Building an Acoustic Guitar in your Kitchen

Final Guitar Photos - Long Overdue Update!

2011-05-19T09:18:00.001-07:00

Finally, I got around to posting some final pictures of my finished guitar, just over a year later! Soon I'll record a video with decent audio to share with everyone how it sounds.

This is a bit "cart before the horse," so the start-to-finish building process begins below. Please don't hesitate to contact me with comments and questions, you won't be the first! Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Introduction

2010-06-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

When I discovered nearly a year ago that I knew someone who actually builds acoustic guitars, I was shocked. I knew that fine acoustic guitars were hand built works of art, but I guess I had never really thought of building them as a hobby. Despite attempts to cajole me into building one of my own, I adamantly thought for a while that I lacked both the knowledge and the resources to construct one of my own (at the time of writing, I live in a small 4th floor Seattle condo without any extra space or anything resembling a workshop with power tools), so I wrote off the whole idea.

Six months later however, the urge to give it a try was too great and I finally posed the question, "Suppose I decide to build a guitar...?" I would have no idea of not only how possible it would be to build a convincingly fine acoustic guitar, but to do so without any prior experience, power tools, or a dedicated workspace.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage first-time guitar builders or anyone who may be interested in taking up this incredibly rewarding (and impressive) hobby by chronicling my building experience--both the successes and the arguably more valuable mistakes--and to dispel all notion that you must have a dedicated workspace and a myriad of expensive power tools.

In fact, here's what my "workshop" looks like when I'm not building a guitar:

And here's where all my guitar making tools are stored:

Currently I'm six months into the process and I'm building the entire thing on my dining room table in the kitchen, my tools live in a $15 tool box, AND my condo is on the market so I have to clean up each night so I can convince would-be real estate buyers that they won't find a band saw in the refrigerator (although I could use the storage space...and I could put wood in the "freshness saver" drawers...))

For the next few entries I will attempt to go back and document the last 6 months of my building process with brief descriptions and photos. Hopefully I'll succeed in bringing clarity or encouragement to potential builders, just as I experienced.

A Good Place to Start

2010-06-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

When I decided to build a guitar, I had no idea where to begin. Fortunately for me, I knew someone who could provide sage advice and could help point me in the right directions. The biggest and best piece of advise I received was to purchase the guitar maker's bible, "Guitarmaking" by William Cumpiano. Click Here to read a review of the book that I was asked to write for "Cool Tools." This book essentially walks you through the process step by step, and is a must for the beginner. It was highly recommended that I skim / read it first to help wrap my head around the critical order in which things should be done and to fully grasp the scope of the project.

One of the great things about this book is that it assumes you have little or no access to power tools. (A few exceptions will be noted later). Once I became more familiar with the construction process, the fun stuff began: wood shopping!

UPDATE: Since many people have been emailing me asking about costs and which materials . tools they should get first, I thought I'd publish my take on the subject, available here.

Gathering Supplies and Wood

2010-06-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Before buying wood and tools, it's a good idea to spend a little time designing the guitar. If you have access to any sort of AutoCAD software, it can be extremely helpful in working out critical dimensions and trying out different curves.

I chose to build an OM sized guitar (approximately) with a tighter waist, using Amazon Rosewood for the back and sides, and AAA Englemann Spruce for the soundboard. Since I want to build a guitar for fingerstyle playing, the smaller body and livelier soundboard wood should pair well with the rich tones of the rosewood (at least that's what I hope..) I haven't decided yet, but I'll probably use curly maple for bindings and use rosewood for the bridge, headplate, fingerboard, etc.

Cumpiano's book basically spells out all of the necessary tools and rough wood dimensions needed to get going (although you don't need all of the tools he recommends, and many can be bought later in the process to spread the cost). Here are some great links for the harder to find tools:

Stewart-MacDonald
Allied Lutheirie
LMI

Here's a pic of the Amazon Rosewood back and side sets I purchase from Allied Lutherie for around $200.

Sure, you could get a typical (boring) set of East Indian Rosewood for about $75, but EVERY production rosewood guitar is made with it, and since you'll eventually spend months crafting the guitar, it's worth the marginal splurge to get something exotic. I was advised to stick to straight grained, well quartered side wood--(essentially avoid anything curly or figured) for my first guitar due to difficulties that would arise when bending the sides (it turned out to be sage advise).

Another lesson I learned quickly--BUY QUALITY TOOLS

Without semi-decent tools, you might as well not even bother. The first "guitar making" tool I bought was a #4 Smoothing Plane, and I tried to save a couple bucks by purchasing a cheap one, which resulted in a near annihilation of my soundboard! In the end I threw the tool away and got a better one. You don't have to spend huge sums of money on good tools, just don't buy the cheapest one. When in doubt, Stanley planes seem to be a good match between price and quality.

Building the Soundboard

2010-06-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Although Cumpiano's book begins with the neck rough out, I chose to begin by building the body, and then construct the neck. The first part of the body process involves jointing the edges of the two spruce soundboard halves in preparation for gluing. The book describes how to make a "shooting board" for the jointing process--I made mine large enough to double as a workboard for gluing the two halves later. (That's the dining room table I'm working on)

As I began to plane the spruce halves, I quickly learned some important lessons. The first goes back to what I mentioned earlier about inferior tools--my cheap plane was poorly crafted with out-of-square soles and a cheap blade

LESSON LEARNED: I bought a #4 Plane based on the book's recommendation, but eventually realized that I needed a longer one--at least a #5 or #6--to accurately plane the soundboard edge. I had to borrow someones to finish the job. So far I have had no use for the #4 Plane I bought, so I'd recommend getting a longer one).

The second thing I learned was that planing takes patience and time to learn. It's REALLY easy to accidently plane a gentle curve into the straight edge of your top near the ends if you're not paying close attention to your planing pressure. I eventually got it with a little flat sanding board touch-up.

Once the halves are jointed and pass the light-test (see book), they are joined. I had the two plates machine sanded to .130" thickness before they were shipped, so I wouldn't have to plane them to thickness (like in the book). However, this didn't really leave me with much thickness for sanding later (I was aiming for a final thickness of about .125") so in the future I think I'll ask for them to come at around .140". It's also worth noting that careful attention should be paid while joining the two halves so that one doesn't ride up higher than the other at the seam (mine did a little), especially if you don't have much thickness for sanding out mistakes. In the end it turned out fine.

I used a coping saw and a fine blade to cut out the top, roughly 0.5" outside of the traced template line, but a fine band saw would have been faster (pay attention to the soft spruce grain to avoid a chip out). Also, spruce is SOFT and dents easily, so from here on out treat it like a baby (but not the uncontrollable-screaming-its-head-off-in-- crowded-restaurant kind).

Once I had my soundboard cut out, I clamped it to the plywood workboard (see book) and evened out the surface a little with the scraper--leaving the final scraping and leveling for right before the lacquer finish is applied.

Building the Back

2010-06-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

While I had the tools out for jointing and planing, I decided to go ahead and construct the back too. The process is very similar to making the soundboard, except the rosewood is denser and begs for a little more blade.

Here's the back joined and cut out (I used a band saw for this one).
Here are the two plates getting to know each other.

As you can see, our tiny second 1/2 bathroom makes a great place for guitar pieces to be stored while the glue dries. My plates were surprisingly wobbly (especially the rosewood) at this stage, so I handled them carefully and even clamped one to a straight board along the seam when not in use--they'll firm up as the waste is trimmed off, etc. (that glue joint is surprisingly strong).

Tackling the Rosette

2010-06-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

I spent a great deal of time (too much time) trying to decide just what my soundhole rosette should look like. I really wanted a little bit of abalone, but I was also aware of the costs and caveats associated with working with abalone inlays. Finally I decided on an abalone inlay with two concentric rings of rosewood (cut from the left over back material) around it, and of course some of the BWB (black/white/black) purfling strips. I also used AutoCAD to help me visualize and measure for the rosette channel that I would need to cut into my soundboard.

I borrowed a friend's bending iron (you can make one) to bend the purflings and the rosewood strips cut from the back material.

The rosewood was a little thicker (.11") than the ideal thickness of .09", so bending was extremely touchy--after snapping a few practice pieces, I finally tried misting the wood with water and wrapping in foil, then working it slowly over the bending iron. The aluminum foil served to trap in the steam--the key to successful bending--and after a night drying while clamped into a circlular form in some plywood, I had nearly round rings. By the time all the strips are "seated" in the soundboard routed channel, they all work together to tighten up and make a perfect circle.

At this point in the building process, the idea of having to rout a perfect circle of a perfect width out of my soundboard was a little intimidating--there's really no room for error here. The book talks about dry fitting the purflings and inlays and then pulling it all out and glueing it all in again with wood glue in one swift step. Instead, it was recommended to me to take my time fitting all the strips, and then covering the top with a watery super glue, allowing the glue to "wick" down among the strips. That way I would be sure the purflings aligned properly. This actually worked brilliantly, and I can't imagine the hassle of using wood glue for this step (it took me hours to fit all the strips in properly).

Lastly I spent a little while planing down the rough rosewood to approximately the soundboard level, and then finished it off with a scraper (leaving just a microscopic amount for "final sanding").

Oops! Soundboard Repair

2010-06-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sooo...I made an almost tragic soundboard mistake. I was using a tool (cough...mechanical pencil...cough) to fit (jam) some of the rosette purfling into the really snug soundboard channel, when my "tool" slipped and punched a hole into the top. That kind of a move pretty much ends the day of guitar building...

After some thought I decided that I could carefully razor knife out a rectangular area encompassing the hole, keeping my cut lines exactly on the grain lines. I would then be able to match the grain spacing to a piece of scrap from when I cut out the top (save the scraps!) and essentially plug it and scrape flush. It was pretty much the most counter-intuitive thing I could think to do at the time, so of course it worked.

Ultimately, I was able to chisel the new hole flat, carefully fit in my plug, scrape flush, and all in all it turned out perfect. I also knew that when I cut out the soundhole, the end of my graft would disappear and you may never notice the graft at all...

It actually worked. Lesson learned? Pencils are for drawing.

LESSON LEARNED: Make sure your router base is perfectly flat and smooth. My stupid plastic Dremel router base had a little plastic nob that made a small circular depression in my soundboard. I can scrape it out latter, but still it's a stupid mistake to make.

Bracing the Soundboard

2010-06-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Bracing the top of the guitar is the subject of great mystery and debate. Arguably, nothing affects the sound and tone of the guitar more than the bracing.

For this guitar I wanted the bracing to be light enough to allow for a clear note when plucked with a fingertip, but firm enough to maintain its sustain and volume. I chose to follow Martin's standard X-bracing guidelines, with subtle modifications to the placement of the lower face braces.

I used AutoCAD software to try a few different layouts and then printed the one I liked best, transferring the line work to the underside of the soundboard. This way I could better control the symmetry of the bracing, as well as the open / closed relationship of the X-bracing.

Below is a picture of the first bracing element I began with (according to the order in the book), the rosewood bridge plate (cut from a scrap from the back material). I sanded it down to .10" and sized it according to my final bridge design.

Next I cut and planed square all the brace blanks and glued down the upper face graft (top of picture) and the 4 smaller face braces (shown clamped).

Some people wait until all of the braces are in place to begin carving and shaping them, but I couldn't wait, so I adopted a "glue and carve as I go" sort of plan (carving braces is actually one of the most rewarding steps).

Here's a shot of the top sitting on the work board, showing all the little guys in place and carved. Notice I left the 2 sound hole braces taller than most, yet smaller than recommended by the book.

Here's a shot from upstairs down into my "workshop"....

According to the book, the next steps include dry fitting the X-brace (the most important one), gluing and shaping the remaining bracing and upper face brace (the one that bears the load of the fingerboard and soundboard torsion) and THEN gluing and shaping the X-brace. However, i chose to fit and glue the X-brace first, then attach the remaining braces. The X-braces are each carved first with a slight arch, so that when glued they impart a gentle arched dome to the soundboard. I felt that by installing this element first, I would then have established the arch of the top and could then make sure the other braces fit that curve, rather than compete with it.

(You can never have too many clamps, and get good ones).

LESSON LEARNED: Before carving the arches into both X-brace blanks, I mistakenly notched the lap joint first. Then I tried clamping one into a vice for carving, not thinking about the fact that I was bearing down on the end of the brace, and ultimately fractured it near the lap joint. I was able to wick superglue into the crack and clamp overnight, so it's fine now. In the future, I will arch first--fully supporting the length of the brace--then cut the lap joint.

Carving the X-Brace is a task that should be well thought out before beginning, as leaving too much wood will deaden the tone, but too little could result in an overly bassy guitar and/or a structural failure of the top due to the high tension of the strings (almost 200 lbs. worth).

LESSON LEARNED: Have a shape in mind, and stick too it. I began thinking I would "scallop" the X-brace a little (you can see my rough carving in the picture below). I introduced a slight scallop, then changed my mind and had to carefully feather my high points back into a gentle curve. I'm currently under the belief that scalloping creates dead zones at the peaks, and instead favor a more gentle parabola.

In the end I was very happy with my bracing. The top has a clean tap tone to it (but I really have no idea what I'm listening for...) and in general just looks freakin' cool. The 2 little diamonds toward the bottom are book-recommended seam patches to strenghen those regions. In the future I think I will omit them--I see no need for them there, so they probably only serve to deaden those spots a little...

Below are just some more pictures of my bracing (you can never look at too many bracing photos. Check out this link for pictures of factory bracing).

Close up of the X-brace lap joint and the "bump" wood patch. Most people use a glues soaked linen patch, but some (including Bourgeois) feel that the wood patch is stronger...

Bracing the Back

2010-06-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Bracing the back plate is considerably easier than bracing the soundboard. Like the top, the back gets arched laterally--only more severely. Before bracing the back, however, I chose to rout a channel along the seam between the two halves to include a decorative center stripe.

Usually I've seen a single stripe of decorative purfling, but I ran into a problem whereby the black/white/black striping I had was slightly different than the one pre-glued onto my maple binding, and would look asymmetrical if I use them on opposite sides of the maple strip. My remedy was to use two maple strips with my smaller one in the middle. Ultimately I was very happy with this decision--the maple stripe has more presence now so I think it will look cool in the end.

I didn't take too many pictures of the back bracing process. It's similar in terms of arching and carving, except the patterning is different. I followed the book's spacing and used a 'Ladder Bracing' pattern. The rounded strips of wood between the 4 main braces are cross-grain grafts used to strengthen the back seam. By the way, the wooden cam clamps shown in the picture below are essential I've found, and completely worth their nominal cost. Here are the braces being glued in place:

Here is a picture of the final braced back after carving:

Here are the two plates and their respective bracing, side by side:

Bending the Sides

2010-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Now on to something more intimidating: Side Bending. I borrowed someone's light bulb-heated bending iron and had practiced a little with the rosette pieces, so I was ready to attempt bending the rosewood sides.

After much thought and a few different approaches, I found two methods that worked well for me. The first was to soak the wood in warm water for about 30 minutes, and then SLOWLY work the bend, constantly checking it against a template. The rosewood becomes surprisingly limber once it heats up. The second method--which worked much more quickly--was to spray water onto the side, then wrap it in 1 layer of aluminum foil. The foil creates a steam bath the quickly loosens up the wood. The only caveats I found were that it loosened too quickly, so you have to be careful not to over bend and tear the wood, and it can be hard to check your progress without seeing the exact side wood.

In the end I bent each side using a different method, and concluded that the bare wood, extreme patience method is best. It took me about 3 hours per side to really get it.

Here's one side clamped into position on the template while drying overnight.

Once the wood is bent, it will look like hell. Mine looked burnt (but they weren't), some grain lines were really dark, others not so much, and the once smooth wood was now rough and "fibery" looking. Sap from deep within had come to the surface, and there were nasty water marks meandering everywhere. I even split the end when I first started (I stopped that piece and super glued it to stop the split--that worked perfectly--and it will get trimmed off later anyway). Since I'm back-posting these blog entries, I can tell you now that after the sides are assembled and scraped smooth, all of those imperfections disappear and the sides look beautiful.

The above pictures show both sides, after they've dried, just sitting there waiting to be trimmed and fitted. The lighter sap wood on the top edge of the sides will be trimmed away eventually.

Headblock and Tailblock

2010-06-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Once I had braced the two plates and bent the sides, I began focusing attention on assembling the body. The first steps were to construct from solid mahogany the headblock and tailblock (pictured clamped below).

The tailblock is less complicated than the headblock, so I went ahead and got it out of the way first. I chose to bevel the sides at a 45-degree angle to help reduce the overall mass, and I slightly beveled the top edge to minimize the block's contact with the soundboard (I figure less blocks of wood glued to the soundboard will yield a more freely vibrating plate).

Here's the soundboard with both blocks glued in place:

Here's a close-up of the headblock:

The headblock actually requires a little more attention than you might think, since it's construction and orientation will be essential to the playability of the instrument when the neck is attached later. I laminated the blank for this block from 4 pieces of mahogany, and then squared it into a solid block. The two holes will later receive barrel bolts (to attach the neck), which will be joined to the body with a mortise and tenon joint (dovetails are evil I'm told).

Installing the Sides

2010-05-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

The first step to convincing someone that all these pieces may actually become a guitar is to glue kerfed lining to the soundboard edge of the sides (shown above). This notched mahogany lining curves easily around the bend of the side and is clamped / glued into place with a million little clamps. The kerfing actually provides the gluing surface between the sides and the top and back (side material itself is eventually routed away for binding, and thus makes for an impractical gluing surface).
Once the sides are kerfed, and the kerfing is leveled along the sanding board, the sides are trimmed at their ends and glued to the soundboard following the method described in the book. (Boards are placed along the top to prevent the clamps from crushing the sides, and the opposing side is set in p lace to level the boards).

And the rough final product (note: the sides are over sized and will be trimmed later; the same is true for the overhang of the soundboard).

Next I marked the final contour of the back and planed the sides down to their final height. The height at the headblock is approximately 1 inch lower than at the tailblock, so the back will have a longitudinal arch to it. Once planed, the mahogany kerfing that will join the back plate is glued in place (shown below).

Side Port!

2010-05-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

So I stumbled upon Tim McKnight's website and discovered the quiet world of guitar side ports. What's a side port? Basically, it's a second hole in your guitar--usually in the upper bout side on the half facing the player--that allows the player to hear a better acoustic image of what someone sitting in front of the guitar may be hearing. Usually the tone is said to be fuller or bassier from the player's perspective with a sound port.

After some thought, I decided that I HAD to try one in this guitar, and settled on an oval shape as being the most likely form to turn out looking well-crafted. I was fortunate enough to get some advice form professional luthier Michael Bashking regarding how to construct the sound port.

I began by scoring the outline of the oval into the bent side using an oval template--this way I could then Dremel away the interior up to the scoreline, and then refine my oval with files and sandpaper (shown above).

On the inside, I was advised to glue in a cross-grain patch to strengthen the side and to prevent cracks along the oval. I chose to use rosewood side material for the patch so it would look the same as the sides, but I also sandwiched a maple veneer (shown above) into it to create a little maple line detail along the inside edge of the oval side port (I would love to have bound the oval in maple, but found the procedure too difficult and risky for my first guitar).

Here's a picture of the rough-cut oval after I Dremeled it:

I think in the next photos I had already cleaned up the oval a little--I'm saving the final sanding for the end:

Once again, here's a picture of both halves ready for attachment--notice the back kerfing has been notched to accommodate the back braces.

Attaching the Back

2010-05-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here's part where you have to be sure you've done everything to the inside of the guitar that you wanted too: attaching the back. Before the back cna be attached however, a few preliminary steps have to be taken to ensure that it fits perfectly.

First, you have to plane away material and carefully shape the headblock to allow for the arch of the back. Without the right curvature planed into the headblock, an unsightly dimple will become visible when the back is glue down due to the headblock's current flatness.

Once the headblock (and tailblock) regions are adjusted for the arch of the backplate, the brace notch pockets must be adjusted so that the back sits flush to the sides, while the brace ends sit neatly in the pockets, maintaing positive contact with the kerfed lining.

Once everything is aligned and dry fitted properly, the back can be glued on. I chose to use the 'rubber strip' method--opting for it over constructing a few dozen spool clamps--by cutting up a blue rubber swimming pool hose I bought from Home Depot into strips and square-knotting them together--90 ft in total. I also used a few clamps in kep points for some added clamping power.

Holy Crap It Worked!

2010-05-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

...and the unveiling--it worked! A little part of me actually can't believe it worked and that the back hasn't sprung off and flown through the wall into the neighbor's condo like a card throwing trick. Here's a couple pictures after the unveiling:

Though the soundhole looking at the back bracing:

Here are just some cool shots back into the enclosed sound box:

Installing the End Graft

2010-05-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Where the two sides meet at the tailblock, it's traditional to include an end graft (usually of a contrasting wood or the binding material) to give the end of the guitar a clean finished look. In order to chisel out the region and work on the guitar, it has to be clamped something like this:

I chose to use a figured maple to match my bindings. Many people recommend that you use a wedge shaped graft because you can easily adjust the taper and drive it in for a clean fit. I liked the contrast of the maple against the rosewood so much that I chose to make my wedge significantly wider than most, so as to have as mush figured maple as possible.

Here's the wedge shape being chiseled out of the side material at the tailblock:

I chose to pair the figured maple wedge with black/white/black purfling strips on the edges, which I will later miter and join to the binding. Here's the wedge being rough fitted in place:

Here's the final maple wedge trimmed flush:

Once the graft is in place, I finished scraping the sides smooth and level in preparation for routing the binding ledge (I didn't take many pictures in this stage, but the transformation from rough bent side wood to smooth glassy guitar side wood is unbelievable). In all honesty, the entire leveling and scraping process was fairly tedious and took hours. By the end however, I learned both how to properly sharpen a scraper and how essential it is that the scraper edge be sharp and well burnished. Here's my clamping arrangement for holding the body while scraping:

LESSON LEARNED: If you can't burnish a good hook on the edge of your scraper, don't even bother working on the sides of the guitar. You will get nowhere fast and likely become frustrated.

Installing the Maple Binding

2010-05-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Routing the stepped channels around the perimeter of the body originally seemed like a pretty intimidating task. Essentially, any slip of the router or major mistake here, and it would likely be fairly noticeable in the end. Using a Dremel and sharp rabbet bit, here's what the initial pass looked like up close:

The next photo shows the "stepped" ledge needed to receive both the outer maple binding, and the inner black/white/black purfling strip:

Because of a combination of the arched surface of the back, my less-than-amazing router base, and my equally less-than-amazing router skills, the depths of my cuts varied along the permiter of the guitar, and in some cases, the stepping effect disappeared completely. To remedy this situation, I ordered a hand held Purfling Cutter from StewMac. This tool is essentially a razer blade fixed in a handle with a side guide--but it has virtually zero surface area, unlike a router base, so when guided along the edge it makes a score line of perfect depth. I used this to clean up and widen my routed channels, and in the end, the routed ledges turned out nearly perfectly.

Below is a photo of the maple binding and the b/w/b/ purfling strips taped in place, prior to glueing.
Essentially, I fitted and trimmed them all, taped them tightly in place, and then went around a couple inches at a time and wicked CA superglue into the gaps, then pressed firmly for about 30 seconds. This method ensured a nearly gap-free installation, and was much less stressfull / hurried than trying to do it all in one pass with wood glue.

Below is a photo of the glue in place binding, before scraping flush to the guitar body.
Another up close shot of the oversized binding protruding above the body. I realized after scraping the binding flush that I had not routed by channels deep enough in both directions, an thus wound up removing much more binding material than I had wanted too from an asethtic perspective. It turned out fine, however.

I also wicked glue into the gaps along the sides:

Here's the glues and bound back, before scraping:

Scraping the Binding and Pore Filling

2010-05-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Once all of the binding had been installed, minor imperfections and gaps needed to be filled. I chose to pack the tiny gaps with rosewood saw dust made from scrap back material, and then allwo CA superglue to bond the saw dust in the gap. Here's a picture of my neat little saw dust pile:

Here's a good example of a tiny gap (the picture was taken very zoomed in, so it looks pretty bad but it's really not very noticeable)

Applying the saw dust:

Add a little glue and the perfect patch is formed--I think you'll agree, at this point I could almost get away without scraping or sanding, and probably nobdy would even notice...

After a few hours of careful scraping, leveling, and gentle sanding, here are some pictures of the body with flush bindings:

Sealing the Body / Applying Epoxy Coat

2010-05-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

After making sure I had filled all of the incidental scratches and gaps, I power sanded the entire body with 220 grit, followed by 320 grit sandpaper to achieve a scratch-free, smooth surface before moving on to filling the rosewood pores and sealing the entire thing with a couple coats of epoxy.

Many people use many different products to pore fill and seal, but I wanted a clear filler that would not alter the natural color and beauty of the rosewood, so I chose to use clear 5-minute epoxy. Essentially, you just spread it as thinly as you can with a credit card, let cure, sand with 320, and repeat.

I usually broke the guitar into sections--back separate from the sides and top-- since my epoxy cured a little quicker than I could work. One time I completely blew the mixture ratio and my luxurious 5 minute epoxy became 30 second epoxy...no worries though, I just let it dry and sanded off the ridiculous looking job I had done and started over--it's fairly forgiving if you're patient.

Here are some photos of the sealed body with the crazy cool rosewood--this Amazon Rosewood actually has a lot of depth for a rosewood. I've left the final coat of epoxy rough and unsanded--it'll remain that way for a couple months while I build the neck and bridge, then I'll come back, sand it down, and begin applying a dozen coats of finish lacquer.

The Neck

2010-05-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

With the body sufficiently coated in epoxy, I decided to postpone the 15 coats of lacquering and sanding and lacquering and sanding for a few months and start building the neck.

The neck begins with the creation of a rough Mahogany neck block. Essentially you have to make a few angled cuts, create a rough headstock, glue on a huge block of mahogany for the heel, square it all with a plane, and then begin shaping it into a neck.

Here's the headstock being trued with the neck shaft:

Here's the headstock being glued at a 15 degree angle to the neck shaft:

...and the rough neck blank in my "workshop"

Next a channel is routed down the center of the neck to provide room for a metal truss rod. The truss rod is essentially two rods that, when tightened, bend together in one direction. With a truss rod embedded within the guitar's neck, it is easy to straighten the neck to counteract the forces of string tension. If left uncorrected, the string tension would bend the neck over time to the point where the strings would begin to be too high above the fingerboard to be comfortably played.Now I'm beginning to rough out the headstock in preparation for applying the veneer:

Speaking of veneer, here's the massive 2" thick slab of Amazon Rosewood that I got from AlliedLutherie that will provide more than enough material for some veneers and a bridge:

For the headstock veneer, I've decided to go with a book matched rosewood wedge arrangement, with a curly maple center wedge (to match me tail graft on the body), then I'll bind the headstock later with the same curly maple and black/white/black strips as used on the guitar body. I also want to include a small abalone inlaid emblem thingy at the top, but I haven't decided what it will be yet...

..and the veneer faced headstock waiting for final trimming, routing, and binding:

Carving the Neckshaft and stuff

2010-05-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

I guess I didn't take any pictures of the neck heel carving process, which was the next step. Basically you spend a while turning a block of mahogany into a symmetrical curving heal the ends evenly where the neck tenon occurs. I guess I also blew it on documenting the neck tenon carving process too.

Well anyway, now I have a neck with a heel and a tenon. Inside the tenon are two barrel nuts that will receive two barrel bolts threaded through the guitar's headblock and into the tenon. This is how the neck will be joined to the guitar. Over the next few months I'll be bolting and unbolting the neck from the guitar several times to adjust the flushness of the fit and the alignment of the neck.

So now, with roughed out versions of a neck at each end, I begin to round the block that comprises the neck shaft using a spokeshave (it's an old tool originally used to make spokes for wagon wheels).

Here's a close up of the roughed out heel:

Again, here's the idea:

I've got a Martin D-28 (love it!) that I'm taking neck curvature measurements against to at least get my final neck shape in the ballpark, then I'll finesse it further until it feels right to me:

Here's the first time I got to bolt the rough neck onto my guitar and actually pick it up! It was actually pretty exciting, since I've been working on this guitar for 7 months; now it's starting to feel like an instrument. Oh yeah, I'm checking the straightness too, whatever. Yes the stove is off (I actually removed the knobs when I left that afternoon - just in case the cat had any stupid ideas...)
Since I've been steadily approaching drawn outlines of the fingerboard while carving the neck radius, I thought now would be a good time to actually make the fingerboard and glue it down so I don't over zealously carve away too much material. Here's the set up I made for gluing maple binding strips to the edge of the fingerboard while maintaining a flush bottom:

Full Disclosure Note about the fingerboard: I chose to buy a "pre-slotted" ebony fingerboard instead of buying a slab of ebony and truing then slotting myself. While I'm confident that I could have done the procedures and measure accurately, it was waaaaaay easier and better for me to spend the extra $10 and essentially buy back a weekend. I still had to taper, bind, inlay, trim, etc. everything, but at least I won't have to spend all weekend trying to make a perfectly flat piece of ebony with limit tools, buy a $75 ruler to measure for the frets, and then make perfect little cuts with a tiny saw. Plus, when this thing is finally strung up and I'm troubleshoots the fine adjustments to mitigate intonation problems, at least I'll know it wasn't because my frets are improperly spaced. I'd HIGHLY recommend buying a pre-slotted fingerboard blank to anyone just beginning their first guitar. It's not cheating (seriously, it's not...no really...it's not...)

Anyway, binding the fingerboard with maple:

After I had bound the fingerboard and scraped the bindings flush with the top, I carefully measured for the fret marker dots (abalone), drilled their holes, glued them in place and scraped flush. I can't tell you how many times I checked to make sure I was putting the markers at the right frets...I was afraid (and still am) that I would pick the finished thing up one day and realize that I had put one in the wrong place...

After that I glued the fingerboard to the neck, with the truss rod installed inside. I guess I don't have pics of that yet, but I'm sure there will be plenty... it looks convincingly cool though. Now I can flip it over and go back to carving the neck shaft as it approaches the fingerboard. Also, I wanted to maintain a traditional element of the volute (triangular wood element at the headstock neck transition area). My Martin D-28 has one and I like it--plus I think it helps strengthen the joint area. I wasn't sure how to approach carving it (or really, saving it from being carved away) but as I keep going, it's beginning to emerge:

Here's a shot after I've refined the neck heel and the headstock joint a little further. After taking some thickness dimensions and comparing them to my favorite Martin D-28, I found that I needed to reduce the neck thickness another 1/16" or so.

Since we just sold out old dining room table, and it's been "advised" that I don't scratch up / destroy the new one, I have moved my intermittent guerilla guitar making operation into the guest bathroom...(yes, the neck is seen cantilevering over the toilet, which really only serves to increase my multi-tasking productivity now...)

Here's a progress photo of the maple bound headstock--next I have to do a little abalone inlay at the top. The holes will later receive the chrome tuning machines.

Headstock Logo Thingy

2010-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Just as with the soundhole rosette, I agonized a little about what I should do for a "logo" on the headstock. Throughout the construction of the neck and headstock I waffled between having and not having a logo or an emblem, and in the end I decided that it should be branded somehow (you rarely see a steel string acoustic guitar without a headstock emblem).

I thought I had settled on the idea of a small logo out of abalone--just a touch--to tie in with the rosette and fingerboard inlays. However, after trying a few ideas, I really wasn't liking the way the shell interacted with the maple... The next conundrum I had was deciding on a shape or form for my logo. It may seem like a simple and dumb thing, but when you go to do it and really think about it, the logo is really the most "graphic" element on the guitar and perhaps subject to the most scrutiny of familiarization, so it was a bigger decision than I thought. I thought of everything from a non-lame way to make an "S" (lastname) that hasn't been done already, to random symbols (but they needed some kind of connective meaning to me), to even abstract graphics of squid and evil bunnies (Donnie Darko style--I figured I would have regretted that down the road...)

In the end I decided that a black logo actually looked nicer with the overall guitar, and I found a nice way to incorporate a logo-thing that had meaning to me but was also abstract and "non-graphic" enough that I didn't end up with a demonic mythological beast or something...

In the end, I took the motion of conducting an orchestra in 4/4 time and sweetened it up a little to make a nice abstraction. It also happened to sit well within the context of my headstock.

To do this, I had to draw the form on the headstock, score it with a scribe, and file / excavate the material until I was about 1mm deep. Here's a picture of the half excavated form:Once I had fully cleaned out the shape, I was tasked with the question of "what to fill it with to make it black?" My original idea of black epoxy turned out hard to find, so I settled on black ebony sawdust and superglue. Before I started however, I coated the surrounding maple and rosewood with a thick film of superglue (but not in the file slots) to fill the pores and prevent any ebony dust from becoming embedded in the outlying wood, which would be almost impossible to remove. Once that dried, I simply packed the gaps full of dust (allowing it to sit high) and covered in superglue (to be scraped flush later). Here's a nice shot of that:

...and here's the almost final headstock after scraping...

Once I final sand it and seal with epoxy and lacquer it will look really nice (I hope).

Fretting and Headstock Finishing

2010-05-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

Now that I've finished up the headstock face (but it still needs lacquer) I thought I'd move on to fretting. Basically a fret is a small length of wire, T-shaped in cross section, with a barb that digs into the slots in the fingerboard to hold the fret in place. You can either hammer them in, or press them in--I chose to press them in for fear of smashing a huge hole in the fingerboard and then having to creatively inlay some piece of abalone and pretending that I wanted it there...

Before pressing in the frets, I measured each of the 20 fret slots for their barb length (down to the 64th on an inch) and pre-cut all of my frets. I made this little Styrofoam block to help keep them organized:
Since my fingerboard is bound with a thin maple strip, the fret slot doesn't extend to the edge of the fingerboard so I have to remove a short length of the barb from each end of the fret (this way the fingerboard edge will also look "cleaner" without 20 visible barb-ends). To do this, I used a borrowed tool designed specifically to cleanly remove this little piece.

Pressing the frets into the fingerboard can be accomplished many ways--a lot of people use a drill press and a brass "caul" that's curved to fit the fret to press them in. I thought "I bet I can accomplish that with a curved piece of hardwood and a C-clamp"...it actually worked. It takes some patience and careful attention to the torque angle of the clamp, but the end result seems fine. Here's a pic of the inaugural fret:

Once I get them all in I'll go back and carefully file the ends flush with the fingerboard and bevel them. After I got most of the frets in (except for the tougher ones around the heel--I need to make a support block to help me clamp them in) I decided to seal the headstock with epoxy in preparation for lacquering. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

Since the headstock epoxy worked out well, I went ahead and finished up contouring the neck and applied an alcohol-diluted epoxy rub with a rag to the neck and heel--it'll be all sanded off later and the neck subsequently oiled:

NEXT: Make a Nut

The next task I was faced with was roughing out the string "nut" from an oversized blank of cow bone. The purpose of the nut is to act as a "zero" fret and supply the point of contact for the strings at the headstock end of the neck. It also plays a crucial role in transferring string vibrations through the neck and into the soundbox (body) where they're amplified, so the material of choice is fairly important. Many stock production guitars use either plastic or some form of synthetic bone--for a nominal couple of bucks I chose to make mine from cow bone, which is more commonly found on higher-end custom guitars due to its higher density and better transmission of vibrations. The bone comes as a rectangular block and looks something like this:

After some rough sanding, cutting with a jewler's saw, and some gentle filing, I've roughed out the nut's final shape (less the string notches which I'll create later) and dry fitted it in the slot between the end of the fingerboard and the headstock veneer sheet:

Now I feel like I've hit this point where I could spend forever filing this or tweaking that, but those adjustments might be better made during the final fitting stage, so I decided to finish up the roughing of the neck by checking the alignment of the neck with the body.

FINISHING: Lacquering

2010-05-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Ha! I'm finally there--lacquering! The end is in sight...

Actually this part seemed pretty intimidating at first, since I have to actually apply a mirror-like finish to the instrument that I've been building for a solid year now. There are actually a few different lacquering products and techniques to choose from, but given my modest circumstances I chose to brush on a waterbased finish. Presently I've completed the entire lacquering stages and have to say it actually went very smoothly and is far less complicated than it will initially seem to the beginner.

If you're interested in my trials and tribulations using KTM-9 Waterbased lacquer with a Brush On Application, click here to read my detailed account.

I thought I'd start lacquering (practicing) on the headstock first since it's small and flat, and I was pretty confident that I could correct any mistakes I might make. I'm using a $0.54 foam brush from Home Depot, moving slowly so as to avoid introducing bubbles into the finish. I'll end up applying around 12-15 coats, slowly building up thin layer by layer, and sanding level every 2-3 coats. This stuff dries very quickly so it's possible to brush on all the coats in just a couple days. Ultimately, I'll allow the lacquer to cure for 3 weeks (as it shrinks and hardens) before sanding it all level with 400 grit paper, progressing toward a super fine 1200 grit or so, and finally polishing the whole thing to a mirror like shine on a buffing wheel.

Here's the headstock after the final coat--the fine brush strokes will all be sanded out after the finish is allowed to cure and harden for 3 weeks:

Since lacquering the headstock went well, I decided to sand smooth the guitar body's surfaces and proceed with the real challenge:

In order to manipulate and clamp the body while brushing on the finish, I made this super nice wooden handle and bolted it on to the guitar (which I actually had the foresight to complete before taping the soundholes closed...)

The lacquer is applied one surface at a time and tacks hard in about 20 minutes, so I could continually rotate the body and keep applying coats at a full coverage rate of about an hour. Brushing on the sides and avoiding drips and runs kind of reminded my of the way the hardshell chocolate ice cream cone thingys are dipped at Dairy Queen...

Fast forward a few days and 15 coats into the future, and it's done! The final 3 coats went on without sanding, and now I just have to wait 3 weeks before sanding and buffing. With the exception of two hiccups (see next post) it all went off without any major setbacks.

Since I still need my vice to build a bridge, I summoned all of my MacGyver skills together to transform a door, a bar clamp, some cable ties, an ethernet cable, and a towel rack into a highly sophisticated drying rack...