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I'm just thinking that having started a particular methodology, IE domed top, outside mold, you're best off simply completing the steps consistent with that methodology.

Simply chuck it back in the mold, glue the back on, transfer the neck angle to the heel. You may have to re-drill some holes, but that's not so bad.

You may find that the neck angle still works.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Saves space.

Saves time.

You can make your neck block and bolt holes ahead of time, and insure the holes line up.

3 advantages.



When you coming over?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Always appreciate your feedback John but for some reason I'm not making the situation clear. I have already "adjusted the neck angle to the body" and will not, and have no intention of "forcing the neck block to an attached top." In fact my challenge is to NOT force the neck block, but instead try and keep it exactly the way it is through the clamping process. It will be hit or miss for exactly the reasons Brian explains but I'm in pretty deep at this point and worse case is I have to re-adjust the neck angle which hopefully will remain pretty close to where it is now when gluing on the back.

Again always appreciate the help and feedback and I have admit it's been quite a long time since I read someone claim there was a 'right' way to build guitars, but I can tell you now that this is probably one of the 'wrong' ways to build. I'll find out pretty soon. Thanks Again

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Thank You and Best To All

Brian, First, thank you for taking the time to clarify your post, I appreciate the energy and effort to do so. Second, you could not have described the situation and upcoming challenge more exactly.

I'll follow this path simply because I headed down it out of ignorance, so I'm all in at this point. I don't have many options other than "trying this method" considering the stage at which the guitar is in but I will not try it in the future for, again, exactly the reasons you articulated so well above. Thanks again for the help and input.

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Thank You and Best To All

That's the plan Todd.

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Thank You and Best To All

When you build a classical guitar with a traditional Spanish heal you close the back with the neck attached. I have adopted this method on the first few steel strings I built such that I would bolt the neck on the guitar making sure the angle was set correctly and then glue the back on. So in a way it's a similar process except that I have the neck attached, the angle set, and the whole piece clamped in place on the open work board before closing the back.

I don't use this method any more. I close the back then get the neck right but it did work just fine. And in any case if there was a slight discrepancy it was easy enough to just get the angle right.

Appreciate the comment. Pretty sure I'll abandon the method from now on as well but will hope for good results as you illustrate.

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Thank You and Best To All

Kind of a stretch on true space savings, most people store some wood to make components out of, or the component blanks themselves, so the milled components wouldn't take up any more space, but understand you had a need to vent, so I took the bait for you. I was hoping you'd have a stronger response. I'm actually a little disappointed.

As far as the accuracy of the method goes, any method can be accurate, as long as the builder is accurate.

But you just made great case for butt joints. I think you should switch!

I personally don't like them, but I could get used to them, I think.

I personally like making the neck tenon and reinforcing it, I rather enjoy the process.

And that's the real point for most of us, isn't it? Personal enjoyment?

So even if it DID take me longer to do certain steps accurately, the personal satisfaction of a job well done and the thankfullness to my Creator for making me the way I am increases as well.



Some of these guys are pretty stick on their methodology and are extremely tool dependant. Take away one tool, and they're stuck.
Me too to a degree, for instance, take away my chisel, and I don't know what to do.

But I still prefer to be more flexible.

Frankly, I can see you building a workboard and a matching shim, to which you can clamp the top down with a shoe to maintain the neck angle, like this picture, and closing the back with spool clamps, if you make your workboard flush enough, but that's just me. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and I have no problem with Stock's and Blues's methods either. Being proficient and familiar with both makes me more flexible, I think.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

picture worth a 1000 words.
that makes things much clearer . You have much to learn and it can be a fun and at times a frustrating journey..

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Not my (OP) guitar or my set up but I agree, picture worth 1000 etc.

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Thank You and Best To All

The difference is, if someone wants to build with an outside mold, I don't belittle them, or tell them that since they're doing it differently than I would, they don't have a snowball's chance of building a good guitar.
If I had tried the outside mold method once or twice, got mediocre results, and switched to my current build methodology, I wouldn't tell people that the outside mold/radius dish method was intrinsically flawed and unable to produce a good result simply because my results were poor, especially considering the fact of all the guitars that have successfully been made using those techniques would nullify my criticism. I would have to think that maybe the problem was my execution, not the methodology.

Yet, that's exactly what you do. You've made a few guitars that you weren't completely satisfied with using one method, so you switched, and now you insult people who don't use your method, despite the thousands of guitars in existence that have been made using workboards, that play and sound as good as any guitar in existence, and I'm not talking about my own guitars. You're unwilling to consider that maybe your execution was flawed.

Frankly, I feel like I would know how to take Larry's guitar and neck, and build a one-time use workboard specifically to put the back on this guitar while maintaining the neck angle, and execute it properly.

Larry could too, but if he looks up to you as a builder sufficiently, he might be unwilling to try based on your negative opinion.

Doesn't mean he has to switch to using workboards exclusively, but he might overlook a possible solution to his current dilemma, because of your negativity.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

♫ Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya...

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

As was pointed out, traditional Spanish guitar construction glues the back on last. Although it generally uses a work board, a simple straight board with the appropriately sized spacer blocks at the nut, body/ neck joint, and bridge positions to set the string height can be used in its place. With the neck and body clamped to this simple jig you can see the amount the sides will be distorted (if any) and adjust the neck angle to eliminate it. You can keep it clamped to this jig when gluing the back on to maintain the proper neck angle.
I have used the work board method a few times, but generally use an outside mold, and complete the body before attaching the neck.

That's quite the rant you got going there.

Perhaps you need the help of a professional?

Truthfully, you lost me with the gish gallop but anyway...

Suffice to say I am not setting up straw men, I'm responding to your actual arguments.

I don't have time to look them up, I'm not retired, but it usually goes like this:

Someone posts a question wondering about the Cumpiano method as a viable alternative for someone who has a small shop and doesn't want to buy/make a vast array of go-bar decks, radius dishes, outside molds, and bulky neck angle jigs, and the associated power tools required to make everything work correctly.

Your response is usually along the lines of "I made two guitars using that method, and I can tell you from experience that it is unreliable, imprecise, and next to impossible to get repeatable results with. I've adopted the approach that actually works, and is best for me and my students. Cumpiano, you suck!!!"

Okay, maybe you don't say Cumpiano sucks, but I'm not setting up a straw man.

This is your actual argument.

The response to that is "I use Cumpiano's method. I get great results. My neck angle is precise, the action is great, and it's repeatable and reliable. Plus, the neck can be made straight from the nut to the end of the fretboard without having to measure and transfer angles."

My response is than characerized as being neophytic in nature and rigid in approach.

Frankly, you are the one setting up straw men.

You're the one rigidly stuck with a particular approach.

I actually can build with outside molds and go bar decks, but I choose not to. Another local builder uses that stuff and he has a 1000 square foot workshop in his back yard to accomodate it, but I don't have the space.
I would also not dissuade anyone from using it nor question their results without ever having seen one of their guitars.



Well, that's exactly what I've BEEN saying.

I'm glad you agree. You usually don't put it that way.

Also, I don't have to have seen and played every guitar on earth to make certain assertions, that's just goofy.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Anyone who has a guitar with a properly attached neck, please join in!

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

Quote mining.

Politicians do it all the time.

Curiously, I noticed that when you described your process and mentioned that your necks are dead straight all the time, I didn't argue with you.

I also have never impugned the abilities of anyone who started using the workboard and then soon switched.

Perhaps you can mine a quote where I insult somebody specifically because they use molds and radius dishes?

Trevor's responses (do we have to drag himn into this?) were specific to an actual concern he had that he read in the book, that Cumpiano himself addressed on his website, and when I posted the solution that I was using, he said it looked "better". He seems to be a gentleman. I've never felt insulted by anything he's said, and he's actually quite helpful.

I bought his book after one discourse we had where he very eloquently made his point. I unfortunately was not so nice, but I'm not perfect.

I hope he forgives me, it seems he has, although he's such a gentleman that I would likely not know if he hadn't.

You however, Todd Stock, can be downright nasty, and you haven't presented all your quotes.

You've left out quite a few.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Speaking of quotes, Will Rogers once said "when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging".

Something to consider, TGW.

Now I'm being attacked because I have a different wood supplier. LOL!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Don't see it that way from my point of view. Predictable and entertaining though.

More quote mining.



Describing what you are doing and then giving an example of who else does it doesn't nullify my describing what you are doing. That's just silly!

You're quote mining. Badly, I might add.



Actually I said that I hadn't seen any mold built guitars that didn't have a degree of falloff, which is true. You posted a picture of one, and so did Trevor. I find that you often restate my argument in a manner inconsistent with what I actually said. Didn't you call that a straw man argument? Go back and find that actual quote.

But anyway, I've changed my view on that. It is quite possible to get a nice straight neck with a mold built guitar. It's just a little more work, as you have to transfer the angle from the guitar to the neck heel and finesse them together, and then possibly level the hump out of the fretboard if you didn't transfer it perfectly, that's all. I still haven't seen any in person, either. I do quite a few refrets where I level out irregularities in the fretboard due to shoddy fitting. I'm not saying your fitting is shoddy either. It may be, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.






Compare the above two statements by you. In one, you state that the statement you call an insult in the other statement is not an insult. Which is it? This is exactly the type of problems you run into when you gish gallop and don't think about what you are really saying. You're actually being quite incoherent at this point (and many others). Also, I fail to even see an insult anyway. I stated that I like the straightness I achieved with the Cumpiano method, and stated that the same straightness was tough to achieve with a mold. That's not an insult, and besides, it IS a little more work to achieve that straightness.

Maybe you should put down the alcohol and reread all these tomorrow morning when you can think clearer.




Trevor had a specific point of contention, a quite valid one, that even Cumpiano addressed on his web site.
It's unfortunate that you don't have any, beyond your general inability to achieve a satisfactory result with the method, and your facility with sarcastic belittlement.
It doesn't seem Trevor has actually tried the method, but I'm sure he would be able to complete the instrument with the correct degree of precision. Having read his book, I'm impressed with his passion and attention to detail. Trevor's point made me go back and think about the differences between Cumpiano's book and his current technique. Although I'm sure I could have completed a guitar eventually from the text, I'm glad I went there in person and saw exactly how he assembles his instruments step by step.


It does seem that with the old workboard and shim setup that a higher degree of care must be taken, but that shouldn't be a fatal problem for someone who is careful. I've never attempted a build with strictly the book method. I took what I learned from Cumpiano's tutorial in person, a few good ideas here and there from this forum, and one or two ideas from Trevor's book and adapted them to my home shop. If I ever get more space I'll likely make more changes.


"himn" was atypo. So was that last word, I missed the space between "a" and "typo". I spilled juice on my keyboard a while back, and sometimes the keys stick.




It's good to see that there is another point that we can agree on.



Not really, I found this whole thing to be quite an incoherent mess! But then again, at the same time, that seems to be what I'm coming to expect, so in a way, my expectations ARE being met. Your arguments don't say what you're saying they say, and simply calling something a straw man, or whatever else, doesn't make it so. You seem to be unable to accurately apply the terms.



This scorecard thingy is meaningless when you're the one doing the scoring. Plus, you have to set up straw men to demonstrate that I've set up straw men.




Words to live by! May it provide you with many years of amusement.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Feels a bit funny posting a follow up to this thread but here goes. To recap - I originally set the neck angle and pretty much finished the neck set with the back off. Mainly out of ignorance and I think I saw this done somewhere but with no details. It worked really well and was very easy to install and remove the neck but then I noticed that the neck block was unstable without the back on and it would move with very little effort changing the neck angle along with that movement.

That was the basic impetus for my original post. In the mean time I ruined the back plate by going too thin and have since built a thickness sander, purchased new material and finally put the back on tonight.

I used spool clamps and did a trial run and with the neck installed I could actually change the angle of the neck as the neck block shifted under the clamp pressure. Now this is not for the purists because I understand that that shift also changed the neck block angle, either to, or away from square.

I glued it up, clamped it and shifted the neck to where the clearance over the bridge was what I wanted, tightened the clamps and Bob's your uncle. Again not for the purists but the problem of the neck shifting under clamping and ruining the neck angle was real but easy to solve, at least when I glued it up. We'll see what the morning brings.

And of course this is not a standard practice and I was brought to this bridge through ignorance but in the future I might use some variant of the technique, perhaps a butt joint with the neck angle 90% set, close the box and fine tune. Not sure, but working on the neck with the back off was a pleasure and now that I've done this one it may be worth pursuing knowing the land mines and pitfalls.

Thanks again for all the great info and help (and entertainment.)

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Thank You and Best To All

In the morning check under the neck block where it should be glued to the back of the guitar and make sure there's no gap under it, or a dimple in the back of the guitar in the same spot.

I'm still crafting my response to Todd's last Magnum Opus Logicum, but I've been busy workin'. I wish I was retired.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I just missed my breakfast getting caught up on this adventure!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker