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Finished pics! Dreadnought for me?
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Thanks, folks
Well, the top is successfully routed, including the additional slot for the b/w/b purfling lining strip:
So I declare my unofficial mod to Stewmac's dubious tool A SUCCESS!
And now there is no excuse but to start the tortuous binding process.
Luckily, the purfling - which is applied first - is fairly easy. It's bendy enough to fit round the perimeter and be held by tape while the titebond is setting. Note, by the way, that I've given the top a couple of coats of protective varnish. This keeps the dirt from soaking in, stops the scratches and dints to an extent and - most of all - allows tape like this to be used without the risk of pulling the top surface away as the tape is removed. In their sanded state, the tops are very delicate things...:
The binding is quite another matter. It will need:
- pre-bending, just like the sides
- patience
- luck
- a long length of joined together bicycle inner tubes
Binding acoustics is probably amongst my least favourite tasks of anything to do with building guitars and basses. It's a lot of faff and my confidence of getting a fully successful outcome is slim.
Nevertheless, it has to be done - so to prepare the binding channel I used a chisel, a scraper and also made a mini sanding block:
Having double and triple checked the body itself for continuity, squareness and clear corners, it was ready to start to bend the binding over the bending iron. Again, like the sides, I used the body mould to clamp the bindings in while they dried:
Then checked the fit again and set about gluing the first set. This is where it has to be firm against the guitar top AND the sides. And it has to be square. And the dry binding is springy and quite stiff. So, it requires at least two extra techniques to try to achieve that for the hour or so before the glue is set. First, fibre-glass reinforced tape - pulling the binding into place pretty much as hard as you can. Masking tape or similar would simply rip under the strain:
Then, after running round another couple of times pressing the binding very firmly to ensure full contact at the edge and the bottom of the binding, out come the bicycle inner tubes - and really it needs more than this...
...but the next door neighbour's kids might get suspicious if I steal any more wheels off their bikes...
Well - the results are largely OK for the top. A couple of places where it is a little bit iffy - and I had to heat a couple of the areas with and iron and clamp them properly down to the sides, but this is the sort of look it gives:
The above looks OK but, I think binding of an acoustic sorts the men from the boys - and at the very best - I reckon I'm at the petulant adolescent stage, if that. For me, it's too hit and miss.
But - curses to poor memory - fixing those couple of bits with the iron (which softened the PVA enough to be able to ease the miscreant binding into position and held until it glued - reminded me that a couple of years ago, I tried a completely different approach to binding - that worked!
It was on this re-body of a Peavey EVH I did a few years ago - where I wanted to put a similar type of binding on upside down to give me a feature line from the thin maple bar:
The challenge here was that ANY misalignment would have meant sanding down - and potentially losing - the feature line. So I simply couldn't risk the 'strap it all up and hope for the best' approach. And so I came up with the crazy notion "Why don't I do it like I do veneering - iron it on!
And that's what I tried - and it worked!!!
And then I forgot all about doing that.
So for the back binding - today's little least favourite job - that's what I'm going to do.
If it works, I'll show you the shots of the technique (or just look up one of my veneering threads - it's exactly the same). If it doesn't work, I'll quietly sweep the idea under the carpet and get the inner tubes out again
I don't mind binding acoustics, certainly not after the 2 Les Paul customs I have bound this year.
That mod to the dremel is a good call. I didn't use that tool for the first 5 years I owned it, the test run I did at the start was shockingly bad. Its only recently I have started to get half decent results from it, and its all down to the way you hold it so anything that helps with that is great.
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Yes - Les Pauls are something else. I still have anxiety dreams over that LPJ I converted a couple of years ago - adding binding to a fully set-necked Gibson!
The dremel mod worked well. It's just stuck with cyano - never thought it would hold but its done top and bottom for this build and is back in the tool drawer ready for the next one.
Of course, the thickness of the leg is fixed on my quick and dirty version and so it was more a visual guide at the first stages as I crept up to full depth. But as soon as the cut was full depth, I was able to hold it against the guitar side and slide it round. To be honest, it wouldn't take someone with some metalworking stuff long to have a leg fixed to a modded adjusting slide that the bearing sits on, in which case it could be in contact with the guitar sides all the time.
It still wouldn't be as good as the Bosch/Colt rig but it could do a pretty decent job.
it's all systems go in Andy's shed tonight! as you fashioned a little adaptation to the stewmac binding rout tool, could you similarly adapt a soldering iron and sewing machine zipper presser foot (or similar small smooth metal plate) to give you a mini iron with a positioning guide, so you can just chase it around the guitar, bending and melting as you go?
your patience and persistence are almost scary. am watching for updates through my fingers.
While I think about that, done a touch more. I've left the binding of the back until later in the weekend - there's only so much excitement you can have in one day!
So I jumped across to start the carve on the neck heel. More to come off to make it a little more interesting and to add a bit of elegance, but I think the multi-wood thing will probably work.
Of course, what this shot has reminded me is that, once the bottom binding is all done, I then have to clamp the body without crushing it into a jig to be able to then get the hand router (yes - the one I always wreck things with) and rout a bl***y great big and very accurate slot to let the tenon fit.
I think I'm beginning to remember why I don't do many acoustics!
I'll keep an eye out for something like that in the next StewMac catalogue
You know what I think of your work. But now I know your a genius tool inventor too!
So to another experiment.
But first a cautionary note. This is where I have to repeat the warning to folks who may not have seen my other builds - and especially any 'beginner' builders.
It is simply this. My threads describe how I personally go about things - and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Generally I detail both.
They are statements of how I have done things but are never - and will never be - statements of 'this is how it should be done.' I am essentially a bedroom builder and quite often - through necessity or because I have difficulties with the way most builders do things - I go about things differently to the 'conventional' way. When they work, no one is more surprised than me
. So by all means try things the same way if you think that it will work in your particular situation - but please NEVER assume I know what I'm doing!
So
Ironing on binding. (See what I mean
)
I've got to that age where I forget things - and when I did the binding for the top, I had forgotten that I once did binding a different way which suited me much, much better.
Those of you who have followed any of my veneering threads know that I use Evostick wood glue as an iron-on adhesive. And I tried it once on binding. So here goes again!
Basically - other than the iron and a pair of gloves - this is the kit. No bicycle inner tubes in sight (to the great relief of the local kids in the street )
- I paint a thin but complete coat of the PVA onto the binding channel - including the bottom edge (important)
- then I do the same with the binding (again including the bottom edge)
- I let it dry (15-20mins but once dry this will work even days later). You can tell it's dry because it goes clear.
- and then I iron it on. I use an old heatshrink iron myself simply because MrsAndyjr1515 goes apes**t if I use her iron - but any hot iron (used dry) will do.
- note no fibreglass reinforced tape. No bicycle inner tubes. AND THIS IS COMPETELY NON-TIME DEPENDANT
so even here - halfway through, I can go for a coffee and comeback and carry on!!!! Basically, I position the binding in the slot and run the iron back and forward over the flat side of the binding, say, a couple of inches at a time. After 30 secs or so, I then hold the binding firm against the flat side and pressing it down to properly bottom to the channel floor (hence the gloves!) for 10 secs or so until the glue has sufficiently cooled to re-solidify the glue.
- Note also IT IS COMPLETELY REPEATABLE. If after it's cooled, you realise say that there's a bit of a gap, you just iron it again until the glue melts and press it firm until it cools
- once it has cooled, then it won't move again unless you re-iron it. So you don't need tape. The 6" attached above is the finished job!
- once the whole length is attached, you can immediately start scraping / sanding / chiselling. There is no further glue setting time.
- which is what I did. The binding on the right is where I was 1/2hr after the above photo:
- and, ignoring the rookie tearout on the back wood mentioned in an earlier post, here's what the other side of the joint came out like:
This method suits me personally much, much more than the first method. I have just got to remember - if there is ever a next time - to do it this same way next time!
call it 'the jupiter' on account of its sides.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/images/53255main_MM_image_feature_97_jwhires.jpg
heatshrink iron idea is a total winner. you are an education.
And to the next very scary bit. Routing out the neck mortice.
First of all I needed to set the neck heel and tenon angle and shape.
For the angle, I sorted an offcut block, planed to the exact size of the fretted fretboard, at the heel point and put a straight edge up to the top of the unsaddled bridge to work out the neck angle:
Then to do it - yes, you guessed it - another jig!
This is one I cobbled together for the last acoustic build and is an old-workmate based simplified version of the fancy and ingenious O'Brien / LMI rig. This allows cutting the neck heel angle, the heel template positioning and clamping and also the body clamping and mortice template routing.
First off was to transfer the neck angle to the rough-cut heel. The jig clamps the neck - positioned vertically by a couple of pegs that slot in the truss-rod groove, all of which is on a hinged ply leaf, settable at the above angle:
With a couple of stiff bearers, this allowed the heel to be routed at the correct angle:
Then a quick check that the angle is right before I start doing stuff that can't be undone:
And then the G&W Mortice/Tenon template is positioned and stuck with double-sided tape (I did put screws in, but for the other template!) to tidy it up to dimension and shape:
And then onto the body.
So I tell you what....let's just suspend this fragile body, clamped between two jaws of a workmate and dangling a foot over the concrete cellar floor...
Call me an over cautious wuss, but I put an old towel underneath...
Note that, for this template, the fixing screws actually fit
And with that routed to around 14mm depth, we have a decently fitting mortice and tenon ready for aligning, edge relieving, flossing and, ultimately, fixing:
Still got loads to do but in the meantime, I'd better get on and order a trussrod - going to need it soon
OK - I think this is the last structural task on the body itself - the binding closure at the tailstock. I used a router guide bush with the same mortise template to rout the groove out for it and then finished off with chisels:
Better get that trussrod ordered because finishing the neck is the next task!
Im loving this thread.