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Finished the Two Kings boost pedal and it works great. You can dial in a simple boost that does not change the tone, your tone. Or you can set it up to boost and add overdrive and/or boost and add overdrive or distortion. There are two discrete channels so you can set it up to add a little overdrive or a lot of overdrive and with the boost you can have a click and do the lead solution too. Very versatile and not overly complicated.

I think this was there hardest pedal kit and I only struggled with one step where I had to align the two polarized leads from two separate LEDs while at the same time aligning 5 pots and 2 foot switches. But we got it done with no issues it was just a lot to try to manipulate with two hands.

The kits are excellent and a very good time and I just went to my mailbox and pulled another SM pedal kit for a tremolo out and will do that next. The Eric Clapton modification that he did to all his Strats is now in a pedal from SM and that will likely be next.

This is my forth pedal and all of them fired up and worked flawlessly the first time. I've built 4 of the amp kits now and won't play anything but what I built because nothing else sounds as good as point-to-point 50's and 60's circuits in my experience. The amp kits are highly recommended too and the primary difference between MojoTone (StewMac's supplier) and the SM kits is SM upgrades some important parts. One example is on the Princeton the output transformer can run the kit speaker, an extension speaker or both with no problems.

And the biggest difference between the SM and Mojotone kits is the instruction book that comes from SM is excellent and a great education for everything from the basics of electronics to comments on the design and effectiveness of the individual circuits.

So I'm having a great time with something not very difficult that I can spend an hour or more daily and in a week (pedals) or month (amps) I have something very special.

Lastly I am putting these pedals on a board reserved for pedals that I build with the Peterson tuner being the only exception. Then I run that through an amp I built and I am in heaven. The angelic tone of Clapton in Presence of the Lord in what I consider to be the finest guitar solo ever I can actually sound like him now for that one note, one note only LOL.

Highly recommended AND I did email SM for a question and found out that I had the board correctly positioned anyway but they got back to me the very same day. I can live with that I just miss using the phone instead but I can learn, maybe....

Migrated the process for the WiFi rosette from the Wells Karol jig to the CNC. The purfling is .046” so I use an endmill of the same size to cut the purfling channels after the ring is installed.

Wenge & khaya.



















Brad


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Brad.
What do you have in "Patina #2"?
I just used my acetic acid, and CA to change different sections of Osage Orange pegs almost immediately. I was just about instantaneous.

Closeups always reveal more than you want! It came up 4 times bigger than the pegs on my screen. Osage Orange is very hard, stringy wood. I think this piece was .9sg.

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Why be normal?

Ken, that is a bottle of 2# cut platina shellac from shellac shack - https://www.shellacshack.com/all-shella ... l-int.html

They say it’s lighter than even super blonde.

It’s used here to seal the channel before putting the rosette in to avoid discoloration by the CA. I use the platina for just about all of the day to day wash coat kind of stuff.


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Hi all, I just joined the forum, and am new to lutherie from 2021 when I found myself stuck inside my home during the pandemic. I’ve played acoustic guitar for many years, then decided to buy a StewMac kit. Realizing I knew nothing about building guitars went searching for online info.

I sifted through a lot of questionable material on YouTube, but was enlightened watching John Hall’s videos at Blues Creek, especially his posts on gluing and neck angle, and the StewMac/Dan Erlewine/video that accompanies the StewMac kits. For brace shaping I found a great video from a Martin tour demonstrating expert chisel work in the factory (had to slow that one down to follow it). https://youtu.be/Lz-2OL_b-oU.

As I found myself working in a vacuum without local mentorship I simply proceeded to each subsequent step once I satisfied myself that I understood the next stage. There were countless other StewMac resources, other YouTube videos, and tips in the manuals and books I found that I followed with great interest. I investment in a number of good tools.

I ended up on Pablo Requena’s series on French Polishing, supplemented by info provided at a cost from Tom Bills at Luthiers Edge.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way but ended up with a guitar I’m delighted with, have started another, and plan to do more in my spare time. Here are a few photos of the journey to guitar No.001 and 002. Looking forward to popping into the forum occasionally to catch up.
Joseph

Nice looking guitars Joseph, welcome to the OLF!


Steve

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Jump right into fancy inlays. I like that. No fear. Who needs it? Very nice, especially for # 1 and 2.

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Why be normal?

Welcome, Joseph!!

Bracing the latest 00 tonight. I tried the SM hide glue for the first time. It’s sold as “high clarity “. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was indeed super blonde and dried clear. Seemed to cleanup better than others but might be placebo.















Brad


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Joseph welcome to the OLF!

My Lutherie adventure started with a StewMac kit that I built mostly in the kitchen on a Residence Inn, the Residence Inn in Sunnyvale, California. I was a senior executive for GE stationed in California most of the year so the Residence in was my home away from home.

Bought a band saw and sanders etc and had them all in the kitchen on the Residence Inn.

Anyway that was my first and then there was another and another and I reached 54.5 guitars selling the 45 that I intended to sell. At the urging of Rick Turner RIP and others who are pros in the biz I hooked-up with a Master Luthier who happened to be in my town, Ann Arbor too. That was 17 years ago and we have been in business together ever since repairing about 1,100 guitars annually and a couple hundred mandos and other certain stringed instruments.

I'm retired now but still repairing guitars in the mornings for something to do. It never ends and you may find that your journey is pretty rewarding as mine has been.

Consider doing some repairs in time when you feel comfortable with it. It will make you a better builder and you will have a very different perspective on what really matters. I'm constantly reminding people here and elsewhere that guitars are ultimately tools for musicians so that pretty rosette does not mean a hill of beans if the thing has bad fret work, high nut slots, bad intonation, etc. and is not easy or tonally rewarding to play.

And oh yeah your playing will improve a lot from living the dream not that it needs to, welcome aboard.

Hesh wrote
"Consider doing some repairs in time when you feel comfortable with it. It will make you a better builder and you will have a very different perspective on what really matters. I'm constantly reminding people here and elsewhere that guitars are ultimately tools for musicians so that pretty rosette does not mean a hill of beans if the thing has bad fret work, high nut slots, bad intonation, etc. and is not easy or tonally rewarding to play."

Very good advice. The way I felt most "comfortable" doing repairs was to buy broken instruments and work on them, rather than risking someone else's instrument. Sometimes seemingly simple repairs turn into a "can of worms".

Progress made on my StewMac tool chest. Exterior painted with dark green milk paint and a coat of tung oil, top covered with un-dyed veg tan leather. I also started milling the black cherry for the drawer facings and face frame.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there were a number of problems with the plan set from SM. They have revised it based on my feed back, but there are still uncorrected issues (notably the width of the uppermost shallow drawers that don't use extension slides.

Oh, and on top of the chest, demonstrating its utility as a workstation, is todays arrival - a (non-functioning) Traynor amp that I purchased specifically to help develop my amp tech chops.

A big THANK YOU to whoever posted about these $12.95 Harbor Freight panel clamps with swivel heads. They work great if you reduce the clamping pressure:

With the clamps in the CLAMPED POSITION, and the plates in position, position the clamps for the length of your plates,

With the clamps STILL IN THE CLAMPED POSITION, Position a .150” thick spacer (long piece of guitar side cut off is what I use) on the adjustable end of the clamp and slide the ADJUSTABLE clamp end snug.

Open the closed clamp and remove the spacer; You have just reduced the clamping pressure on your plates.

Glue and align plates between clamps and clamp them.

These stock clamps over-clamp thin stock like tops and backs. YMMV

I reconfigured the handles (flipped them 180 degrees) on three of them to see which worked best.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

That was me. Good to hear that the Harbor Freight version of the Bora clamps work for this.

I have a question about the clamps. Do the handles have just two positions? That is, unclamped and clamped? On the Bora version of these clamps, the handles have three detents that give three clamping positions of increasing pressure from low to high.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I couldn't find these clamps on their website. Do you have a link?

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Nevermind, I see that these are actually saw guides used as clamps. I found them.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Well in that case, THANK YOU Jay. The handles have three positions, but I cant detect any difference in the two clamping positions. When my top comes out, I'll get some calipers and measure the difference in span of the two positions. Maybe my finger would be a better measuring device........

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I thought to add the HF item number while posting this thread, but I already had a top clamped up.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I'm a pedal making mofo and just this AM finished my 6th pedal (JF this is ALL your fault!!! ). I'm really enjoying these StewMac pedal kits and lo and behold they are some of the best pedal on the market once completed.

So that's two pedals this week time to order a few more I'm out of stuff to do and I hate not being busy. ;(

The red one is the Eric Clapton mod that turns a single coil into a fat, humbucker tone for his "woman tone."

The yellow one I finished several days ago and it's first class tremolo with lots of control over everything.

Great pedals!!!

I'm doing little but setups these days, and mostly on guitars not worthy of note here. We all know what Les Pauls and Telecasters look like. No need to use up bandwidth on that.

But I check in a couple times a day to see what adventures my OLF pals are up to. Keep up the good work, boys!

Fumblefinger (Al Bacon) and I are headed back to Oklahoma next Wednesday to buy more of Ernie Kleinman's hoard. Report then.

Carry on...

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

My first 45-Style OM. Big thanks to John Hall for the purfling and rosettes and for advice from both Hall and Woodie and others here on OLF.

jfmckenna

Well that's a teaser and a half!!!!

If voted on today, polls show WE NEED MORE PICTURES!

What we see is gorgeous plus.

BR

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Nice bling. I know they have levels of bling, but I have no clue what they are. I'm starting to understand 0, 00, OM and that stuff; but don't really see the difference all the time. A dred DOES look like a dred! But it is the shape, not the size that gives it away.

I'm starting a couple Baroque "guitars". One is a very simple Vihuela, and the other a small guitar in G that never was. It was a TWO necked guitar by Voboam in the 1700's. I'm making it into a 8 string Uke. The plan came with a huge set of plans for Voboam.

https://thedutchluthier.wordpress.com/2020/02/04/voboam-guitars-fit-for-a-king/

One of the traits of baroque instruments was bling. That was where they made their money; selling to kings and princes. Those would be the ones that survived too. Voboam liked a veneered neck with white lines between the ebony. I wondered how to do it, and came up with this idea. The Voboam plan has HUNDREDS of combinations of things you can do for decoration. They had Martin beat.

I found that I had to put the piece in the slot, and flood with thinned glue using a small syringe. Putting glue in first did NOT work! Now I have a MUCH BETTER way of doing purfling. So much simpler.

Now I need to make patterns and cut the black wood veneer I have. The maple strips were when I was going to make my own purfling with separate strips. A maker in Germany? does that; and she is great at it. I didn't get the hang of it. Maybe the same technique would work.

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Why be normal?

Ken I think the 45-style is about as bling as Martin got. Of course some of those old Venetian guitars and even older lutes could get pretty bling too.

Couple more.

Wow looks awesome JF!