Carl's guitar project.

[warpedbored]

Are you using nickel or stainless steel fret wire?

 

I am using medium, medium 18% nickle silver alloy. A few builders are using stainless now and I can see why someone like yourself who plays a lot would want to use it since it is much harder and will probably never need re-fretting. Stainless is difficult to work with and much harder on your tools. There are special made fretting tools for using it but they are rather expensive. Besides setting up the neck, leveling the frets etc is the Bermuda triangle of luthery anyway. I can imagine how much more difficult it would be trying to level stainless frets. What I might try on my next guitar is the new gold fret wire from LMI. It is a copper alloy and harder than nickle silver but still soft enough to work with easily. It would also look great with gold tuners.

http://www.prostheta.com/guitars/hemisemi/13.jpg

[Mick]

Gold tuners add a lot to the appearance of an ax, that's for sure. I have an Ibanez acoustic/electric hybrid that has a sycamore front and came equipped with gold tuners. Looks really nice. Would post up a photo but I am not technically savvy enough for that complex an operation. I have that on my list of things that I want to learn how to do; right after learning to tie my shoes. Wearing these Hush Puppy loafers is getting old.......

 

Seriously, the gold tuners are great....

[TLB]

I admire you Carl, keep at it. As you said, it's a lot of work, especially the first one. I have a Collings OM that I dearly love; I went through his workshop here in Austin before I bought the guitar; he, like you, made a lot of his tools along the way as he figured out what he wanted to do. I'm not sure if it's true, but I'm told he bases his guitars on 1930s Martins. All I know is my Collings OM is the best steel string I've ever played. If there's anyone I admire more than great guitar players it would be the makers.

 

https://artisanguitars.com/2009-collings-om2hg-german-spruce-indian-rosewood/

 

Tim

[warpedbored]

I admire you Carl, keep at it. As you said, it's a lot of work, especially the first one. I have a Collings OM that I dearly love; I went through his workshop here in Austin before I bought the guitar; he, like you, made a lot of his tools along the way as he figured out what he wanted to do. I'm not sure if it's true, but I'm told he bases his guitars on 1930s Martins. All I know is my Collings OM is the best steel string I've ever played. If there's anyone I admire more than great guitar players it would be the makers.

 

https://artisanguita...ndian-rosewood/

 

Tim

 

It is definitely based on a 30s model Martin OM. Interesting that he used a 25 1/2 scale rather than the standard Martin 25.4. How wide is the fret board at the nut? The OMs were 1 11/16 to 1 3/4 to better facilitate finger picking. For a while they even had one model that was called a "Plectrum".

[warpedbored]

A wee bit of progress. I'm ready to do the bracing for the top and back. Since I will probably want to build another of this style guitar I made a plastic template. I traced out the sound board with all the bracing locations on a thin piece of semi clear UHMW and cut little triangles out at all of the brace intersections.It's a little difficult to see the triangle cutouts but I'm sure you guys get the idea.

 

http://oi40.tinypic.com/2qi0ihk.jpg

 

[chilton747]

Looks like quite a bit of work for the template. How long did it take?

[Doug]

How is it going Carl?

 

 

 

 

 

a little funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCFXeChXfcI

Edited January 23, 2012 by dnoblett (see edit history)

[griz326]

In the hands of an amateur I'm sure it sounds like an old, beat up, Harmony guitar.

[warpedbored]

The template probably took a couple of hours. I just put the semi transparent UHMW over the plan with the bracing lay out and traced it. Then I just cut little triangles at the intersections so I can transfer them to the wood.

 

Great video Doug, damned if he didn't make that thing sing.

 

Today I finally finished my circle cutting jig for my laminate trimmer. I made one before for my Dremmel but it was too rickety. Now I'm ready to cut out the groove for the mother of pearl rosette and glue it in. Next I will thickness the top to about .11, feather out the outside edges to about .10 and start the bracing. It will finally start looking like a guitar.

 

Grizz some of those old Harmony guitars didn't sound half bad. I've played quite a few of them.

[chilton747]

The template probably took a couple of hours. I just put the semi transparent UHMW over the plan with the bracing lay out and traced it. Then I just cut little triangles at the intersections so I can transfer them to the wood.

 

Great video Doug, damned if he didn't make that thing sing.

 

Today I finally finished my circle cutting jig for my laminate trimmer. I made one before for my Dremmel but it was too rickety. Now I'm ready to cut out the groove for the mother of pearl rosette and glue it in. Next I will thickness the top to about .11, feather out the outside edges to about .10 and start the bracing. It will finally start looking like a guitar.

 

Grizz some of those old Harmony guitars didn't sound half bad. I've played quite a few of them.

I've actually got an old Harmony amp here at the house and it still works.

[warpedbored]

I wish I had the old Marshal amp I had back in my band playing days. My Les Paul sounded better on it than anything else I ever plugged it into. Sadly I had to sell it and the Les Paul to raise money for college tuition. I don't really miss the Les Paul, it was way too heavy. It was natural finish maple and weighed a ton. I had to have a strap for it about six inches wide and I swear I was six inches shorter after a night on stage. If I had it to do over again I would buy a Gibson SG.

 

 

Marshall Jmp 2104 2×12″ 50w Combo Amplifier

 

http://marshallamp.org/files/2011/06/-89512006195426741.jpg

 

[griz326]

I played some very old Harmony guitars that were great, but mine was a much newer version in '67 ... and not so great.

[tsap seui]

Really cool stuff, Carl. It's funny, I can build a whole house from scratch, including the plumbing and electrical....but build a guitar My guitar would look like the one Jack White made. That guitar building is an art form, to say the least.

 

Doug, that was a great link. I must have read it and expanded it for 2 hours yesterday evening.....wound up watching John Entwistle from the Who playing bass, Frank Zappa talking about his music, man, he wrote way more than rock stuff, he had some fantastic chamber music....saw a thing with Johnny Winter and Janis Joplin, and Johnny with Jimi Hendrix....and finally an interview with Ginger Baker and JAck Bruce talking about the time Jimi Hendrix walked onstage to play with Cream.....they said Eric Clapton walked back stage when Jimi finished playing and almost had a breakdown...could not even light his cigarette and walked around in circles asking everyone...."was he really THAT good, was he really THAT good, I can't even believe I saw what I saw".

 

tsap seui

[A Mafan]

The whole process is amazing!

Kudos to you for building a guitar.

 

I've always wished I could build a good acoustic.

[warpedbored]

After 44 years of being a woodworker I've made about every kind of furniture there is. Woodworking is an art form. Instead of canvas and paint we use wood. Lutherie opened up a whole new spectrum of woodworking for me. Instead of boxes and mostly straight lines I'm now using curves and domes. In woodworking being within 1/32 of an inch is usually close enough. With a fret scale I'm working within a few thousands. The main reason I'm so slow at this is I don't want to make many mistakes. If I ruin something it isn't as simple as walking over to the table saw and sawing a new piece. If it takes me a year to build this guitar then fine. I'm in no hurry, I'm enjoying myself and learning a lot. One of the things my mentor, Charles Fox told me is "one of the biggest mistakes woodworkers turned luthiers make is they build this guitar shaped woodworking project." I remind myself often that first and foremost this is a musical instrument. It won't be worth a shit if it has lots of bling but no ding. Still I'm a monkey.I like bright shiny things. This guitar will have lots of bling but I will also pay close attention to the ding.

 

When I first decided I wanted to build an acoustic guitar the project in it's entirety seemed overwhelming. Once you start to break it down into segments it isn't nearly so daunting. Ironically most of the luthiers I've met were musicians first and had little or no woodworking experience before deciding to build a guitar.