A Hobbiest thinking and working with wood by hand and with machines.
I just received and unpacked the wood (and various other supplies) for my second guitar.
As you can see, I am using a spruce top with maple sides and back and neck. I’m using ebony for the fretboard and some access via purfling to contrast the light maple color. I’ve also got some bloodwood for the headstock and purfling. This is going to be a challenging project. I’m looking forward to it.
My normal pattern between projects are usually minor shop improvements, simple adjustments, and sometimes even bigger projects like shop furniture. As I wait for the wood for my next project (remember, I’m going to tackle my 2nd guitar), I thought about what has worked and what hasn’t.
My first project was a hack improvement. By that I mean that I took scraps and made some larger shelves to replace a set (also a hack) of smaller shelves. These heck jobs are all about function and not style or finish.
I’ve also been working on storage. In a shop this size (it’s 9′x16′), storage is always an issue so I’m always about improving storage. I always seem to find something to fit better in a certain location than others.
My last improvement project was simply adjusting the lighting. I have plenty of light (some florescent and some incandescent) but based on my last few projects, I wanted to move one of my lights. I think everything is in good shape.
My next project while waiting on the wood is sharpening my plane irons and chisels.
I’ve been planning (after finishing my first attempt at guitar building) to build a second one. In parallel, I’ve been putting together the tools that I would need along with the wood that I will need for the 2nd guitar. I’ve been getting the tools from a few different sources.
I’ve gotten a FesTool trim router as I had some work experience with this in our guitar building class. It had a nice feature set along with some that aren’t included in many trim routers. To me, it was worth the premium cost of the router.
In addition, I got a fairly inexpensive tool set that will allow assembly and creation of various guitar parts. Here is a shot of my first (probably of a few) drawer of guitar making tools.
You can see files, sanding pads and sanding blocks, luthier clamps, hand circle cutter, hand purfling/binding cutter, bridge clamp, router bits, fret hammer and fret cutter. I’m waiting for some parts to build a go-bar clamping setup. This should get me going and any other tools will need to be made or bought along the way.
I should be able to start the 2nd guitar in a week or two when I receive the wood.
I’m testing out some blogging software and want to see how it works.
Here is an image:
After a lot of work, I have finished my Standing Laptop Desk. My intended purpose was to house my laptop for use when playing, learning, improving my guitar playing. While installing, I was actually able to reduce the furniture load in that corner of our living room (well, it’s more of a music room than an actual living room). I made the entire project by hand (with the only cheating was that I used a Festool hand sander prior to finishing). I also used solid maple (man, what a hard choice when doing hand tools) except for the drawer bottom. The desk uses mortise and tenon joinery while the drawer uses dovetail joinery. For a finish, I used about 12 coats of superblond shellac followed by 3 or so coats of amber shellac.
From a personal point of view, I have achieved the best fitting drawer I have ever made and I have achieved the best finish I have ever attempted. I am very pleased with the result and it fits quite nicely with the rooms existing furniture. Here is the final shot:
P.S. I am taking the simple rout and ordering a simple wood stool with a swivel seat. I thought about building it but I wasn’t satisfied with that as my next project.
When using my laptop stand, I like to have it tilted. Right now I use the elegant solution of a couple of packages of post-it notes. Since, I’m nearing completion of my new Standing Laptop Desk for use with my music gear, I figured to create a more fitting laptop stand. I used a few scraps of maple to match my desk. Here is a quick shot:
P.S. I’ve got close to 10 coats of shellac on the desk and stand. I’m going for about 15 or so before I do my final sanding and final coat. It’s looking good (even Kathy is starting to think so). I hope to have it finished and installed by middle to end of next week.
OK, I started out the day doing some pore filling on my desk (see previous post). All went well but drying time was making me wish I had something to do and then…I remembered that Kathy wanted me to look at our fan in our shower. I did and took it apart and cleaned it which improved it’s operation a great deal but…while I was up there I saw (for the millionth time because it’s been there a while) a little spot of mold be our sky light. So…
I decided to repair this spot. I removed the affected drywall (and a bit around it too). I’ve replaced new drywall after an inspection that showed that the mold was just surface mold. The sky light has a mechanism to open it so that is an issue. I had to remove the bulk of the mechanism leaving a short chain. After trying to work the drywall mud around it I got some painters tape and taped it as much out of the way as I could.
I’m an ok, not great, but ok mudder but I had a bugger of a time getting the mud up there and taping it. I even hollered at Kathy during it cause it wasn’t going well (sorry sweetie!). I did finally get it up there. It’s not one of my best mudding jobs but I think I can work with it on the next coat or two.
Needless to say, I’ve got a project that will slow my finishing work down and on top of that, we’ll have to use the kids shower for a few days (got to put up the other coats and prime and paint it). Fun time at our house - for sure!
UPDATE: Well, I finally finished this project. We got to shower in our own shower for the first time in about a week and boy was it nice to have some elbow room. Back to working on my desk (I made a little laptop tilt to help the laptop stay cool – I’ll post pictures tomorrow).
While I was working on the guitar (see previous post), I’ve had a nearly completed desk in my shop. It’s been quite handing with having another surface to place tools, work items and such on. However, it’s been nagging at me to get it done.
Well, this week I was able to get BACK TO THE DESK (movie title?).
The only woodworking left to do was to build the desk. I wanted a thick drawer front with half blind dovetails in them and full dovetails in the back of the drawer. The half blind dovetails were not all that hard (other than cutting them out in maple vs the drawer sides in a form of pine). I clearly need to work on them more as they were not perfectly tight but as I’ve learned with my dovetail practicing (many posts ago), this does get better as more are cut. I like this for drawers so I expect to see more of these. Here is a shot of the dovetails:
In addition to the dovetails, I needed to fit the drawer and ran into a problem. I had cut a groove and made some wood clips but unfortunately, the wood clips were too wide and hitting the drawer which is full width. I switched out the wooden clips for desktop attach clips I got from woodcraft. They went on very easily and freed up the drawer slot. After a little hand plane work on the slot and the drawer, I got a nice fit. Here is a shot of the drawer sliding in it’s slot after all that work.
I’ve used a plywood bottom (seemed too costly to use a 1/4″ glued up panel – both costly in time and money) so it’s a cheat I can live with. I’ve glued it up and tomorrow I start doing the finish sanding getting ready to apply a finish.
OK,it’s been almost 2 months but I’ve finished my guitar. It all started off when I enrolled in Woodcraft’s Guitar Building Class. Woodcraft partners with US Guitars. US Guitar’s kits are simple but complete. The back and sides are a thin plywood. The sides are pre-bent and already attached to the back. The back and front (soundboard) also already have the bracing attached. The fretboard is not attached but already has the fret slots cut into them. The neck has been roughly shaped. The kit allowed us to learn about attaching the top (though the back is similar) to the the sides, attaching purfling and binding to cover the end grain on the top and back, shape the neck, shape the headstock, finish the guitar (though this is not really part of the class), attach the bridge, do final tune up including attaching and position the saddle and nut and strings.
It was a great experience. Here are a few shots of the finished guitar.
Last thing, here is a quick audio clip of me playing the guitar. It’s got a nice full and simple tone. This clip doesn’t illustrate it but it’s also got a nice volume.
The last class was simple but somewhat time consuming. We had several things to do.
Over the next 2 weeks, I will do a lot of steps 8 and 9. I may have to adjust the truss rod a bit.
My last step (I hope to do today), is glue in the peg for the strap at the bottom of the guitar. Overall, it sounds pretty good. I do believe I will make a second guitar in the near future. Here are some pictures from my last class:
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OK, I’ve spent the last week putting many coats of shellac on my guitar project. These have all been base coats. French Polishing the guitar is rather tedious but not very strenuous. Each coat is super thin so it takes a lot to get a good cover over the wood. After about 15 coats, the finish felt pretty smooth but had a lot of swirl marks (which looked like circular cracks in a class). I was a little worried about the final look at this point.
The next step is to apply a few final top coats. This is exactly the same technique with some minor differences. The first difference is that you level the previous coats using a high grit (I used 1200) sand paper with some soap and water (water for lubrication and soap to help the sand paper not get clogged). This took a bit of time but was also not very strenuous. The result had scratch marks that were nearly impossible to see but the cracks were gone. The next step was to rub in (in a circular pattern, hence the swirl marks) the shellac but this time with a few drops of paraffin oil. This oil allows you to rub out the swirl marks and get a glass like finish. After making sure there are no visible swirl marks, I then run the shellac pad with the grain making any marks nearly invisible.
I’ve done a few coats of this and the finish, while not perfect (hey, I’m still learning this), is absolutely amazing for any finish I’ve ever applied. With these kinds of results, I could get to like finishing my projects.
Now, I’ve got to do the same to the back and sides (I’ve done the top and neck). I will glue on the bridge first thing Saturday morning so I should be in good shape for my last guitar making class. This will allow me to come away with a working guitar. I’m very excited.
OK, I’ve been progressing on my french polishing work. Each coat doesn’t take very long or really much work at all. The problem is it needs a zillion coats (ok, maybe closer to 12-18) and you have to wait a few hours between each coat. I’ve progressed up to 7 coats. My approach has me doing simple coats and then after about 14 coats, I do a little sanding. Follow the sanding with a few more coats with a little oil so that I can rub out swirl marks. I hope to be to the point of the last few coats with the oil on Thursday. This will allow me to glue the bridge on Saturday and be ready for my class on Sunday. I’ve been really pleased with the results so far.
The color of the sound board is not as even as I wanted but this is primarily due to my pore filling technique so hopefully this improves as I move through my guitars. Notice in the picture of the neck that I have a cover next to it. This cover is for the truss rod adjustment access. I am super pleased at the feel of the nec too. It is nice and smooth and feels much like the best guitars I’ve gotten to play.
I finished the epoxy pore filler. From a texture point of view, I believe I have accomplished the job. From a color point of view, I have an uneven tone. I need to explore pore filling more though I’m not sure I have the time to do it on this guitar. The neck and headstock are awesome while the sides and back are ok with the top being the uneven color.
I’ve mixed up 2 different shellac mixes. The first is platinum at a 1 lb cut and the second is amber also at a 1 lb cut. I’ve been reviewing techniques on french polishing and feel fairly confident that I can do this and get a good result.
I hope to begin the process tomorrow. I have to get quite a few coats down before Friday night. I want to glue the bridge Saturday morning. That should put me in good shape for my last Guitar class which happens a week from tomorrow.
My chosen finish is a shellac finish using a french polishing method.
I’ve sanded everything and started the first part of the process – pore filling. Pore filling is the process of filling spaces between the grain of the wood. It’s very important on the wider grained wood (usually the sides, back, and neck). I’ve read about 2 types of pore filling. One is using shellac mixed with pumice powder. I briefly thought about this and may try it on the next guitar (yes, I’ve decided there will be a next guitar) but instead chose the other method I read about. That method is using Epoxy to fill the grain. I’m not trying to get the wood covered with epoxy but rather just the spaces between the grain. I’m going to do a few coats though coats are probably a misnomer. After one coat, you sand the surface which should remove all but the epoxy in the pores. The reason for repeating seems to be to ensure an even/level surface that has all pores filled.
The big reason for this is that the woods used in guitar building are often open pored woods and the finish will often shrink into the pores. The result of this shrinkage is that the finish cracks (somewhat like orange peel finishes). In a guitar this would be a bad result.
My first coat of epoxy went on well so I’m hopeful that the sanding and additional coats will go on smoothly as well.
In getting the guitar ready for the finishing process, I also wanted to do a few small things.
First, the guitar’s heel on the neck was an area I wanted to modify. I’ve seen on some guitar’s that have interesting treatments on the headstock of the guitar that they do a similar/complimentary treatment on the heel of the neck. I had some left over burly wood which I used to great results on the headstock so this was a great opportunity.
Next, the guitar’s kit came with a black plastic cover for the truss rod adjustment nut access point. Again, since I had some left over burly wood, I figured this would tie into the headstock and make the access point nearly invisible. In the picture, I’ve shown both the black plastic and my newly made burly version.
Lastly, I’ve made sure that the bridge is ready (matching my tape job on the body for position).
Here is a quick shot of all the elements. I’m ready to start applying finish as soon as I receive something from Fed Ex (and no, they don’t ship everything overnight so I won’t get it till Monday I think!).
Twitter: thisweekinwood
