This Week in Wood » Skills

Guitar Building – Last Class

glennth — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:34:15 +0000

The last class was simple but somewhat time consuming. We had several things to do.

Fit the saddle into the bridge.
Fit nut between headstock and fretboard.
Attach machines to headstock.
Drill out holes for string in bridge.
Attach strings.
Readjust saddle and nut (raise height, lower height – in my case, I raised the nut up using a shim and lowered the saddle by sanding the bottom off a bit).
Tension strings.
Tune strings.
Using a straight edge, monitor how string tension deflects the neck.

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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Guitar Building – Last Class

Finish Update

glennth — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 03:51:57 +0000

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.

Guitar Building Class – 4 of 5

glennth — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:51:16 +0000

Sunday I went to my 4th of 5th guitar building class. As I stated in my previous post, I did a lot of pre-work so felt that I would be ahead of the game and that turned out to be true.

I discussed a few minor imperfections with Eli, my instructor and he helped me try to repair these areas. One was a bit of tear-out created during the scraping process. The tear-out happened on the back which is made from a veneer product. We used a wood filler/putty and tinted it to match the veneer. Here is a picture of the pre-fix. The post fix makes it nearly invisible.

Next we put the inlay in on the 12th fret and the inlay dots on the various fret including on the side of the fretboard. It turned out quite well as you can see from the picture below (this is before sanding and polishing the fretboard).

Next was sanding and polishing the fretboard. This took the longest as we were trying to get a very flat surface between the nut and past the 12th fret (beyond the 12th fret wasn’t nearly as critical for playing though I got to the 14th fret before the fretboard thinned out). The polishing was amazing and got a very smooth and shiny fretboard. Next was installing the fret wires into the fret slots. I bent one and positioned another incorrectly but with a little work, this all resolved itself. Here is a shot of the process.

The last step was to attach the neck and position the bridge and saddle. I needed to mark the position and then put some blue tape down so that the guitar body is ready for finishing. I’ve ordered several different shellac flakes and some pore filler that should arrive in the next few days. Here are a few shots of the positioning.

I’m going to use some of the burl stock that I used for the head stock to create a cover for the truss rod adjustment nut and also to cover the heal of the neck base giving a little additional character. We have 2 weeks before our next class so I need to get the body (and preferably the neck too) finished before the next class. After the body is finished, I also need to glue the bridge down (Eli loaned me the bridge clamp). That will leave the last class to attaching the hardware and the strings and then tuning up the guitar for play of strings, sound, straightness of neck and any other last minute adjustments.

And lastly, Eli was proud of the work his students were doing and showed off my head stock and other elements of my guitar and my fellow student’s guitar. Here is a picture of Eli capturing the moment.

UPDATE: When I got home from this class, I found the heal of the neck was cracked. I glued and clamped it up. I’m a bit surprised as I didn’t see this crack when I left. I’m pretty sure the glue up will leave it in good shape.

Guitar Building – Pre class work

glennth — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:48:56 +0000

As I stated in the previous post, I was working on cleaning up the body using hand scrapers and various non-powered hand sanders. After all the scraping was done, I turned to the hand sanders. After 3 solid days, I finished and am very pleased with the results. I had one area of tear out (though it was actually from the binding glue up and removing the tape clamp). There are a couple of areas that may need to be filled though maybe that is just a pre-finish pore filling solution.

I also needed to bore out the holes for the peg hardware. That was very time consuming with a hand borer but turned out nice. Along with this, I had to bore out the strap peg hole at the base.

I needed to then clean up the headstock. This turned out especially nice.

Last thing was to work on shaping the neck. At the suggestion of Eli, my instructor, I measured spots (1,3,5, 7, 9, & 12 frets) on a guitar I already have and like the feel of. I then worked with sanders to achieve those measurements. I got within 1-2 hundereds of an inch and a nice rounded shape for the back. I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I feel like I am very prepared for my class tomorrow. I believe that some of this work is why Eli thought that this 4th of 5 classes was the longest of all the classes. We should be positioning the bridge which I should be able to tape the postion so that I can finish the body. I’m going with a french polish strategy. Eli suggested that the neck should be finished with oil (gun stock oil to be specific) so I’ll probably try that. I want to review some guitar building books and videos on finishing before I finalize the neck finish though.

It’s good that I am prepared for the class. Kathy wants me home promptly so that I can take Xander (my eldest) to his first sleep over camp. Should be a fun Sunday!

Guitar Building Class – Binding & Purfling

glennth — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:40:30 +0000

This past Sunday, we worked exclusively on the binding and purfling. Our first step was to route out the rabbit on the front and back for the binding. The second step was a rabbit on the inside of the rabbit for the binding on the front side which is for the purfling (less deep). I got to try the Festool trim router which is one of the only trim routers with a micro adjust which is great for the adjustment to get binding depth correct. I think I’m going to save up for this and get this for my next guitar.

The next step was to do a very minor trim on the binding. The binding consists of a very small piece (white in my case) glued to a thicker piece (black). The white needed to be smoothed out to be flushed with the black piece.

It took all 3 of use to do the work of glueing the binding and purfling on both the guitars. It was kind of stressful because the purfling was prone to tangling. The clamp was painters/blue tape. Here is a shot of my teacher Eli and the glued up body.

Eli, generously, allowed me to get a new piece of figured wood for the headstock. I get another try at that so that is part of my homework. We also need to ream out the strap mount on the bottom of the guitar and the hardware holes on the headstock.

UPDATE: After 2 days, I took the tape off. I think we may have used too much glue (it was very toxic smelling and I used a respirator when using it – apparently it’s model making glue) as the glue under the tape was not quite dry. Also, I had a piece of the veneer on the side near the bottom come off when removing the tape. I repaired it but it looks like a repair so that’s a bit of a bummer. I’m going to let the guitar set for a day or two to see if the glue dries so that I can scrape the binding/purfling.

On the headstock, I prepared it and glued it up. I’m not sure the glue up was a great job. I may have to do some filling on it. I’ll know later when I remove the clamps. The figure looks great so I’m hopeful for this to turn out.

Guitar Building – Homework

glennth — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:49:46 +0000

In my previous post (Guitar – Headstock), I talked about the homework that my guitar building instructor gave us. In that post (an update specifically), I told about the problems I had with the headstock. Well, I worked on my backup option and used only hand sanding to finish it. The results are nice (OK, the other wood would have been spectacular!) so I’m pretty happy with the recovery. Notice that I have added some shaping (an ogee?) to the top of the headstock. Here is a shot:

I also decided to shape the bridge. The bridge had some shaping done to the lower edge. I refined it a bit. I also added a slight curve to the top edge to give it a different look that should compliment the headstock. Here is a shot:

I showed Mitchell (youngest son) what the guitar was starting to look like by dry fitting the neck to the body and setting the bridge on the body. Here is a quick peek:

Standing Laptop Desk – Top is on

glennth — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:27:08 +0000

I worked very hard and got the top flat and smooth along with square. This process really honed my hand plane skills which I’m pleased with (of course, all the work on maple means I need to sharpen the hand planes now).

I decided to make my own wooden clips. Here is a shot of the clips after I made them and then installed on the underside of the desk.

I did have to create access holes for tightening the screws in the clip. I’ve made grooves for the clips to travel for expansion and contraction. Here is a picture of the desk with a stool for size reference. I’m pretty pleased with results. My next part of the project is to make the drawer (and of course, make it fit and look good). I intend to have half blind dovetails for the drawer front and full dovetails for the back.

Fretboard glueup

glennth — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:55:13 +0000

Today was my second guitar making class at Woodcraft. I didn’t really know what we would be working on today but it turned out it was neck and fretboard glueup.

The first step was to route out the pocket on the top of the guitar top where the neck flange attaches to the top. This allowed us to test fit and fine tune the top shape of the guitar neck (making it flush with the top of the guitar). If necessary, this would have also been where we adjust the fit of the neck, it’s attach angel, and it’s centered/alignment. My fellow classmate had to make an adjustment here but my guitar parts fit quite well.

Next was shaping the top of the fretboard. The top of the fret board has a slight radius to it so we used a properly radius sanding block to get it shaped correctly. The bottom of the fretboard also had to be flattened. Flattening the bottom of the fretboard was easily the most unpleasant sanding I’ve done in quite a while. The fretboard is thin enough that holding it was difficult. I managed to sand off three small spots on various fingers. Ouch!

Once this work was done, we needed to de-oil the fretboard so that glue would work. The fretboard is a rosewood which is a very oily wood. This took a lot longer than I thought. Also the acetone was not good on my newly created injuries (see the sanding discussion). Double Ouch!

Lastly, I had to fit the truss rod and make it flush under the fretboard. This was quick work.

Now it was to the glue up. We test fitted everything one last time so that we could make small adjustments to the fretboard alignment giving us a good position with relation to the sound hole.

Here are the end results:

Here are a couple of quick shots of the shop classroom at Woodcraft in Seattle (nice set up):

Next week we are working on binding and purfling. I’m looking forward to it.

In the mean time, Eli (our teacher) gave us some thin wood samples in case we want to give the headstock a different look. I’m going to give this a go. Not only will I be giving this a laminant treatment but also I need to shape the headstock (it’s very rectangular right now). Eli also suggested that we try shaping our bridge a bit so I may try this too.

Guitar Building

glennth — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:32:05 +0000

I mentioned in a past post that I was going to take a class in guitar building through my local Woodcraft store. The guitar kits they use are from US Guitar Kits. The kits are partially assembled. They have the sides bent and the back attached. They have the bracing attached (though in the 2 kits used in the class, they needed some re-glueing of the braces – minor). The sides and the back are a laminated wood (ours was a light colored outer veneer, the site says is Sapele). The top is solid spruce. The other parts look adequate but are probably not the highest quality. All in all a decent value for a $260 kit (price through the class at Woodcraft).

My hopes are to learn a few of the basics of luthier. With this kit, I get to learn about attaching tops (and bottoms though indirectly since the skills are similar); attaching the binding a purfling (which may give a hint at how to do the sound hold and other decorative elements on the back and heal side); working and shaping the braces; building a fret board including fret wires, nut; attaching the bridge; setup and tuning the guitar. With this class and kit, I DON”T expect to learn bending and shaping the sides; attaching the binding around the sound hole; shaping the neck; applying finish to the guitar.

In our class, the first step was to find the position of the top onto the assembled lower body. This required finding centers on the top and body. Once this is done, we can mark the positions of the braces and the rough outline of the body on the top. Next comes shaping/scaloping the bracing. The 4 points of the x-braces and the 2 points of the top brace will have an equivalent notch in the support/bent bracing the goes around the tops of the sides. The remaining points of the other braces get pared down to the top before they touch the sides. The scaloping of the the braces have hills and valleys and the kits come with a template to do these. In scaloping, I found it a little challenging with the grain changes. I believe that I got a pretty smooth result but it took quite a while (you can see some bad pictures at the bottom).

The next step was to rough cut the body using a band saw. I learned 2 things. First, I need to replace my band saw blade. Second, WOW! it is sure easy to cut softer woods. I eventually want to build a guitar using only hand tools (for this step, it might be a bow saw).

Next was cutting the matching notches for the x-brace and top brace points (6 in all). The teacher recommended a double sided skew chisel and this did make things easier than standard flat/single sided paring chisels. With a few attempts at dry fitting, I needed to make a few adjustments with the notches and the end points of the bracing.

Last for this class was glueing the top down. This required 25 or so clamps (see the picture for the style of clamps). It was important to focus on a few key points including the waist, the widest point on both top and bottom and both the heal and neck locations. One last point was using a straight board to clamp just above the sound hole (see picture). This ensures that the location above the sound hole will be flat so it can receive the fret board.

Overall, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun (good instructor).

Ultimately, I hope to build a guitar from the ground up (maybe not quite so far as harvesting my own wood) and doing it with only hand tools. There are suppliers of luthier grade parts that should make this a challenging but fund experience.

Frame Glue Up

glennth — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:55:28 +0000

I finished the frame pieces and dry fitted them. I’m pretty happy with the results though similar to most woodworkers, I can see every error and blemish in the project and that frustrates me. I believe that I can fix a few of them after the glue up so that is the plan that I’m going with.

Overall the frame is square and stable which in a desk frame is what you need.

I still need to work on the drawer rails and the drawer itself. I’m going with wooden slider rails with a groove in the slide that matches up to them. Also I’m going to push the fates and try a half blind dovetail for the drawer front. This should be real challenging.

For the top, I’m planning to reflect a coffee and side table in the same room. The coffee and side table have moulding pieces around the field of the top. The moulding is simply angled on the bottom (thick at the field and thin on the edge). I’m going to do this by angling the outer edges and do it without moulding. I’ll use hand planes to get the angle that I want. I’ve already glued the top up but still need to square it up and smooth/flatten the top.

Notice that from the dry fit, that I’ve added the front lower drawer rail and the lower middle support cross member. I was thinking about adding another member going from the lower middle to the lower back but the frame already seemed very stable and strong so I didn’t feel it needed it.

Frame is dry fitted

glennth — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:58:50 +0000

I’ve hit a big milestone. I’ve got the majority of the frame dry fitted. I still have a piece under the drawer on the front and then 2 lower/inner cross members for additional stability. As most woodworkers can do for their projects, I can find a ton of issues with it but over all I’m quite pleased with the way it is turning out.

My only real issue is that I have all these sharp blades and keep letting myself touch the ends. This means that on any given day, I have a few bandaids on. I need to learn that one should not touch the sharp end of a blade. This will eventually be a hard learned lesson.

Here is a shot of the dry fitted frame!

Brace and bit

glennth — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:40:24 +0000

I think that I mentioned when I was practicing mortise and tenon joints a few months back that I tried both the 100% chisel route and the method that first uses bit and brace followed by chisels. This early experience was very sloppy. At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure of the cause of the sloppiness.

Today I figured it out.

I once again tried the brace and bit. I first marked the mortise location including size and length. After that, I marked a centerline with a knife and was careful to get it exactly centered. I missed this step in my earlier tries and believe this was the source of my failure. In the earlier tries, I guess I was just trying to get centered by eye and feel. This clearly isn’t accurate and gets the walls varied in their position and such.

With the knife mark for the center line I was able to place the point of the screw on the bit exactly on the line (tilting so you can feel the point catch on the knife mark). This made every bore attempt to be exactly on for the width. The only areas that could be messed up are the length walls but it’s fairly easy to stay just within the marks. Using this bit and brace method makes the chisel work simple and easy and the results were very precise.

I’m very pleased with this technique.

Double Mortises

glennth — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:09:27 +0000

OK, as a newb to hand cut mortises and tenons I’m pushing the envelope by doing double mortises. I know, it’s crazy.

All in all though, I’m pretty happy with the results.

Standing Laptop Desk – First Mortise and Tenons

glennth — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:55:01 +0000

OK, today I finished my first mortise and tenons on the Standing Laptop Desk. Only 20,000 more to go. OK, maybe not that many but looking at it from the beginning makes it seem that way.

I’ve shown some practice mortise and tenons in previous posts but I was still kind of frustrated with them. Between then and now though I saw in a video podcast somewhere (sorry I can’t remember to give proper attribution) that pointed out that small mallet blows on the chisel is the way to go – don’t power through the process. This has caused me to be more satisifed with the process and the results. Yes, it takes a bit more time but it ensures that I get a better fit.

I inadvertently (think before you start!) cut tenons first on the apron. I did the mortise first for the support struts. I will definitely go with the mortise first from now on. The reason is that I can make the hole fit the width of the chisel and then cut the tenon to fit the resulting hole. Doing it where you have to cut a hole to fit a tenon means that you have to use a too small chisel to cut the hole – much more challenging and more prone to errors.

Here are a few shots.

Wood Prep Shots

glennth — Sun, 16 May 2010 03:51:26 +0000

Here is a shot of all the hand processed maple boards that I have for my standing laptop desk.

As you can see, I have the top glued together (still need size but I want to wait till the desk frame is together). I also have the legs with taper and now they are marked for locations of mortises. I have the aprons (and drawer front) ready along with the struts for the bottom of the desk (need those because of the height of the desk). Once I have the frame together, I will work on the drawer and the top.