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But, I did. I am having them finished and put together by others. I can't do it anymore...

Flipping the zoot stash and noticed I'm down to only the stuff I've been too scared to touch. Boise De Rose, Coco in my avatar, several sets of BRW, Brazilian Kingwood, Gabon Ebony and most recently acquired stunning sets of Mun Ebony & B & W Ebony from Uncle Bob at RC Tonewood. looking forward to the next batch of builds with the primo stuff.


In the mean time- fitting tops to sides.



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My current go to is Mun. Love it!

I'm curious about your process and how you brace the sound hole. When do you cut out the sound hole??? Also do you add some crafts under the rosette? You can see the rosette through the top so I presume that is where the sound hole is but then the UTB looks like it's right in the way of the upper section of the hole.

Me personally, I would never trust myself to brace a top, close a box and THEN cut the sound hole

I’m a little new to the forum. Only a few builds though looking forward to doing more when I retire in a few years. I’ve been working on this Indian RW, Engelmann, Mahogany guitar for my nephew for tooo looong due to my real job, but ready to spray the finish starting next week. I’ll post when done and hopefully not in 2019! Some very nice work from all of you.




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[quote="fingerstyle1978"]Flipping the zoot stash and noticed I'm down to only the stuff I've been too scared to touch. Boise De Rose, Coco in my avatar, several sets of BRW, Brazilian Kingwood, Gabon Ebony and most recently acquired stunning sets of Mun Ebony & B & W Ebony from Uncle Bob at RC Tonewood. looking forward to the next batch of builds with the primo stuff.

Can't wait to see this guitar! Wow!

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Pat

I'm also interested in how you will be going about cutting the soundhole on the multi-scale?
Looks like you may have a double layer of spruce between the upper Xs?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I cut the sound hole once the box is closed by hand with a circle cutter but not until it's bound, neck fitted and ready for finish sanding. On this guitar I still have to flatten the upper bout, this is just the initial fitting process. After the upper bout is flattened I add the sound hole braces before attaching the top to the sides.

The UTB also may need some material removed but generally I like to leave the fretboard hanging over the sound a bit so it's not that big a deal.

The UTB is really the only tricky part as it needs to be glued to the fretboard extension and into the sides before flattening the upper bout, so I need to ensure that it's pretty close to flat going into that step or else it can wear too thin while flattening the Upper Bout. I leave the sound hole closed until the end to keep junk out of the sound box. It irritates the hell out of me to hear anything inside the box and while I work a lot cleaner now than 9 years ago when I first started it's just become a habit.

That's very interesting Joey I've never seen it done like that before. Did you make up this process yourself or learn it somewhere?

I got the idea to glue the UTB to the fretboard extension after reading Somagyi's book but he didn't expand on his process for adding the UTB. This is just the most logical way that I could figure out how to do it, though I'm sure he has a better way.

I made a "C" block, where the UTB is glued to the FB extension, and the lower extension is glued to the upper bout brace of the back. I'll see if I can find any pics.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

There is a 1/8" hole created for the rosette if you look closely, that's how I cut the final sound hole as well as figure out the UTB situation before any of that. I will say this one ended up closer to the center of the rosette than planned. The width of the UTB that I use is meant to build in slop from any axis. One of these days I'll come up with a better process but for now what I do works for me.

Here's a picture with the back glued to the rims, and the block glued to the back brace. UTB gets glued to the FB extension.



Alex


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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Dang on the Mun Ebony, just dang!

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

It's time to sand and polish the finish.

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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

Nice!!

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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Starting a new SJ. Rosette in. Figured black walnut that goes all the way to the sound hole. Simple. I'll let the wood do the talkin'. Planning a Florentine cutaway and my first arm bevel. Should be fun...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Getting ready to do some fret work then figure how I want to finish this guy



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Put the strings on this one for the first time today to do set up.

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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

Very nice, Jay!

That top is amazing!

Are we gonna get to see it in person at the next SLuG gathering or is it already spoken for?

Cheers, M

It's not spoken for so I'll likely be bringing it to the next SLuG meeting. I got that top and a second one that has the same bear claw pattern from Roy Tonewood in B.C.

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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

Thanks for the tip on the top. I'll take a look.

Look forward to taking your new guitar for a spin!

Nice! The next SLuG meeting will have space for showing and playing guitars.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

What's everyone been up to? I've been traveling mostly and am in need of A/C in the shop big time. I took a trip to Nashville for Merle Haggard's would be 100th birthday celebration and saw a bunch of great performers, drank way too much and had fun doing Nashville things. Then visited Baltimore to watch some baseball with a high school friend for a long weekend.

Of course now that the fun is over it's way too dang hot for my comforts in the shop but still managed to get all 6 boxes closed this weekend anyway after snapping one of the tops during gluing, likely because I was in a hurry & thought that I was going to have a heat stroke! The shop hasn't been below 85 degrees for a while now. The heat did make salvaging the bracing, bridge plate etc on the ruined top and the subsequent repair much easier than it would have been had I not used HHG. Not having to re-carve braces and all that allowed me to get the new top joined, salvaged bracing and bridge plate re-installed. The rosette was also salvaged and re-installed and the box got closed this afternoon.

Hot Hide Glue is my friend!

There was also a pitch pocket that showed up in the old top as well as an oops on the rosette that I fixed but was never truly happy with. The crack in the too turned out to be a blessing.

The guitar itself is for me so I was going to let the flaws slide as it’s an experimental build anyway due to the back having several repaired cracks.

This at one time was pretty- not anymore!


Much happier with the salvaged version of the rosette.


closer up:


old rosette and nicked top before salvage:







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