Archive for April, 2009

The next phase is bending the sides of the Guitar.

The sides came as a part of the set and are generally book-matched from the same timber as the back.

Traditionally the sides are bent on an Heated Iron and this method is still used to day by some Luthiers. I prefer to use the Fox Universal  Side Bending Machine, sold by LMI and found at p110 of their catalogue ( click on LMI and the link will take you directly to the page on the Web). This Machine was originally designed by Charles Fox and is used extensively by LMI in their shop. I can’t begin to tell you what a great machine this is and just  how much time it has saved me in the building of my Guitars. I thoroughly recommend this unit to anyone intending to build more than say, 4 or 5 Instrument. 

However the sides that I am bending are for a cutaway instrument and for this a special mould  ( for the Fox Bender) has to be constructed in the shape of the cutaway design that you want on your instrument and an extension arm or cutaway attachment (SPBUCUT)  has to be purchased for this purpose. I show pictures, on this post,

 of the bender and its extension arm.

cutaway sides straight from the Bender

The Malaysian sides were bent without any problem and I have taken photos of the finished sides.

The next problem that I faces was converting an OM mould into a suitable mould to house an OM cutaway and I show you how this was achieved in the next Post.

"Measure Twice Cut Once"

The collage that appears on the Home page and directly above, was painted onto canvas by my wife Jennifer and given to me as a Christmas present  in 2008.

Jennifer is a Master craftswomen and this original, beautifully detailed work is a fine example of her extra ordinary skill.

The collage which is protected from dust in a special display cabinet hangs in my workshop as a constant reminder, to me, on the one hand, to be Careful,Thoughtful and Patient in all that I do in the execution of my Art and on the other, that I am truly Blessed to have Jennifer as my life Partner.

It is beyond my talents to describe this work, instead, I let the above show in detail some of my favorite  parts of the Collage.

With over 25 years of experience and over 500 instruments under his belt, Robert Lee will guide you through the steps of building your own electric guitar or bass. From the block of wood to the finished axe, you will get to “know” your instrument. A two week comprehensive course at the Big Tree Learning Center with a full set up shop and a guy that knows how to build an axe, you’ll be asking for more after you build your first one.

I wanted a tasteful back-strip set into the back, to set off this lovely Blackwood back. Above is a picture of the back with the strip routed to depth, exactly down the centre of the back of the blackwood.

The back would be Routed and the selected strip glued into place. The back with its “New” strip would be sanded to the same thickness.

I decided that I wanted a Marquetry Back-strip and for me, the choice was between LMI’s”Chevron” (B16B) and one of LMI’s Herringbone Marquetry Purflings ,their “Fine” (PF13), click on the  link in the line above and you will be taken to the LMI page in their Catalogue and then scroll down to the Marquetry back-strips and you will see an example of both. I chose the “Chevron” (B16B), a picture of it appears in the  Catalogue. I have used this Chevron before and have to admit that of all the back-strips, when building an OM or Dreadnaught style of instrument, in my opinion, this is the most attractive and suits this style of instrument very well. 

A yellow Crayon line was then drawn down the exact centre of the back and the back was routed to take the back-strip. The strip was measured with a vernier caliper to determine its width and the route was then made slightly wider than the strip to allow for expansion of the strip after the application of glue and pressure to hold the strip in place during drying. After the back-strip was completely dry, the whole back was sanded to thickness ready for cutting to shape to take the back bracing.

Strip in situ with the back sanded ready for cutting to shape

Yellow Crayon line drawn down the centre of the back strip.

caliper being used to measure the strip

Special Projects -

What I would like to achieve by  this EXERCISE is an appreciation,by the reader, of some of the finest and Exotic Timbers in the World, suitable for use in the building of fine Guitars.

The Timbers SHOWCASED may not necessarily be a Tone wood, they may well be featured for their properties as a binding Timber, as indeed is the first Timber that I have sought to SHOWCASE.

You may access these individual Special Projects and follow the process entirely using the sub-categories below – SPECIAL PROJECTS, on the left menu.

Special Project #1 – Of interest Palo Escrito, is a fine Tone wood and later in this series I will use a back and side set of this Timber to build a Guitar, but for the present I want to concentrate on the use of this Timber as a Binding Timber, between two of our most commonly used Timbers by Luthiers ,Rosewood and Sitka Spruce.

Special Project #2 – Next I will build a Cutaway OM with Malaysian Blackwood sides and back , and use one of my FAVORITE top Tone woods from Northern California, the Sequoia Redwood from the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Special Project #3 – I will build a Parlor Guitar with a slotted headstock from the delicate and exquisitely marked Timber, Lacewood.

I will start of in the “Woods” Category ,so that I can talk a little about the Timber itself and why I have chosen it to SHOWCASE.

The “Project” will then be classified as a “Special Project” and transfered over into that Category, until the “Project” is finished.

For the Purposes of the exercise the individual “Projects” will be called:

“SP 1.” —- INDIAN ROSEWOOD OM

“SP 2.”—–LACEWOOD PARLOR GUITAR

“SP 3.” —- MALAYSIAN BLACKWOOD CUTAWAY

This is “Special Project ,”SP2″. A Parlor Guitar built from Lacewood.

I will give as much detail as I can without duplicating the Processors along the way.For example in in “SP1″ I will detail the building of the neck for that Guitar which is an OM.

It will have a flat headstock and be equipped with Gotoh 510 Tuners. Normally I would not repeat the building of the neck for this(“SP2″) guitar,however this is a  Parlor and will have a slotted head stock and be equipped with either, Waverly or Gotoh open geared Tuners.Whilst I will not repeat the building of the neck I will give you some Detail of building and equipping a Slotted headstock.

So two, with this Guitar (“SP2″) I will not show or give any detail with respect to the bending of the sides,of this Guitar, as Guitar (“SP”3), is an OM “Cutaway” made from the Malaysian Blackwood , which has already pictured and describe, under the category “Woods”. I will however  describe and photograph the bending of the sides for this Instrument,(“SP3.”)

In other words I will not duplicate any of the processors between the three Projects.

What all this means is that we will enter the construction stage of the Parlor Guitar (“SP2″) with the sides bent and in the mould ready for block planing to shape ,to take the Kurfling.

The bent sides have now inserted into the Parlor mould as can be seen in the pictures underneath this text. As can be seen from a close examination of these pictures the sides have NOT been cut to length, this is the next procedure  and then end blocks will be glued in place and the sides cut down to follow the contour of the Guitar plan.

If you look carefully at the first picture you can see the gorgeous pattern in the timber ,starting to emerge,even at this early stage.

Close-up

of Lacewood in the Parlor mould showing the delicate pattern of the wood

Pictures of the joined back were shown in the “wood “section, you will recall that the back was joined with a piece of highly figured Maple, that was placed between the back halves and glued to form a decorative feature down the middle of the joined halves or back.This is one way of building in a back-strip, although it is often argued that this is not the strongest way of going about it.

The alternative method is to route a channel down the middle of the back after the back has been glued together and glue a Back-strip into the route and  then sand the back-strip down to the thickness of the back. This process takes longer, but in my opinion, gives a stronger and better all round job.This is how I am going to place a Back-strip into the Malaysian Blackwood back when the time comes.

I am using the Timber Palo Escrito in this SHOWCASE as a binding Timber, later in this series I will Build a Guitar from this Beautiful Timber which has been used for years by the Natives of Paracho Mexico as a premiere Tonewood.

However, as a Binding timber, particularly when contrasted  between Indian Rosewood and a Spruce, in this case Sitka, it was “exquisite”.

I was looking for a contrasting binding to marry the Rosewood set to the Sitka and “Vole” right under my nose ,so to speak,was a liteish caramel brown timber with a pinkish colour through the grain, it made the statement that I wanted without being— “out there”.

Palo Escrito is a true Rosewood, however it differs  from Indian Rosewood visually, with a slightly wider grain,and in my view, substantially more figure , it’s also much lighter.

I used the Palo Escrito as  binding on project “SP 1.” together with a 1.4 mm  B/W/B, Fiber and Timber veneer Purfling. There was no doubt that use of the larger Purfling would be  challenging, particularly in the Horizontal plain, but very effective ,if I could pull it off —which I am pleased to say, I did.

I will let the Pictures Talk for themselves before I send this over to “Special Projects for the fitting of the neck,bridge and Final set -up.

CLICK ON THE PICTURES–THEY OPEN UP you can then hold down the Mouse AND MOVE THE PICTURES AROUND to suit yourself.

OM side view showing the Binding and Purfling well

What is interesting about this picture is that the TIMBER in the V is Australian Redgum

End "V" joint --BEFORE sanding when the joints in the bindings will disappear thanks to sawdust and super glue

OM Showing back and sides

Front and sides

OM Side view showing the Binding and the Purfling off well

I have a number of sets of Premium Grade Malaysian Backwood.

Blackwood set

The overall coloring of the Timber, is in my opinion very similar to Ziricote , with black and dark grey colors, highlighted by subtle reddish browns and or green Hues.

Blackwood is denser tham most Rosewood, but that’s not suprising as Malyasian Blackwood is not a true Rosewood.

Blackwood  has a sustaining ,glassy taptone not unlike African Blackwood (which is a true Rosewood). All in all, it is a Premium Tone wood ,suited to all sorts of Guitars types.

I have decided to take the set shown in this post and make a cutaway steel string, the project will be known as “SP3.”.At this stage I intend the Guitar to have a Northan Californian Redwood top, which I concider is a superb Tone wood, haveing very similar qualities to spruce .With its georgious Honey Brown colourings this top should really set of the Blackwood.

If you want to follow the building of this instrument then do so under the “Special Projects” Category,”SP3.” which will detail the building if this guitar from start to finnish.

he first Job is to join the two halves of the back Set.I do this in LMI’s Front and back joining Unit, in my view “the best thing since sliced Bread”

The two halves are jointed so that not a speck of light can be seen when the two halves are held together up to the light.I like to plane my sides on a “shooting board” with a No.5 or 6 Plane. I can achieve perfect results every time using this method.

Once satisfied that there is no light showing between the boards,glue is applied and the boards are pulled up tight in the LMI Unit.I then leave the back to dry overnight.

 (Click on any of the Guitars in the Carousel and they will pop out at you and in the right perspective, these Guitars are all made by Matt)

The Guitar on my home page is an Instrument made by a Californian Luthier by the name of Matthew Mustapick, of Matthew Mustapick Handmade Guitars

, if you click on Matt’s name you will get a direct link to his site. Matt is a Talented and meticulous luthier who has a skill nearly as big as his Heart. Quite coincidentally matt and I had the Idea to use natural timbers as Rosettes ,  as a signature, instead of the more Traditional type of Rosette.

The “Trick” in being able to achieve a seamless and professional job lies in a special “Stair stepped” process when constructing the Rosette. I wanted to know how it was achieved so that I could build this feature into my Guitars, so I rang Matt ‘COLD’ and asked if he would let me into his little (not so little) secret — Matt’s reply—- “NO SECRET, HERE IS HOW IT IS DONE, GOOD LUCK,NEED ANY HELP JUST RING” — Matt I Salute you, it’s that sort of friendly co-operation that makes Luthery  SO WORTH WHILE.