. Here are some shots. I'm really pleased with how it's looking, I just started yesterday so I will need a few more sessions to get some good build up going.