Official Luthiers Forum!

This past Sunday, we had a combine New England Luthiers/Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers meeting up in Eliot, ME at Ric Miller's shop. Chris Connor from Connor Guitars presented some jigs to us that he and his brother use in creating their fine instruments. Some of the jigs were so brilliant, that I asked for and received permission to share them here. I have to say, one of the best parts of the presentation was seeing that builders of classical guitars can be innovative in their construction techniques and still be very successful.


On to the goodies:

First, the Connor's build their guitars by traditional methods, such as using a solera, and by using body molds like steel sting builders. Chris showed us some nice innovations in his mold

What Chris did here is to add two removable extensions to each side of the mold. Each extension has a domed dish added to it so that he can use a router to trim and profile his sides, linings and neck and heel blocks. After routing, only a quick touch up with the sanding dish is needed.

Another cool thing was his "spider" spreader, it pivots automatically to fit the inside of the mold, so that the thickness of the sides don't interfere with how the cauls provide contact. (you can see it behind the mold here)

_________________
Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

I didn't want the first post to get too long...

The next jigs that Chris shared all had to do with neck construction. He had rigged up a couple of benchtop belt sanders to radius the fretboard and shape the neck. But, the really brilliant jig is the one to set the neck angle and at the same time profile the end of the heel that buts up against the guitar.

First the pictures and then I will attempt to describe them.


What Chris did is take an inexpensive belt sander, hack it apart, and use it to drive a larger belt.
The jig is profiled to match the guitar profile at the neck block. The neck is placed on the sled and indexed off of a pin. The sled moves on gliders toward and away from the sander. It also pivots left to right ( to help center the neck). The profiled block and sander can pivot up and down to adjust the neck angle as needed.

I hope my descriptions are clear enough. Some other OLFers were at the meeting too and probably will chime in here.

_________________
Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Thanks for sharing Joe,
I wish I had not missed that meeting.
I like the modified belt sander.


Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com