Finished pics! Dreadnought for me?

vale

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Reading these sort of threads and seeing other people's methods (and cock-ups and resolutions) makes me think "yes, I reckon I could have a go at that" - that's what forums like this are all about.

totally. it's like a cross between 'grand designs' and ray mears / steve irwin... but with guitars.

Andyjr1515

You're all very kind, folks.

Now...Steve Irwin...wasn't he the guy who..? 

Back braces in place and looking OK.  



The back of the back, though, isn't so good.  If this was for a customer, it would be a scrapper - and therefore scrap of the matched sides!  The problem is the massive tearout at the top end!  It was bad to start off with and I tried to improve it and made it much worse




For my own use, this will be fine, though.  I will fill it with a slurry of sandings and tru-oil and, because of the irregular patterning of the lacewood, it won't be too obvious


Next job is trimming the sides to get a good fit for the back to eventually be glued to.

Andyjr1515

And so onto final preparatory jobs before gluing the top and back on.

I put the soundhole braces in place and double checked that the hidden pre-amp of the Shadow Doubleplay will actually be hidden!

Then double checked the basic fit of the top:

 

And the back:

 

Then checked how well the spool clamps would secure during gluing.  Now then 'you can't have too many clamps' and this is no where near enough.  This is dry fitting:

While it is actually giving me a tight fit all the way round the kerfed strip, the wood will tend to move about during the wetting from the glue.  So what I will do is cut some shaped plywood cauls to spread the load round the curved and allow me to use some metal clamps to supplement the gentler spool clamps.

Also added a sliver of veneer on top of the heel and tail blocks to then chamfer in and give it a fit with the radius of the top.

And then I could glue it

Certainly, by the end of the weekend, I am hoping to have a sealed body, ready for the scariest bit of the whole build (as far as I'm concerned) - routing the binding channels and routing the neck mortise!

It's a long way to have come with still a huge opportunity to completely wreck it - but that's acoustics for you!

Jaycee

Looking good Andy. When I made my 12 string the dry run went great but one of the spools at the neck end kept falling off. I remember sweating profusely hoping the glue wouldn't set before I got it to sit.

Andyjr1515

Jaycee said:

Looking good Andy. When I made my 12 string the dry run went great but one of the spools at the neck end kept falling off. I remember sweating profusely hoping the glue wouldn't set before I got it to sit.

Yes - they work well when everything is absolutely square but do have a tendency to ease themselves off randomly even when it's pretty darned square enough!

TTony

We are incredibly lucky to have you with us here, for all the time that you take to document what you do (and how you do it), and then to share it all with us.

Thank you.

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

We are incredibly lucky to have you with us here, for all the time that you take to document what you do (and how you do it), and then to share it all with us.

Thank you.

You'll make me blush, @TTony ;

I've got to the age where I can't remember from one build to the next how I did things so there is an ulterior motive for documenting the detail

TTony

Andyjr1515 said:

I've got to the age where I can't remember from one build to the next how I did things so there is an ulterior motive for documenting the detail

Hmmmmm ... I’m not so sure about that


If the world was a fair place, you’d be able to make a good living creating beautiful instruments that helped people create beautiful music.

normula1

+1

Andyjr1515

Once the back is glued on is no time to remember that you've forgotten something so this is a time for a pause, note the remaining jobs, do them, pause again.

Hopefully, I've paused enough times!

First there's the cross-grain maple strip across the join line.

Because the back has a double curvature as it slims from the main chamber to the neck, I let the glue for the strip set while bending in this direction by using a fillet underneath  at the bend axis of the panel:

Then the all important label

In the past, I've marked the top at this stage or similar and - because it's pretty much final thickness, those can be difficult to get out.  So for the clamping, I cut out a comprehensive set of clamp cauls, chamfered so that the edges don't dig in (fingers crossed!):

And then - after one more fit check - the 'well, it's too late now' step : 

Andyjr1515

Well - huge amount still to do, but definitely at the end of the beginning!

 

The next bit on the body is getting a router out and routing the top and bottom binding channels.  I might spend time on the neck before getting to that terrifying prospect!

Andyjr1515

Been doing other stuff most of today but found an hour to do two things neck related - one I've done before and one I've never tried before:

 

If they work, I'll reveal all when the glue's dried!

Andyjr1515

OK - so far so good

One of the things above, I've done before a few times.   In adding a couple of strips to bind the fretboard, I've used acoustic banding - rosewood with a b/w/b feature strip.  This gives me a couple of advantages as well as the binding itself.  It gives me a faux veneer feature demarcation line - which I always find to be a pain to do without any wavy lines using three pieces of actual veneer:

The other advantage is that, before I trim it to the fretboard radius, it gives me a flat surface to use for the Dremel router base when I do the pair of 12th fret swift inlays (a job for this showery afternoon)

 

The second thing is one I've never done before and might not work.

Because the neck is an offcut, it isn't as deep a blank as I would usually use.  As such, the heel needs three pieces to extend from the top of the body to the bottom.  Three sections of maple stacked up is, at best going to catch the eye.  At worst - eg with a tiny bit of offset of one of the walnut centre splice positions - it could look awful!

So I'm trying with a section of decorative wood sandwiched in the middle:

To make it look like I meant it to be there, I added an angle to that and the adjoining bottom block.  I won't know if it really works until I rout the tenon and shape the heel - and there are a few things I need to do before I tackle those jobs - but it will be an interesting experiment

vale

Andyjr1515 said:

OK - so far so good

One of the things above, I've done before a few times.   In adding a couple of strips to bind the fretboard, I've used acoustic banding - rosewood with a b/w/b feature strip.  This gives me a couple of advantages as well as the binding itself.  It gives me a faux veneer feature demarcation line - which I always find to be a pain to do without any wavy lines using three pieces of actual veneer:

The other advantage is that, before I trim it to the fretboard radius, it gives me a flat surface to use for the Dremel router base when I do the pair of 12th fret swift inlays (a job for this showery afternoon)

hey @Andyjr1515 ; i like that liquorice allsort touch. one of those little 'mmm... classy' touches that maybe don't take a huge anount of time in the doing, but as a player picking up an instrument for the first time, you really notice and gives the guitar a craftsmany finely tooled vibe.
maybe far more than those things you agonise and sweat over to get right but laypeople (i'm one) don't fully appreciate, not knowing the process (i'm learning here).

i'm guessing it's the same shallow strip stuff you use for soundholes. does that mean you have to do a tiny little rout to accomodate it along both sides of the fretboard back?

btw best of luck with your heel experiment. am looking forward to seeing how it works out.

Andyjr1515

vale said:

i'm guessing it's the same shallow strip stuff you use for soundholes. does that mean you have to do a tiny little rout to accomodate it along both sides of the fretboard back?

No - much easier than that

It's the same binding I will be using for the outside edges of the body that is bought with those decorative strips already glued on. 



 So all I have to do is make sure the fretboard and strips are bottomed onto a flat surface when gluing them


Actually, using them as they intended - as the body binding - is relatively tricky as you will see.  I will need to bend them to shape just like the sides...

DartmoorHedgehog

That's a cunning plan with the neck binding - looks really good.

Andyjr1515

OK - major scary bit number 1.  Routing the body binding channels.

Why is it scary?

Well, as far as I'm concerned

- because it is using a router

- because it is using a router on a pretty much finished body with all that work already done and a top and a back pretty thin and pretty much thinned to within 0.1mm of it's final size

- the above, then remembering that the top is dished, and varying radii to the dish centre all the way round

- the above and noting that the binding channel is as deep as the sides are thick

- the above and then remembering that it is the BOTTOM of the routed slot that has to be accurate all the way round the body

Other than that, it's a walk in the park

 

There is a rig that the multi-acoustic builders sometimes invest in which is a large, complicated and quite expensive rig for a Bosh trimmer router - but I don't build many acoustics so can't really justify the cost and, besides, it's too big for my tiny workspace and storage area.

Then there's this from Stewmac to fit onto a Dremel:

Hmmm...the general view of this amongst builders I know is that it is rubbish.  I've used one before - and I got away with it.  But the risks of serious eyesore dig-ins and unevenness in the binding joints is high to very high.  And when I used it, there was quite a bit of judicious gap filling needed.

The problem is that the top and back of the guitar are dished.  So the front edge of the jig doesn't (mustn't!) run along the edge of the guitar body - instead the back edge of the jig must.  The Dremel - top heavy and while hitting the hard wood of the sides at 40,000 hits a minute - must be kept vertical (assuming the top is the other way up to the photo above - which is pretty impossible to use as photo'd) MANUALLY in both planes.  When it tilts - even a smidgen, it digs in and that affects the depth and you get wavy lines at both join lines.

So I had a think about it last night.  And got a couple of strips of binding and some super glue out and stuck it on (honestly!)

 

Could this act as a visual guide that the rig is parallel to the sides?   Would it stay on long enough to prove the concept and then, if it helped, how would I stick it on properly?

Well - and here you could knock me down with a feather.  Because the concept worked:

And it's even stayed glued for the full multi-pass rout of the back!!!

And, it is even and wavy line free with only the very slightest amount of tidying up.

OK - now it's time to wreck the top! 

normula1

Well done that man. I love it when something that could be seriously cocked up goes to plan.

Andyjr1515

normula1 said:

Well done that man. I love it when something that could be seriously cocked up goes to plan.

You'd better hold your breath then - the top needs both a binding strip and a smaller purfling strip...and it's soft spruce.

Fingers crossed!

vale

sweet routin' dude! necessity/frustration/desperation are the mothers of invention.