Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all - more news on the guitar front will entertain you in the new year! A trip to Paracho, Mexico is planned as part of our visit with Katie. I will have pictures to share of the Mexican luthiers at work at their craft.

Guitar Build number two will start in early February! This will be interrupted by a few days of substitute teaching so I can afford to buy the tools I need!

Friday and Saturday - Intonation and setup

Well, I thought this would be another piece o' cake. Nope. But another great learning experience. George stayed pretty busy helping us through shaping the nut (where the string passes through near the tuners) and the saddle (on the bridge). I, being the lefty, created confusion at this stage, as everything was backwards. We used electronic tuning machines and check for perfect tune at bothe the open string and the 12th fret - (the string one octave higher). To be perfect required adjustments and filing. The height of the string also was a factor.

Setting initial intonation with the two "E" strings. This determined the placement of the saddle on the bridge.

All of this took a great deal of time, but the knowledge gained was awesome. On Saturday, we also dressed the frets and polished them. That meant more filing and checking for perfect flatness.

Flattening the frets. This also required smoothing, filing, and a final polish.

We then worked on final finishing, some of us also cut an extra soundhole in the side of our guitar. Kind of neat, and you can hear yourself play. I ended up learning how to deal with frets buzzing, as I was one of the unlucky ones to experience this. It meant another two hours of work.

Final setup and intonation. My upper frets were buzzing on the low "E" string. This meant more work! But worth it!!!!!!

All in all, this has been great! Long days, short nights. Probably the best learning experience I ever had. I hope all have enjoyed keeping up with this - I did it for two reasons - 1. to share with family and friends, and 2. to remember how to do this the next time.

My goal was to have something looking like a guitar. This looks and sounds awesome!!!!

The best to all! Home tomorrow. Monday it is back to thinking guitars as I bought a drum sander over the weekend! Got to drive to Portage to pick it up!

Thursday - The Bridge and Neck

Today we prepared for placing the bridge on the guitar. This meant that the neck would have to be temporarily bolted on to lay out the proper placement. We had some tooling to do and I also started carving the heel of the neck. We also shaped the bridge on the drum and belt sanders.

Positioning the bridge

The bridge was positioned and the two "E" holes were drilled through the body. This allowed a couple bolts to be placed prior to gluing and clamping. Then the bridge was glued and clamped in place.

Clamping the bridge in place

George then showed us how to radius the neck and using an ancient tool called the spokeshave (so named because it was used to make the spokes for wooden wheels) we carved the shape of the neck.

Shaping the heel of the neck

Wednesday - Frets and finish

Today we prepared the neck to accept the fretboard. This required some hand work to allow the truss rod to be installed. We then prepared the fretboard to be glued on by drilling a couple pilot holes and installing steel brads for positioning it in a perfect placement. Then we glued and clamped the fretboard to the neck.

Positioning the neck for gluing

After the neck was glued and clamped we "flattened" the length of the neck perfectly with a hand plane. We then also put a slight radius along the entire width of the neck with a hand plane. Hand tools and patience. Amazing.

After this, we cut and placed the frets in the slots with a hammer and slight pressure in the vise.

Placing the fret wire

I ended up resanding my top as there were several scratches that were bugging me. It looks a lot better, although it is a very soft wood and easily dinged.

Tuesday - The Beginning of the Finish!

George had mentioned yesterday that there comes a time when the guitar becomes your creation. The final sanding and finishing sure make me feel that way. It has been an awesome process - surprisingly hard at times, and surprisingly easy other times. Now we can see the finished result and all the time spent making sure not to make major errors has paid off.

Today we final sanded (to 1000 grit abrasive) the top, and applied a few coats of finish to it. We are using a product called Tru Oil - it is used for gun stocks. Pretty easy to apply, and it looks good. We also worked on the fret board in preparation for gluing on to the neck tomorrow. I needed to do some final fitting on my neck, to make sure that it would bolt on with no problems.

The first coat! Note the masking of the bridge area - it will allow the bridge to be glued directly to the wood.

Some final neck work - tomorrow we carve the shape!

The fret slots were cut on the table saw and pearl inlays were glued in place.

Monday - Rope Burns!

Today was spent putting the bindings in place. Once again I thought, piece o' cake. Wrong. George guided us through the process and it went pretty well. At the end of the day, everyone's bindings were glued in and ready to sand!

First we needed to clean out the binding channels with a chisel.

Then we glued and "clamped" the binding to the guitar body.

Lower binding done!

Ready to sand and finish!!!!

Sunday - Covered Bridges and Mountains

I rented a car for the last week, as I felt it would be good to get away for a little while every now and then. Sunday, being our day off, started off with laundry and a call to Peg. Then it was off to places unknown. Took a few side roads - Vermont has no billboards - I mean NO BILLBOARDS! It is awesome. There are little signs at the side of the road pointing out places of interest. I saw a sign with Von Trapp on it. I made a sharp left, knowing Peg would want me to do a "Sound of Music" pilgramage for her. Didn't see any Von Trapp's, but ran into a neat covered bridge.



Took off for the Green Mountains. Beautiful, but I missed the fall colors by a week or so.


We could take a lesson from Vermont - rare to see a big chain store. Not a lot of cell phone towers. Hardly any homes built into mountains. Just trees. And beauty.

Watch out for Moose!

Saturday - Sweatin' Bullets

Today was an interesting day. After putting the body together, it is necessary to give it a finished appearance - all the seams do not quite fit together perfectly. It is necessary to put a small strip of decorative wood at the butt end. This was done by measuring perfectly and cutting a line with an x-acto knife resting against a straight edge. Then chiseling out the remaining pieces. Then fitting in the decorative piece. Surprisingly enough, this went fairly smooth and I feel real good about the end result.

Beginning the chisel process

The next thing to do was to put in a binding and purfeling channel. These are decorative strips of either plastic or wood surrounding the guitar body. In order to do this, one must use a router and a special fixture attached to it.

The router - or the little machine from hell.

Then carefully go around the guitar body and cut out the channels.

I went ahead and let Jack go first. Youth before age........

Piece o' cake, one might say. Knowing how a router operates, and knowing that it is moving at 20,000 rpm with a 1/4 inch bit that can rip a large mass of wood out of my precious guitar body made me just a tad nervous. Such a tad nervous that I was soaking wet by the time I was done with the process.

Not bad!

George being the master craftsman and master teacher made people feel at ease with the process, and developed an almost goof proof system to do it. Surprisingly, it looks pretty good! In fact, it looks great!

Friday - I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand

Well, nothing is ever totally easy in this guitar making business. The back was an interesting problem to work out. If you look at the back of an acoustic guitar, you will note that it is curved both to top to bottom (heel to butt), and side to side. You may remember that I mentioned the gluing process was different on the back piece. We needed to plane down high spots that we could see by looking at the edges of the guitar and sighting in differences in levels. Then we contoured the edges with a special sanding block. To be honest, this was hard to understand until we actually got involved in the process and called George over to check no less than 3 times.

Contouring the sides in preparation for the back

Finished contoured back

We then prepared the back to fit, by scalloping the braces, checking the fit (this happened several times) the drawing the final cutting pattern out (we had left the back about 1/4 inch wider all the way around to prepare it for a perfect fit). We then made a final cut on the bandsaw.

We then "test" clamped the back to prepare for gluing. In this guitar making business, it is smart to prefit everything. We then glued and clamped the back.

Back clamped together

A few hours later we took the clamps off. Looks like a finished body, but nothing is ever easy in this guitar making business. Tomorrow - the edge bindings!

It's a Guitar! (almost)

Today we glued the top to the soundboard. Sounds easy, but there was a great deal of preparation and planning to make sure that the 15 minutes of set time for the glue did not over-run into our clamping time. We had to prepare the tail block to the curvature of the guitar. Then re-clamp everything in place, check everything and glue! All went reasonably well with only one emergency call to George.

We then went to lunch, came back, took things apart and we had a guitar!

It does look pretty cool though! That's my t-shirt you are seeing. Got to do the back tomorrow!

The rest of the day was spent reinforcing the inside of the body with thin strips of veneer at key "cracking" points. We also prepared a special lamination for a future extra sound hole.

Week Two! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday

Week two has arrived - to be honest, one day runs into another.....What day is today?

Monday Bending sides!

We bent our sides, binding, and kerfing strips today and joined them together.

This is the side bending fixture. It has three 200 watt light bulbs inside and is what we used to form our binding strips, kerfing, and sides.



We then attached the kerfing strips to the sides. Notice the saw cuts in the strips that are attached to the sides. These are called kerfs. They allow the thick strips to bend rather easily, yet when bent provide a great deal of support for the sides, top, and back. Great engineering - thought of many years ago!



Tuesday - Hand tools and craft.

Watching a craftsperson at work is truly an amazing thing. Today George showed us how to take our bracing which was glued to the top last week and produce and instrument with tone. We used hand tools - chisels and little tiny hand planes about 1 inch long then cut down the bracing on the top. It took a piece of wood that sounded like a brick, and produced an instrument.

The beginning of day!

Finished!

George demonstrating how to check for tone on a soundboard.

Wednesday - Let's make something that looks like a guitar!

Today we worked on preparing the soundboard and neck to meet

We fit the neck and top together and checked alignment.

We then glued the neck block to the top.

We prepared the sides by hand planing and then running them through the jointer. Nothing like taking paper thin wood and running it through a machine that can rip your arm off!

Then we worked on cutting the sides and kerfing, adjusting the bracing, and attaching them to the top. Tomorrow we glue!

Sunday - Our day off

We ended up going to Home Depot so that we could purchase the materials to make our gluing form with. It is one of the harder pieces to design on our own due to the complex radii. We then ended up with an awesome fall color tour due to Victor relying on his GPS vs. using a map. It was worth it though, and we saw some Vermont and New Hampshire countryside.




I actually had time to take a walk around the lake when we got back "home." Ended up at a cemetery and walked around a little - appreciating the history of the area.

Week One!

I finally arrived and have been without an internet connection. We are having a day off today and I will post the week's comments on our work below. I will add pictures later which will help explain what had been happening.


Sunday – Information Overload!

The first day of class. Wow! Beautiful place, wonderful people. George and Pippa had the group for dinner the evening before and we were all fed way too much! The berry cobbler was a hit. We awoke in great shape Sunday morning ready to go.
George introduced us to the theory behind the acoustic guitar – that in an acoustic guitar, the wood is the tone control, unlike an electric which can be dialed in. We learned about the cellular structure of wood (this shop teacher kind of learned that 35 years ago, but wasn't paying that close attention in class at that time). We learned that by quarter sawing wood, wood was produced that provided a more efficient transmission of sound and was also stiffer – important stuff when dealing with the thin material that makes up a guitar body.
We got some great information on the whole makeup of the guitar, the wood used for the top, sides, and bottom, how the bracing provides both strength and transmission of sound, and how the neck relates to the completed instrument.
After lunch we picked out pieces for our top, learned how to select the pieces by both looks and tone quality, and glued them together.

This old guy was taught a few new tricks to get the cleanest edge for gluing. Great beginning!






Monday – Necks and Backs!

We made some patterns out of poster board in the morning – a pattern for the back and top, and a pattern for the neck. More great information – I am prepared to modify my design on my second guitar, custom made for my friend Loren. His fingers are a little shorter than mine, and by adjusting the frets on the scale and making a slightly smaller neck he will be ripping out the tunes on his new axe!

We cut and glued the neck to provide the proper angle for the head joint. Then we picked out our back wood – I chose a beautiful set of maple. We then did basically the same process of gluing that we did for the top.

Tomorrow we will cut out the soundhole and install the rosette – should be fun!
Tuesday – Rosettes and Routers
In order to prepare for the rosette, we needed to determine the location of our soundhole. This is based on how many frets we decided to use on our necks. I chose a 14 fret neck, which is common for a larger acoustic, and a total of 20 frets to the soundhole. We then needed to calculate the width of the rosettes, so we could determine the proper location of the router and guide which would cut out the channel for the rosette. Victor and I chose a design which would require 3 separate passes with the router.
Once that was done, we needed to prepare the wood for the top. This required planing and scraping. Once again I learned new ways to sharpen tools and was reminded of the incredible power of a simple scraper blade to provide a smooth top. We used a really neat plane – an Asian design, and a tool which I will purchase when I get home. Once the top was smooth it was time for power tools and fear of destroying two days of work.
Victor and I worked together on our layout, since we had the exact same design. It was good to have another brain working, as mine was a little slow at times. We used a router with a special adjustable fixture attached which allowed us to make a perfect circle.

We cut our circles, and then it was time to fit in the rosettes. Which didn't fit. George showed us a great trick to bevel the lower edges, and we pushed them into place with a veneer roller. Perfect fit!



Wednesday - I've got blisters on my fingers!
No, it wasn't because I was playing the drums like Ringo lamented. Although my buddy Mike would be a happy camper staying here in the dorm, as there is a full drum set just sitting and waiting for a little Wipe Out action. This morning was planing and scraping. Three hours. An appreciation for the craft, and the use of hand tools to provide a balanced top, which will provide a beautiful tone. We scraped our rosettes clean, and then flipped the top over. The top was approximately 200/thousands of an inch, and we needed to take it down to .125 inch. Time. Patience. And constant checking with the neat caliper that George designed.

Another tool to make when I arrive home. Each plane stroke removed about .002 inch, so, quite a few were needed. Plus constant checking to make sure one area did not get overworked. All done with human power. And great tools.

Once the top was planed and sanded to thickness, we could cut out our shape.

Thursday Catch up Day!
The morning was a time for everyone to get caught up. We also started to design our the headstock of the guitar – everyone was encouraged to to their own design. I looked at several, and picked out a pretty traditional idea, drew it out, and transferred it to poster board.
We selected an ebony piece for the peghead – hard wood that can accept the tuners and stay in good shape. We chose contrasting veneers to be glued under this piece, and glued and clamped the sandwich to the headstock.

Jack routed a channel for a decorative insert on his guitar – I will wait until another time for that challenge. George's experience once again came through as he told us to always use epoxy resin when gluing a structural member such as this.

Using a fixture set at 15 degrees, (the headstock is 15 degrees lower than the neck), George showed us how to produce a straight 90 degree cut, so the plastic nut can sit accurately. Another example of precision work made easy by learning from a master of his craft!
We routed a channel in our neck stock to accept a special metal truss rod which will relieve the tension on the neck caused by tightening the steel strings.

We also cut a slot (mortise) in a block of mahogany which will accept the tenon (also cut today) on the neck. This will be bolted on to the body later. We cut our sides to prepare them for bending on Monday.
Friday – Cool Looking Headstock!
We transferred our headstock design to the actual neck piece.

We were encouraged to check for clearance for the strings. We then cut the shape out on the band saw – another place to make a major mistake – everyone came through without error.


George showed us an awesome method to bring out the beauty of the veneer under the peghead using files and rasps to bevel the edge.

We then drilled the 6 holes for the tuners – another place to mess up the whole thing – and we all survived undamaged.
In preparation for bending the sides we “kerfed” 4 basswood strips which will be glued to the edges of the bent sides. This will add considerable strength to the very thin side pieces.
The rest of the day was spent working with spruce brace wood and designing our bracing pattern for the top (soundboard) of the guitar. The pattern is designed to provide both strength and tone quality. Strength is especially needed where the bridge is placed. Each luthier has their own design – all intended to provide strength and quality sound.
George then demonstrated a most awesome clamping technique using bamboo rods and a special table which is used to glue the irregular shaped brace pieces to the top and back.
Saturday – Day 7!
I love my walk to the shop in the morning!

This morning we beveled the top brace with a special sanding block. Then we glued the top brace of the soundboard using the beveled table side of the special clamping fixture. After an hour of clamping time we then flipped the table to the flat side and glued the rest of the braces.

I worked on my binding material – this is the material which will match up the top and bottom with the sides. I chose maple with an ebony veneer edge. George showed me how to easily glue and quickly clamp the strips together. This will make a truly beautiful transition piece on the finished guitar.

We also worked on the back bracing – a little simpler pattern, but the back has the addition of a spine brace down the center of the back. This piece required beveling, clamping, and planing.
Tomorrow is our day off! We are going to find some lumber and make some of the jigs and fixtures that George uses.