Official Luthiers Forum!

Spent a whole day "stickering" (is that a word?) a delivery of wood that's been staring at me for for far too long.....
Couldn't stand it any more!

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

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

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

Colin, I went with CF in the braces (my first time doing this) . Was only going to do the X-braces but got carried away. The only report I have so far is they are hard to carve but are noticeably stiffer than braces without.

George, Thank you for the nice words. I do hope it all works out in this Art Deco guitar. Most rosettes take me a few hours to make, this one took several days!!! But I am slow.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

+1. You have our attention, Don.

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Why? It's just wood. There's lots of it out there.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I spent the weekend working on this rosette in a Redwood top. The tiles are Bocote and the purfling strips are ivroid with black ABS strips. I’m pleased with this one.



I used my Foredom with the Stew Mac base for the first time and was really impressed with the setup. It is a huge improvement in almost every way over the dremel.

Screwed up a slot-head neck for a size 0 I've been working on for quite a while. Basically cut it off for a butt joint and then realized there was not enough of the heel left for hardware. So I morticed the heel it and put a tenon back in. Got all that done and realized the neck angle was not right so I made a fixture that let me set the neck straight and also set the angle - with out having the neck bolted on, so it will slide in and out. This let me use a U-shaped paddle with some sandpaper on it to get the neck angle fixed. Worked pretty good as I only had to floss 4 or 5 times to finalize the neck position when I was finished.

Size O, 12-fret mahogany with euro spruce top. Rosewood fretboard. I've been copying the O-16NY I bought in the late '60s, my first good guitar.


The neck jig I made. acrylic pins index into the truss rod slot. A wedge at the rear lets me set the angle. Upper bout had already been flattened.


Wedge at rear indexes into a slot to set the angle and make it easy to center.


All so I could fix the angle on the heel.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Wowza! There's a lot of great work going on out there. I took some time off this week so I'm calling this my extended weekend so I thought I'd post what I've been up to the last couple of days. I've gotten back to work on the wenge, sanding and polishing. And now this is me --> The neck and sides turned out beautiful, just like glass. But I've now sanded the back twice and I still have scratches. It's driving me nuts! I have no idea what I'm doing differently on the sides and neck for them to turn out perfect, but the back I just can't get right, and have to keep resanding.

Anyways, I've dry fit the neck on and took some pics for you guys to have a look. I'm really pleased with the sound port as it's my first one. I haven't buffed the sound board yet as I'm drop filling a couple of spots.

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Rob Flindall
Flindall Guitars
http://www.flindallguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/FlindallGuitars

John, That is a fine looking rosette. Bocota was a good choice. I've been thinking of doing a radial purfling and it looks bocote would be a good choice.

Steve, The way I build it's not how good you do something that counts, it's how well you recover. Sounds like you have that mastered. Nice jigs also.

Rob, Great looking dread. Love the look of the rosette, bound FB and curly maple neck with the dark rosewood. Outstanding

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Steve, this is a version of the floss jig from the Fox class. The insert or tennon is glued in later. It aligns with the upper bout so the angle just happens on the neck if the body is correct.

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

That's cool - nice to see mine performs essentially the same function as something Charles Fox came up with. Mine also indexes off the upper bout along with a spacer at the bridge location to set the angle. I used the same spacer I used when I sanded the upper bout flat. The wedge at the back indexes the center, takes the pressure off of the bridge spacer and allows me to clamp the guitar at the tail block to maintain center alignment. The neck block is also clamped on center so the neck is free to slide on the pins in the truss-rod slot.

Mine would also work easier without the tenon in place but I already had that in when I realized my usual 1 1/2 degree angle was not even close for this one. The U-shaped paddle let me get close then I just flossed with plain sandpaper.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Charles was clearly proud of this jig as he showed it to us, I guess it was relatively new. Neat idea to use the same wedge to shape the bout and get the neck to the same angle.
The Fox class sort of spoils some fun, every time I try to figure some thing like this out, I end up at my class notes and pictures and realize that the best way is to just copy what Charles did.

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

It's hard to argue with success.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Rob, your guitar is a stunner. I think your leaf motif is excellent, and I love the way you echoed it on the end of the fingerboard.

Patrick

That's gonna look great Chris. You have to show us when you get it on the guitar.

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Kyle

A little past Memorial day but making progress on my L-00 13-fret Nick Lucas/Santa Cruz type guitar in Black Walnut & Lutz. The bridge is just on with double stick tape at this point to check neck angle.

Also treated myself to a new toy
Planning on using to thin around the edges of tops.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Nice, Kevin! Do you have any pics of the braced top?

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

I dig the blue

Great stuff, guys!

Here are some glamour shots of the EIR/Lutz/koa L-00.






Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Beeee-utiful Pat!

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Rob Flindall
Flindall Guitars
http://www.flindallguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/FlindallGuitars

I just used the Grellier plans & shifted the bracing down for the 13-fret neck join.

Here's a phone pic a little while before I closed the box.

After closing the box I ended up scallping the braces. I originally wanted to keep it close to the drawing - tapered but not scalloped - but the frequency of the top was so high. The top on the last guitar I built was a little too stiff & I didn't like the outcome.

I also thinned the top a lot around the edges. We'll see if it implodes under string tension.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.