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I made a little thing to trim down the Padauk binding, and purfling piece for the rosette. A notch for the dowel and chips, a square rebate for the blade, and a clamp. It worked. Curly Padauk isn't the best thing for doing that. The rosette piece broke 3 times bending it.



I used the Dremel circle cutting attachment for cutting the rosette channel. 3 cuts, and then a couple to trim it to size. A wider bit would make more sense than a tiny purfling bit. It lacks any sort of real adjustment, but it still works. I figured that I had enough length to use the same bwb purfling on the outline to do the identical inlay on the rosette. The Stauffer is pretty small. It would have been better to buy extra, and use full length pieces. It isn't TOO bad to fit twice as many joins, but when you want to stagger the joins, it is a lot of trouble. You get one part to fit, and then you have another before it, that is not quite flush. 4 full length pieces would have been easier. Well 6, because the Padauk didn't cooperate.

I thought I could just glue them in with fish glue. A mistake. Maybe if the channel was really loose. I pulled them out, wiped them all down and just laid them in place. Tomorrow I'll pick up some thin CA, all I have is thick.

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Make sure to coat the channel (or the whole top) with shellac before using the CA. You don't want to have yellow highlights around your rosette.

I have the braces glued on the belly now. The go-bar deck is easy to use! I wondered where I would find a piece of spruce big enough to work for the rosette backer, then I realized that the outside piece cut from the top is big enough to do half in the waist area. so I cut them out, and managed to not drill the hole far enough away for on of them. My brace is a couple mm closer. Oh well. It looks like it was planned that way.



That part seems fine. The backer for the saddle seems big and thick. It is about 2.5 mm. thick. It looks bigger. Maybe that is fine. It is a slice from the cutout of a violin neck between the heel and the pegbox. I haven't thought about the shape of the bars. I think that on the blog I got the plans from he talks about how the two by the sound hole were shaped. I haven't seen anything anywhere about how to shape horizontal bars on early guitars.

On the back it seems that the bracing is let into the linings? I don't follow rules, but is that a fairly normal thing? I have read that the bracing on the belly fades to nothing before the edge. Is that a normal thing? Is that only for fan braces? Do the horizontal braces from below the sound hole stay 5mm or so tall and the ends? I really don't know. I should read the blog post again.

Ahh, he does say! The lowest one tapers down from 12 to 9mm, and then a long scallop to the sides at 2-3mm. The other 3 are taller. I was planning on using tentallones, not linings since I'm not using a form. I will put a lining at the top. Would you leave a small gap between the brace and the sides, or flush up against them?

Yeah, for someone making a guitar, I don't seem to know what I'm doing! It is the details that I don't really have any experience with. Everything you read seems to have a different idea, so it seems to be personal preference at times.

After I trim the braces down, I think I will rough out the slot for the neck. It has to be pretty close to being set, and the bolt on mechanism has to be in before the back goes on. I'll glue the blocks on, and then the sides.

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You a draftsman or architect? Some of your drawings look beeter than the ones you paid for.

Thanks Toby, I was a toolmaker, but I went to school for a year and a half to be an architect. I'm old enough where drawings WERE drawings. I think some calculators had a square root key; mine didn't; and trig problems were solved using the tables at the back of the book. I did use AutoCad, and some others, but I like drawings. I did use CNC, but I use almost all hand tools.

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Later today I think I'll glue in the peones. I watched a video by Pablo Requena and tried to follow it. Managed to cut them quartered, but to the bottom, not the side. Oh well, they are glueing blocks! While cutting them into triangles, the 2 screws for the lower blade guide came out. I head ding, ding, ding, and the blade broke. Didn't see THAT coming.

Pablo says some of his peones are set at 95 degrees. I KNEW my sides were not square when I glued them on the blocks. The are flat on the bottom. They follow the outline on the belly pretty well; but they are pinched in a little in the lower bout, and sway out in the center bout. Both sides are the same. I measured them and marked them. I'll make mostly 90 degree ones, maybe 2 strips, and a strip each of the 93 and 87 degree ones.

I didn't make up any fixtures. tilt the saw, plane in the vise upside down to smooth the angle. Works great, but don't let your fingers slip.

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I got the "teeth" glued in last night. I cut more than 200 of them out, and then had to file the burrs from the saw off about 100 of them, and then glue those 100 on. Almost like doing a job in a shop! No rush, but steady work. It took from 5:30 till 7:45. Not bad. At least no one was coming by asking how long.

Now I have to glue the linings on for the back so I can clamp the back in place while I set the neck. It might need some adjustment when it is strung up, but I want it to at least be close.

Another sunny day. The end of April and May have been dry and cold, but lately it has just been dry. 25-30% in the afternoon. The Friday before last we came back from picking up flowers and vegetables at a nursery, and just before we got to the driveway a short storm came up. In the 30 seconds from there into the garage we got about a half inch of slush on the car. Never had that before. Weird. It rained for a few more minutes, and that was it. The temp went from 65 to 48, then back to 60.

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Yesterday I noticed that gluing the sides on, put a little north/south belly in the belly. About 2mm. I figured it out over the 440mm length to 12000mm radius. About 40 foot. I just though it was interesting. This guitar has an elevated neck on a 4 degree or so angle, so it doesn't really matter at all. Those kind of things might be more of a problem with a real flat top, or classical.

I have to buy some 5" long carriage bolts. I have 3" ones in my spool clamps, and they are WAY too short! I like the go bar deck, but for the back, spool clamps would be better. Bar clamps would work; but I have 24 of the spool clamps. While I wait on bolts I can do the linings, and rough the neck mortise.

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I roughed out the neck mortise yesterday. Like a dovetail, but straight, and then a ledge added. Easier than it sounds. First the straight dovetail; then the ledge; then I check the location. It should end up right where the bridge should be, right on the center. When I add the fretboard and strings, the clearance should be there; after stringing up. But.

It is adjustable.

I'll leave it where it is now until I can clamp the back in place, then I'll get it to fit perfect. Or as close as it gets.

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I just noticed yesterday that building a guitar is just a bunch of simple steps. Do them in order, and do them as good as you can, and it comes out well. I have a daily Sudoku calendar, they have Saturday and Sunday on one page; why? I always tell my wife that they are all easy if you make sure not to put a number in the wrong square. It's just a simple process. Yesterday was the linings for the back.

I use American Sycamore. Why? Because I had a board of it. But also, I tried MANY times to bend spruce, poplar and cedar, and snapped them all. Sycamore has interlocked grain, and the worst that I can manage to do is kink it; and that isn't too easy. I made the linings 3-3.2mm or so thick. I have a thickness gauge I made for measuring violin tops. The gauge was on sale, so it was only $20 or something ridiculous. You can see from the plane shavings that the grain is interlocked.

I bend the linings close to the pattern, and then saw them a little long. When you put the ends in, it seems to be way to long, but you have to put clamps on it and see. The one I glued on last night. I needed all my clamps! My stash of small spring clamps are too short to work well on guitar linings. I made these about 17mm tall. The other lining to the front is already fit. It may look long, but it isn't.

I clamp the lining in place, and mark the top with a pencil. Then draw a line down from there 17mm down, and cut it off.

I found a new way to glue. Sometimes joints seem to be starved. I'm not one to overtighten things, but I think the glue isn't given enough time to soak in. I brushed glue on the lining, then on the ribs, then back again on the lining, and then I put it together. I used fish glue. Even with all that glue there was not much squeeze out.

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I would put a tentallone on top of each brace to provide support where it is needed.

Thanks Barry. I wondered about what to there.

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I bought bolts for the clamps. I need to make more. 10 of the 24 are convex, and 6 would be enough for a guitar. 4 of those are very convex; violins have tight corners. They don't like to stay on! They are easy to make. 24 is plenty for a violin, maybe more for a guitar? The bar clamps work good over the blocks, but I'll make more spools.

I haven't smoothed out the arch of the back on the ribs and linings yet. It is sorta, kinda done. The braces are notched in.

Chalk fitting the neck I find that having the grain oriented this way is ideal. The winter grain makes the sides really tough. It took a crazy long time, (a couple hours!) to get the neck to reach to the step in the block; I was 6.5mm up and needed about 5mm. It is finally touching, a little more, and the neck will be fit. Then I'll drill the holes into the neck for the bolt and the dowel. The neck does fit well though, and the grain should wear well. The neck is soft though, so that's what will wear.

With the swayed ribs I'll have to start gluing the back on from the center. Unless I do that, the center will not bend in enough to be able to use a fairly thin purfling that I have planned; I'd have to add some wood, and a wide purfling to hide it. I hope I don't cut the outline too close again! I've done that on violins, but on them, I always ASSUME that the ribs are in a form. One time it would have worked out great; everything was perfect, and I glued the back on, and it wasn't quite perfect. I found out why when I took it off the form, and found that I glued the back on the belly side. The belly matchup was way worse.

These are the kind of things you might not do if you made a half dozen guitars or more a year. I think. Maybe.

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I drilled the hole through for the bolt, and screwed the insert in. I used a tap in the insert to be sure that it was true with the hole. Came out good, but I need to buy some bolts and washers. I'll drill the dowel hole out after I bolt it down.
I tried to mess the hole up.
It's hard to hold, and I got it angled the first time. Lucky that it has a counterbore.

Setting the neck, I noticed that the belly is flat to past sound hole and then it is mostly flat, but making a convex angle. The bridge point is about 3mm down from the projection of the top half of the belly. Such is the beauty of an elevated, adjustable neck. It really doesn't matter. How it got like that, I don't know. Probably that way the bottom of the ribs are cut and bent.

I made up a quick sanding tool to get the back ready to glue. Using it I found that the neck end was high on the inside, and the bottom block was high on the bottom. The sides just sand. They seemed pretty close. This is it. 10mm arch, so two 20mm blocks. The yellow rubber band is the center. Try to keep it in the middle. I just hold one piece of sandpaper and work on one side at a time. It worked really good, When done, they go back to being go bars!

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I have the dowel and the bolt hole done, and the neck is set. I was surprised. Shocked, at how easy it is to move the angle of the neck from the centerline. Mine is off on the archtop some. I didn't notice it when I did it, but I do with strings. I had to notch the saddle so the tailpiece doesn't make the bridge walk!

I need to make the bridge. It is very low, 8 mm, narrow, and has remnants of a mustache. I think I'll cut slots for the saddle, and locate it, and drill pin holes.

I made 4 new spool clamps. Actually 8 ends to exchange for 8 that were made for violin corners. They are way too convex for guitars. I ran a tapered reamer through the tops so they have more wiggle room for the angled back. They were just 1/4" drilled holes. The 24 clamps should work with bar clamps on the ends.



I had to buy the bolts for the neck online. 10-24 X 2 1/4". Nothing in stores that long. Picked out coated, so they don't rust.



The 1" closet rod for the spools is some kind of hardwood I guess. It cuts like the Spanish Cedar, The reamer made thin stringy shavings like the pine ones. On the saw it feels a lot stronger than the pine ones. I have no idea what they could be. Good neck stock probably.

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Been doing different things. Yesterday I spent drawing up how to make a string stretcher that I can use mainly to get the knots on the ends of the strings tight, and to figure out where the saddle will be, at least get it pretty close. I'll use 4 extra tuners; for some reason I have 10. I used 6. Odd. I have a board that was an extra piece from my workbench, because I got the cabinet for it, and didn't need it. It should work good. Pictures will follow.

Then I wanted to see how much the plates still move. The back isn't glued on, but I know that it moved at least 1/4" with a 5 pound weight. I thought about the go bar deck and checked the tension of the bars with 1" spring. 7 lbs. Sounds like a good weight to use, and I don't have to look around for anything to weight it with. The free back moved .200" with one bar. Still pretty flexible. With the 10mm bend it won't be. The belly and ribs I set up with the face down and the ribs up; and set it on blocks on the ends and the sides, to keep the sides from bending. I put 6 bars in a line on the bridgeplate, and it moved .065" just below the sound hole. The strings will have 80 pounds, so that is about 1/2 of that weight. The dial moved more on the first couple, maybe .02-.025" on the first one, and slowed after that.

At least I have some numbers. I'd better write them down on the Stauffer guitar page in my notebook. I have no idea at all if those numbers are meaningful or not.

We went to Ann Arbor today to go to the botanical gardens. For some reason they were closed. Their website said they were open yesterday. On the way back I picked up some beads to tie on the end of the strings. 4mm works. The hole is big enough, at least for these strings. I just bought plastic, I guess that's what they are. They have fancier glass ones, but I don't think that would make any difference, and no one will see them. I noticed the the new bass strings are pure white silver plate. The ones on my archtop started losing plating and color right away. After a few months they are copper and black now. They still sound good, and I'm not on stage; so it doesn't matter. But why do they bother with the plating if it doesn't stay on?

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I took some more off the bracing on the belly. It just looks so stiff! It's just a little guy. Even withh the ribs glued on it rings pretty good now; around f on the 4th string. Tapping around, it has different notes all over.

I checked how much it moves and it's a good thing. I must have knocked the spacers from under a side. With 42 pounds it only moved .035! That's a huge difference.

I noticed that the linings are still square. I'll do that now.

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I'm almost ready to glue the back on, a little more trimming on the linings. Then I'll make the string stretcher, and bridge, and then tackle the binding.



I've never glued in those little wood strips on the sides. I did glue some linen reinforcement strips on the violin I made from this stock. The lighter section of wood is prone to cracking. It was no fun to bend it. The one side isn't bad. The back isn't bad. The other side has it more. What are the wood strips for? The sides seem pretty stiff, I can't imagine that they need to be stiffer. I will definitely add a few linen strips over a few spots where the wood wanted to do bad things.





I didn't think that the back centerline was hard to see.



Apparently it was:



I see why. I used the "other" centerline:

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I got my string stretcher done. It doesn't do everything well. It does everything, I guess; just not well! Unless the fixed ends, the tuners and the saddle, can move in and out, the longer scales don't have much angle on them. It will work, but I'll need clamps. It works great for stretching the strings, and tightening up the nut on the end holding the plastic bead.

The 12th fret, the tuners, and the saddle are fixed. The bridge is 11mm high, the rest are 6mm high. 5 mm ply. You move the bridge and nut frets to the scale, and should be able to check how much intonation you need. You can adjust for action, with shims. You should even be able to see if low action at the twelfth buzzes at the 7th or so, and I even have another to see if the intonation is weird at the first, I've heard of people playing with the nut placement, zero fret?

I figured out why I had 4 extra grover tuners. They are Uke tuners. I asked for 3 sets for Christmas, and got 4! I cut the ends of them to get 25mm spacing.

Anyway, there it is, quick and easy.

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I'm guessing that I need to get metal beads. I thought the e string pulled through the hole in the bead, but it did it again! I haven't found a trace of either bead. The strings sound terrible on it! Nasty.like rubber bands. The same strings at slightly higher tension on my archtop sound,so rich, full and loud! I think that maybe the problem with some instruments that sound rubbery is that they are too stiff? Maybe really stiff strings could help, but the problem is the instrument.


Edit. The problem is the hole. I bought some metal ones, but the hole was bigger, even with 3 knots it went right through. I made a leather washer; a needle hole through, big enough for the string; the plastic bead. Works!

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Last night I started the bridge. I used a piece of curly maple. I think it's maple, just some wood I found throw in the bin that was under bars of steel. I used to find all sorts of wood in there.



It is only 6mm tall. I drilled the holes in first, while the stock is sorta square and flat. Then I used the Dremel with the purfling attachment. It doesn't have fine adjustments, but it works.



Then I used the holder that comes with the Dremel to rough the outline out in two passes. It's rough, but should work fine.



I cut it off with a saw, got the bottom flat. It still needs some more shaping and smoothing up. Then I will get it black, or somewhat black at the same time as the neck. I have to get it all smoothed up too.

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I glued on the fingerboard, and the back yesterday. The back worked good. The fretboard. Well it's on, but I keep forgetting about this Spanish cedar, and now I have to try to work on clamp dings! I made my little baroque guitar with a S C neck, but I think I just glued the fingerboard on with a rubbed HHG joint. It's pretty small.

The back worked fine. Funny thing, the guy who made the clamps put leather on the clamping surface. Oh yeah. That was me.



The Helmholtz frequency is Bb, just a semitone higher than my arch top. I have no idea what the originals are. Violin people are obsessed with weight. It is 645g with the bridge. I use the flat finger plane to take the excess off. With the angled sides the top is the same width front and back, but the back is 6mm wider in the middle, and 4mn narrower on the bottom. I don't think that you would notice it. Just to maybe start a trend, I put the clamps back in the box right away. If only I always did that.

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Ive been really enjoying this build thread Ken. Cant wait to see it finished up!

Yes it's funny how that 'other' centre line shows up!
Dave

I put Osmo flat on the back of the neck, and satin on the top of the head. I like it, but I messed up the back with clamps. My wife likes it the way it is now; but she's my wife; she likes me! I might put Osmo ivory on it some time. It is easy enough to do with a removable neck!

I put two coats of the flat on the fretboard. It seems like it is ideal for that. You only need a couple of drops. All the pores aren't filled, but I like that look. It looks like wood. I'm not much of a fan of the black after looking at the fretboard. I'd just use walnut or something dark for the neck.



I tested Osmo over Aqua Coat. The Padauk is like Swiss cheese. I only used a couple coats, so it wasn't really filled. Two coats of the Osmo satin, and it stuck! It really should look nice. It looks like wood. I did the other side with no Aqua Coat, and it is too textured. I put two coats of the satin over shellac on strip of spruce. It worked good. I figure the shellac might keep the Osmo from going too deep. I found that you can put it on very thin, and still get the deep oil look. But the shellac is extra assurance. The Sitka I have DOESN'T get smooth. It just doesn't have it in it. ripples. The shellac also raises the grain enough, and maybe puts som stiffness in it enough to smooth it up better.

I use the small StewMac Dremel attachment for binding. What can I say. I didn't wreck it? It can be made to work? It did work better on the belly, it wasn't keen on the end grain Padauk. The biggest problem is that the sides are not square at all with the top and bottom! Sometimes it wouldn't touch, sometimes it wanted to dig. You have to watch, but it is hard to tell. But; I didn't wreck it.

I glued the thin binding on the back. It is easy to bend. Glue it on, It's done, and doesn't look hideous. The belly uses the padauk for the binding. It is still thick. It doesn't thickness well in small strips. I'll have to bend it on the the iron, and glue it on; then file it. For the purfling step, I'll cut some of the width out with the tool, to get it to depth, and cut the inside with my purfling marker/cutter after I smooth in the outside. The width of the cut is not real uniform on the belly. It wasn't on the back, but the purfling cutter, and a file did pretty good on it. Then I'll just drop the three pieces in, and get everything ready for finish.

I took off about 25 grams of weight filing and scraping down the ends of the back to 2.5mm to use the thin purfling for binding. I also filed away a lot of ripples on the sides. The stock did not like to be bent at all.

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