Official Luthiers Forum!

Gentleman,

First off, let me just say that this forum is a Godsend. I've been lurking for a week or so, and have spent hours reading tons of useful info, but this is my first post. A little background on me, I have always been into the crafts of some sort. I come from a family that has always been in the construction industry. Plumbing, HVAC, remodeling, new construction. I've built just about everything so far, except a guitar. I am a plumber by trade, but now have an office job designing mechanical systems in AutoCAD on a large construction scale. I do hospitals, airports, stadiums, museums, skyscraper office buildings, etc... So I'm anxious to see how I can apply my AutoCAD skills to making guitars, but that's a subject for the CNC forum.. The reason I bring all this up is to show that I do place great attention to details, and am capable of the work that is required to build a good guitar.

That being said, I am about to embark on my fist guitar build with my Father. We are in the process of trying to determine what all power tools we will need to do an effective job. We have all kind of hand tools, cordless power tools, routers, radial arm saw, and miter saws. I'm thinking we will also need a 6-8" planer, a drum sander, maybe a band saw? Does this sound about right? We can attain tools as we need them I guess.

Our first build, I would like to build an OM bodied guitar with a sharp cutaway that is a little more shallow than normal. This will be a fingerstyle guitar and light strumming guitar, so I am thinking some sort of cedar top, and Honduran Mahogany back and sides. Not sure of the neck wood yet, but would like a rosewood fretboard. The "FIRST" real question that I have for you guys though, is how do I go about finding a proper set of plans to begin work? I've read on here that the plans that are commercially distributed, if followed to a "t", will only yield a marginal instrument. This just won't be good enough. Don't get me wrong, I know that this won't be easy, and I know that realistically speaking, we will make mistakes.. But I want the best chance to do a great job as possible. Any help in pointing me to the right direction would be greatly helpful. Thanks,

Jason

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
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United States of America, looks like another silent night
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Welcome Jason , Look forward to seeing your work posted in the future !

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Jason the first tip I can give you is that the plans don't make a mediocre instrument the builder does. There are a lot of good plans out there. Google is your friend. Start there and come back and ask some more questions.

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Sounds like sound advise. I've actually Googled this quite a bit over the last few weeks, and the kits that have struck the OM Style over at Stewmac.com, and the OM model over at Lmii.com. Has any had experience with either of these sets of plans? I see that there is quite a difference in price, is there a particular reason? I don't mind the price if its warranted.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

IMO some of the nicest OM plans available are free (except for the cost of having them printed), and can be found at the following link...

http://www.grellier.fr/plans.php?lang=en

Welcom Jason,

As for the tools, if you have a table saw and hand planes, you won't need a jointer (IMO) (you said 6-8" planer, but I think you ment jointer). I had a 4" jointer, which was set up very well too, that I used a few times to get my headstock angle set, but I found that it took up space in my shop and I really didn't use it much. A thickness sander is very nice to have but not necessary. A badsaw is also very nice when wanting to cut shapes or make your own molds.... I guess some of the tooling really depends on how much of the secondary tooling you want to build versus make (ie, molds, bending forms, jigs....)

As for a warm sounding fingerstyle guitar, I'd tend to stear towards EIR (east indian rosewood)/cedar versus Mahogany, but that's just me. I like the depth of tone EIR offers over Mahogany.

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I too think the Grellier plans are good value and seeing as you have mass access to AutoCad I'm sure you have access to a large format printer which won't cost you anything to print. So free is good, just watch the scale when printing of course and honestly, don't hold to fast to the scale on the drawing. Mind you, it wouldn't take you much to scale everything correct with your ACAD experience (I'm an old machine design guy who used ACAD everyday for many years...)

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

WOW! Awesome find, thanks a ton Charlie. I actually have a plotter at the office, so printing of these will be a breeze. I had planned on scanning plans and bringing them into AutoCAD for minor changes anyway. This will make it that much easier.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Thanks for the info Rod. It does seem like a lot of the work can be done using jigs and a little bit of ingenuity. We definitely want to be able to place most of our investment for the project into the materials versus the tools if we can. We can always buy tools, but a guitar is only built once, hopefully!

I hadn't thought about using EIR instead of the Mohagany. The reason I had thought Mahogany was that I have a cedar/mahogany guitar that I love the tone of. I will have to try and find that wood combo on a guitar locally and see if I can get my hands on it for a listen.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

You know it! I've already got the OM plan in AutoCAD starting to work at it.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

You're in like Flynn! I use Rhino and have had a lot of fun playing with Grellier's plans. I'm playing around with his L-00 plan right now but with a different scale length. So easy to do in CAD.

This is gonna be a blast! I've already got it to proper scale, now I just need to design in the sharp cutaway, and actually have it be useful and structural. The tough part begins! I'll post up drawings for input if you guys don't mind.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Ahhh, you're not at the tough part yet...., mind you as this is your first, most "parts" are going to seem like the tough part. You're going to have fun though, I can tell

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Sounds like your first guitar is going to come out a lot nicer than my first guitar, LOL!

BTW I love the sound of mahogany. The lighter weight VS EIR seems to add some sparkle to the tone, which works great for fingerstyle IMO.

Have you read Cumpiano's book? Lots of good stuff in there if you want to build by hand with minimal tooling.

I only seem to use my planer when building electrics to dimension the body blanks, never for acoustics.

High quality meticulously sharpened chisels and hand planes are essential. I use a spokeshave for the back of the neck, and 18 long aluminum beams from Stew-Mac for the final fretboard radius.

Most factory guitars are overbuilt, as are most commercially available plans, it seems. You can follow the plans and make a great sounding instrument, if you simply lighten the materials a little.

For the OM models, many luthiers use only 1 finger brace per side, and 1 lower face brace, as well instead of two.

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Ok! Here is the first draft of the sharp cutaway. Opinions and suggested welcome. I kept a 1/16" clearance between the cutaway and the front brace, but no clearance between the side and the neck block. Not sure if all of this is the proper terminology yet, but I'll get it down.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Todd, You build some beautiful instruments, and I really appreciate your input. I don't want to complicate things too much, but I do want it to be a challenge, other wise I would buy a kit. You're right though, it does change quite a bit, and hopefully I can work out the details before I get started on it. I have drafted another version that I will post in a new thread with an altered headstock and neck joint to accompany the cut-away. Please check it out, and give me your thoughts.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

I would go with a bridge plate that extends farther in the back, giving more plate beyond the bridge pins. This will help a LOT with lifting/top distortion down the road.

Better to stick with traditional designs (Martin D, OM, 000 style) and concentrate on getting the best sound out of what you have, than design from the ground up when you aren't even familiar with how each element in the guitar will affect the way it sounds. Most guitars are that shape for a reason and there are so many plans and body shape out there that you can just stick with one that you like and elaborate on it.

On the other hand, once you got your first scratch build down (and I mean scratch, from sets, cut your own fretboard, etc.) then push yourself a bit by introducing more complicated design elements such as cutaway, bound headstock, etc. to further your skill.

Luthiery and general carpentry is totally different thing, while some elements are similar most are not. Just because you can build a good cabinet and are good at that, doesn't mean you're good at building an instrument... I've fixed instruments that were "repaired" by someone who is a general carpenter... not a pretty sight.

CAD and others only become more important as you go into mass production, when you're no longer building one off instruments but producing stuff on a massive scale.

You also have to consider another variable, which is wood. There are no set brace shape out there and you simply can't have one brace profile because wood vary in density by a huge margin. Builders would actually glue brace stocks on the top and scallop them by tapping the soundboard and hearing how it responds.

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