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Hello folks. My HD28 kit that I bought from John Hall at Blues Creek Guitars is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday and I think I'm ready to get started. I've been reading Bill Cory's "Building Martin-style Acoustic Guitar Kits" book and I've watched a ton of the "tips du jour" videos and Blues Creek videos on various build topics. I’ve also read quite a few articles on this forum that discuss other member’s first attempts at building a kit guitar. Some of these have been a bit scary and I want to try to avoid as many first-timer mistakes as I can. This brings me to why I'm posting on this forum. I'm hoping that I can get some advice from experienced builders from time to time to either confirm my plan or set me straight before I actually mess things up beyond repair.

I understand from Bill Cory's book that one of the first things that I’ll want to do is inspect the contents of the kit when it arrives to make sure that everything arrived in good condition. Then, I should wait a week before starting any glue up procedure to allow the wood time to adjust the climate in my area. The outside temperature here in Oklahoma has been over 100 degrees and the relative humidity has been running in the mid 50's. Needless to say I will be building the guitar indoors in the air conditioning where the temperature will range from 74 to 78 degrees. Only the loud and dusty steps will be done in my garage.

While I’m waiting, I’ll use the extra time to accumulate a few more tools, supplies and finish some jigs. I finished my homemade go-bar deck yesterday. I just need to acquire the rods. John Hall’s method to pre-radius the sides using a concave disk centered on a pipe seems to me to be the easiest method with the greatest degree of accuracy (i.e. fewest ways for a beginner to error). I have a floor flange and a 1” pipe to build the jig but I just need to figure out the best way to center and lock down the mold with the sides in the jig. For the binding channels, I’ll be using a Fleishman Binding Machine with a Porter-Cable 7310 laminate trimmer. Still need to decide upon which set of router bits and bearings to buy. I’m strongly considering buying the complete set from Stew-Mac. Still need to acquire various clamps, chisels, files and adhesives and that’s just to get started.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello to everyone and I’ll post more when I actually get started with the build. Thanks in advance.

Have fun building, I also made a John Hall HD28 kit for my first steel string guitar. With the binding rig, radius dish and the go bar deck you should be fairly close. Charles Fox goes to the lumber store and selects the stiffest 1/4 inch dowels he can find for go-bar rods.

I do not mount my radius dish on a pipe. I lay it on the bench and and put the guitar body clamped into a mold on the radius dish and sand.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Thanks for well wishes and tips John. I'll check out my lumber yard for 1/4 inch dowel rods to check out the dowel idea. Amazon has fiberglass rods in four foot lengths that I was thinking I could cut in half and then buy the rubber tips from on the the luthier suppliers for a quarter a piece.

As for the side radiusing methods, I haven't used either method so I don't know beans from apple butter about it. The thing I like about your method with the disk on bottom is that it doesn't require a hole to be drilled in the concave disks. I may give it a try to see if I'm able to radius the sides evenly.

How do you like your HD28? I not real fond of the white plastic binding that comes with the kit. I'd prefer wood of some sort. Does the guitar need the white plastic to go with the rest of the trim on the guitar?

Thanks again!

I like the the D sized guitar I made. I wanted all wood so I did switch out the plastic bindings for curly maple I also got harringbone purflings for the top. So I guess it is not really a D28 anymore. I was not bending wood at the time I was building the kit so I bought prebent binding and purflings. John will sell you what you want. I bought the bindings and purflings from LMI.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Nice work John. I hope mine turns out as well. For the bindings, I've been looking at curly maple or maybe bloodwood.

Hope your build is going well Rick. I just had my first Dreadnought kit from LMI delivered 2 weeks ago. I like the wood binding as well. A plus is that you can simply use the wood glue to install it. Let us hear how it is going.

Before you buy the router bit & bearing set, measure your bindings & purflings (with a caliper) to determine exactly what sizes of bearings you'll need. Chances are that the kit won't have all you need but will have a lot that you don't.

Most important, have fun!

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.