Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this forum. I would like to apologize in advance for what are probably going to be a lot of 'beginners questions'. This is my first build so I have a lot to learn. Also if I am asking questions that have previously been asked, I would greatly appreciate being pointed in the direction of relevant threads, as I am still getting to grips with this site. I would also like to say thank you to everyone here for your posts. I have learned so much already reading through them and have seen some beautifully made and well documented builds. It really helps.

So, I have spent the last two to three months reading, studying plans and buying tools. I am close to having everything I need for this first build. Except experience.

I had my first wood buying experience two days ago. It felt very significant. Like a landmark after hours and hours of research to actually have the materials. So it begins..

I am using the Santos Hernandez (Flamenco) plans form Roy Courtnalls' book. I bought an alpine spruce top set, Cypress back and sides, ebony fingerboard blank, and a large "Spanish" cedar plank I hope to get two necks from plus end blocks etc.

First Question:
My workspace is less that ideal. I have a very small, cold damp room in which I plan to do most of my sawing and sanding. My assembly/gluing room is, essentially, my bedroom. It is a loft conversion and is slightly less cold and damp. Humidity is around 60%. Too high for gluing, I understand (using HHG and titebond). I'm looking into dehumidifiers. My question is this: how long should i let my wood acclimatize before planing, cutting and preparing for glue ups? It seems pretty dry.

Second Question:
I want to split my neck shaft and add a rosewood strip. (scarf joint and stacked heel) I dont want the rosewood to continue into the head or heel. Is the best way to cut the scarf joint, rip the shaft, laminate it, trim it back to the width of the head piece and glue the scarf joint? Or is there a better way?

I am aware that my current conditions are not great, but I'm sure I can overcome these problems.

I would really appreciate any advice, so if you have time, please post. I will try and document each process of this and post photos.
Many thanks,

Will

invest in a dehumidifier. 60% is a bit high , 45 to 50 is where you want. What will happen is down the road as the guitar is exposed to dryer conditions it will pull the top down and may crack.
the best thing is to start and you will soon find your strengths and weakness in building. It can be a great journey

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Welcome to the forum Will. This is the best resource out there in my opinion!
It sounds like I am building my first in similar conditions to you - about 50-60% humidity. You can actually do a lot to control the humidity by fiddling with the heating controls and windows. If you keep the place warm and keep all the windows shut when it is bad weather you can keep it reasonably stable. A decent hygrometer is a must.

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Welcome to the party

I agree with John, get that humidity down before you do any cross-grain gluing. Whatever RH you glue at is the "relaxed" state, and anything up or down from there stresses it when the plates try to expand/contract their width, but are restricted by the braces and perimeter shape. I build at 30-40% because the winter gets so dry here with the heat on, and my humidified area isn't big enough for all the babies I need to do some stress testing sometime to see how going up to 70-80% would affect them, but no problems when it was 60% for a few days last week, aside from a wood tuning peg slipping.

You can do the plate joining and thinning right away, although you might sticker them for a day or two first to let them get most of their moving done. But no rosette or bracing until you get the humidity down and give them a few days to acclimate to it (some people say a week or more, but IME it happens in a matter of hours with plates in the 2-3mm range, so a couple days should be plenty).

More things you can do in high humidity: Make the neck, decide on your method for side bending, bend sides and bindings, split and dimension brace blanks, make linings, slot and taper the fingerboard, make the bridge... No cross-grain glue in any of those.

Your proposed sequence for the neck sounds good to me. Or if your Spanish cedar is plank is long, you could do it as a batch of two necks; One long piece with the rosewood strip laminated in, cut in the center at the scarf angle to produce two neck shaft blanks. One short piece, cut in the center at the scarf angle to produce two headstocks.

Thanks a lot for your posts, really helpful advice.
Yeah, I will definitely have to invest in a dehumidifier, it was 69% when I got home today!!
Good to know there are things I can be doing in the meantime, however.
I like the idea of doing both necks at the same time in that way.
Though I'm not sure I would want to do any gluing whatsoever in such high humidity. might just prepare as much as possible and glue scarf joints etc when i have conditions under control.
Thanks again for your time. Means a lot.

Will

Welcome, Will. Go slow, be patient, don't rush... and have fun!

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George :-)

Dennis Kincheloe,

This may be a silly question but when you say I can thin the plates, do you mean just the back? Presumably I would need to inlay the rosette before thinning the top. Or am I missing the point entirely?
Also, what do you think a good thickness for the rosewood strip would be in terms of the weight of the neck being affected? I was thinking around 8mm. Would that make the neck too heavy for a flamenco guitar?

Wise words, thanks

You can do either way. I usually thin first, then install the rosette, then cut out the soundhole, and sometimes thin a little bit more if it feels too stiff at that point. If you do install the rosette first, at least don't cut the soundhole all the way through until after thinning, because it's a lot easier to plane when there isn't a hole in the middle of the board.


Just make it look right Don't worry about the stiffness effect of more or less width. Stiffness is proportional to the cube of thickness, but only goes up linearly with width, so a couple mm difference in width won't matter much either way. It will make a little weight difference, but of course balance depends on everything else, so I can't say exactly what to do.

Good to hear you're already thinking about neck/body balance, though. It takes a while to get a feel for, and I'm still working on it. The biggest factor is the tuners. Metal tuners are heavy, and have a lot of leverage being out on the headstock. Using wood pegs really lightens it up. I've been obsessed with lightweight building lately, so I love them.

The important thing is that the wood is in stasis and no longer expanding/contracting due to environmental conditions. First you must stabilize the RH in your work environment, then let the wood acclimate to those conditions. The best way I have found to monitor the moisture content of thin sections of wood like tops, backs & sides is to monitor their weight closely and accurately. When the weight stabilizes the wood is acclimated and can be worked. Welcome and good luck.

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You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

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Once your shop is at 45% I'd give it at least a month for the wood to stabilize. It's ok to make cuts in a damp environment and bring the wood inside. My bands saw is outside under a roof and I do all sanding outside but my shop is at 45% RH year round.

Something I've heard a number of times from others is worth repeating: Your first guitar is essentially a woodworking project. If it plays well that is a bonus. Don't obsess too much over it, build it as best you can, improve your skills, and build another one.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

As a first timer myself, I would highly recommend inlaying the sound hole before planing to final thickness. That inlay was a lot harder to get right than I thought it would be, and by the time I'd scraped it down, recognized my mistakes, routed it out and did the whole thing again (more times than I care to remember) my plates were too thin and I had to buy more wood and start over. My advice, for what it's worth, is to get the top flat, leave it thick, complete your inlay, then thin it from the other side.

Good luck!

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

Apologies for not posting sooner, been quite busy. I cant seem to figure out how to add photos. Which is frustrating. I'll try and figure it out as I really need some help.

So, I have made a start. I had a complete disaster and ruined my first neck attempt when drilling the machine head holes. I am still not ready to talk about this It sat there silently mocking me for a couple of days until I picked myself up, dusted myself off and made another one. I was an emotional ordeal!
I joined the top plates, back plates, laminated the neck shaft ad glued the scarf joint. I have also dimensioned the brace blanks and made the peones.

Second potential disaster:
I was quite happy with the join on the back plates, it is almost completely invisible. I used HHG. HOWEVER, when in front of a very bright lamp, light is visible through the seem. is this normal after a glue up?? It doesn't seem to be the case with the top, so I'm guessing not.. Also, I cut it to rough shape and started thicknessing it but managed to gouge out a deep chunk which is way below my final desired thickness. There is a small trough where the thickness (according to my home made thickness caliper) appears to be just under a mm. Is this a complete disaster??? It lies about where the top back bar will be. I am worried about splitting when further down the road. It is only a small void but I'm sure it has weakened the back a great deal.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I'll try and work out why it's not letting me upload photos

Welcome , and Ask away ! They haven't run me off yet THEY HAVE TRIED !! .. Yo will find a huge amount of help and advice here . welcome to the circus

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It happens. My worst "oops" so far was installing frets on my harp ukulele, the day before the Gateway Area gathering at Hibdon this year. Long story short, I hammered it so hard lamination between the neck shaft and heel block separated, and since it's an integral neck that meant the internal headblock too, and the split ran up the sides, and the upper transverse brace cracked as well, plus a few fractures in the soundboard... and still the frets were only mostly seated. I think I need a wider kerf slotting saw. On top of a series of problems related to getting a car for the trip, I decided it just wasn't meant to be, and bailed.

I pondered repair methods for a few days, and eventually decided that I'd probably have to take the back off, but I might as well try the direct approach first... just glue everything all at once. Heat it up, wick thin hide glue into the separated heel lamination and other splits, mash some thicker hide glue around at everything to get as much full strength area as possible, and then stick clamps where possible and hold the upper transverse brace with my fingers through the soundhole... all done at high speed before the glue could gel. Went off without a hitch, and I'm still playing it to this day


Nope, that's not normal. However, there is an alternative to redoing it... inlay a backstrip (solid wood, not marquetry), about half the final thickness of the plate. That gives a lot more glue area to hold the seam together. Then when you install the cross-grain center strip inside, it should be pretty well held together without the need for the original joint.

If your joint was good to begin with, most likely what went wrong was gelling of the glue before you got it clamped up. I'd recommend trying the tape method of joining. Hold the two halves together on the bench and stick a long strip of masking tape along the seam, and a few strips across the grain just to make sure the center tape doesn't peel off. Then flip it over, lift up the center so it looks like a tent, squeeze glue into the joint, and drop it. You can put some weights on it and clamps from the sides as well if you want, but I haven't found it to be necessary. Super fast, so even if the glue is thick and gels quickly, you can still get it squeezed out in time.


Not the end of the world. Worst case, cut a little piece from the back offcut and inlay it where the gouge is. But most likely it wouldn't cause any trouble anyway.

Thanks, great advice.

"If your joint was good to begin with, most likely what went wrong was gelling of the glue before you got it clamped up. I'd recommend trying the tape method of joining. "

I think you're right Dennis, It must have gelled. I did actually use the tape method but I think the plates must have cooled before I finished. It's funny, even though the join looked right, I instantly had the feeling something had gone wrong.. I stayed awake half the night thinking about it! To a beginner like me, this hide glue is scary stuff! I just hope nothing else has gelled. I'm determined to master it though, it's so much nicer to work with than titebond.

Great idea about the inlay, I hadn't thought of that. Question: would the best way be to use a router? I have access to a small one but have never used one before. Sharp bits of metal spinning at 35,000 rpm worry me a bit.. I guess it would be easier than doing it by hand though. I was thinking of scoring it then using a chisel. Is that madness?
Also, for the cross grain backstrip i was thinking of using off cut of the cypress to match it. But something is telling me spruce would be better for some reason. Any advice?

Here's a thought... how are you applying the glue? That can make a big difference in speed. I use a little plastic squeeze bottle, and it usually takes maybe 3-5 seconds to run it along the joint and drop it down. Even thick glue in a cold room has a hard time gelling that fast, when it's pooled in the seam with minimal surface area exposed. The 3 things that result in gel issues are not enough water, not enough heat, or too much time (which results in not enough heat).


An x-acto knife and chisel should do fine for a simple diamond shaped patch.

I don't like sharp spinning things either, but the one power tool I do use regularly is a dremel type tool with StewMac router base. I do a lot of inlay work, and it's just not worth the trouble of chiseling pockets by hand, when I can get more detail and consistent depth and vertical walls with the router. Plus it's not very loud, which is my #2 reason not to use power tools (#1 reason is the percentage of woodworkers who are missing fingers).
But I do still chisel them occasionally just for the heck of it, and sharp corners always need a bit of knife work after routing.


Doesn't matter a bit. Use whatever you have lying around, or whatever fits the personality of the guitar