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Hi guys,

I thought I would have a crack at making an acoustic SS using Cumpiano's book. I have no experience in guitar making and am under no illusion that this is going to be difficult. I have made a few things out of wood, like a small boat and canoe but nothing that requires the accuracy and patience of making an acoustic guitar.

I am going to make the neck and maybe some other components out of Queensland Maple, because I managed to buy a solid dining table made from the stuff for 99 cents on ebay. Back & Sides are going to be Curly maple, top is Sitka Spruce.

I will post photos of my progress.

Cheers

Col

welcome to the challenge! cant wait to see some progress pics! good luck!

Welcome , Looking forward to the build !

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Hi all

I glued the plates for the top and back, scarfed the neck and glued the stacked heel block over the last 2 days. The plates are now looking like pringles with the heat and 95% humidity we are having, so hopefully they will flatten. I have included a link to some boring photos for you to look at. The top is $19 AA spruce, the back and sides are AA Maple - $49 from Stewmac and the qld maple neck was from a table for 99c. There are also some pics of the QLD maple that I re-sawed, it is rift sawn, I want to use it, but I don't think I will be able to cut sides to match as the stock is a little too short.

Rosette making next and routing its channel, hope it goes well.

Cheers

Col

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vl7s9iaenw30k8r/Sgr0dnZFBr

G'day Col.

Welcome to the madhouse. Looks like you've got your ducks in a row. Have fun with it, mate. There's plenty of time, so don't rush. These blokes are out of the gate like a greyhound, and i'm having to slow meself down day by day...

Look forward to your work...

Nick in Brunswick Heads, NSW

Hi

I do have a problem with rushing into things Nick and stuffing them up. In fact I don't think I have ever completed a project where I haven't made a mistake somewhere , I have to tell my self to slow down.

I need to get the rest of the parts which I have only just ordered from Stewmac and I need to work out what I am going to do to bend the sides amongst other things, and I will probably make a thickness sander as well. I don't plan on gluing anything else either until the humidty comes down in a couple of months and my shed cools down, so it will be slower from here on out.

Cheers

Col

Lots of places to source your kit in Oz, too, Col. If you're looking for anything in particular, drop me a line, and I'll see if I've found a source yet. Can't let the Yanks know me secrets, but....

Hey

Well I have got a bit more completed and not without a lot of problems. I had a lot of goes of making a simple wooden rosette out of QLD maple, but it was hard getting the blank thin enough because I don't have a thickness sander, so I just stuck it on some MDF and ran it through the thickness planer, I kept it on the mdf and used my router to cut it out. It is a big 3HP router so it was hard to see what was going on, but I got there eventually, after a few goes. I was too scared to cut the sound rosette channel with the big router so I had a go by hand using the popsicle stick and blade method from cumpianos book. I wish I hadn't because I made a big mess when chiselling out the channel. I then proceeded to frisbie the top across the back yard and went online to get another. After I had my tantrum I went and picked it up from the yard and tried to fix it with the router. I miscalculated the diameter (forgot to subtract the diameter of the bit) and ended up with a channel way too wide, so I had to make another rosette the size of a dinner plate On the positive side the dinner plate went into the channel perfectly with no gaps.

I braved the table saw and cut the tenon in the end of the neck after drilling the holes for the KD fittings, things went perfectly for once. Tapering the fretboard went ok so I glued it to the neck without any dramas. I glued on the peghead veneer made from the scraps I cut from the back, marked, double checked the measurement and drilled the holes for the tuners. I then shaped the neck which went ok also. I have a lot more sanding to do to get rid of the deep gouges left from the bastard wood rasp. I thought I would see how the tuners looked - they looked like rubbish is how they looked One of the holes was out, double checking doesn't help, when you keep checking it wrong! So off to make a plug for the hole and glue it in. I am fortunate that the hole was only out by a few mmm and the washer for the tuner covers up the mistake.

Next came the bending of the sides on my newly arrived $85 bender from China. It looks pretty good quality and has a thermostat and digital temperature guage and all! I had a stack of trouble getting the sides bent. It wasn't so much the bending, it was bending it in the right place, I felt like I was chasing my tail most of the time. They are far from perfect but I had enough of it, so left them where they were.

They sprung back a mile overnight, so I made a jig to hold them and touched them up on the bender. They have dark brown marks all over them, which I am not sure are burn marks or the tannins in the wood that leeched out. I went down to the hardware and got some oxalic crystals to clean the sides up, some of the marks came out, but the rest remain. I will wait till I put the box together to have a go at sanding them out as they are a bit awkward at the moment.

I also made the bridge and saddle. I stuffed the first bridge when one of the holes went offline, so I made another. I had no idea how to cut the slot for the saddle so I tapered the end of a 3/16 drill bit on the grinder and put it in the drill press. I then used it as a router going a little deeper each time, it worked well. I then filed and sanded down the bone for the bridge, it took ages but I got a perfect fit, it just needs to be shaped.

I also just realised when taking a photo of the rosette, that when I cut the soundboard out, I went too close to the line in a couple of areas. I thought it would save some time later when sanding back - of course I forgot the thickness of the sides . I will sort that out later.

I had to link ( https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vl7s9iaenw30k8r/Sgr0dnZFBr ) to my dropbox folder for the pics as I am having issues with uploading.

Cheers

Col

Sounds like you are having a bit of adventure, Colin! Your pictures tell a different story, though. It looks like you have gotten past any mistakes, and are making some pretty good saves! Your guitar is coming together nicely, and I look forward to seeing your progress.

Alex

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