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Oh, God Bless you... that's a lot of work!
Are you re-insulating walls with expansion foam or fiberglass?

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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."

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I made a home made hammer out of a stick.

I needed a little hammer to whack down fret ends.... Just so happened I had a stick laying around. We will see how this does - as it's eastern red cedar... Which isn't really all that heavy and dense. I may need to try again with an oak or pear stick.





Thanks

geetarman77

Tell us about your "dish". Looks like a cylinder rather than a dome

Ed

That looks really thick, especially for such a dense wood. I'm impressed you managed to bend it at all!

I finished carving the shaft of a neck for the first time yesterday. It was a great experience and I learned a lot about my preferences. I did it using a spokeshave, two Lioger rasps (a rough and a smooth), my block plane (surprisingly), and a used strip of sandpaper from my drum sander for the final blending and smoothing. I think I could get by with just the rough rasp and sandpaper, but I enjoyed using everything. I really enjoyed the process. It felt like proper woodwork as opposed to model making, which is what the soundbox can feel like at times.

I'd always used Hanalei Moon necks until now. With fretboard glued on, they've been about an inch thick. Using a template I got from Luthier Suppliers, the neck was initially .820" at the first fret, which felt frighteningly thin after so many years playing 1". One of my favorite necks from the Santa Barbara show was carved using the 2006 Taylor template from Luthier suppliers as a guide, which is .870" thick at the 1st, so I cut a strip off of the leftovers of the blank I cut the neck from, matched up the grain, and glued it on in an act of desperation. It worked like a charm, and you can't tell what happened unless you really look at the heel. I think that will be blended out once I finish that area up. I was pretty happy to save this one. That extra hair of an inch made a big difference in how it felt to me!

Nice save It's always a challenge to put wood back on

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Yeah, that looks like 1/8"! How did you bend it?

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Pat

Getting ready to spray a bunch of bodies in my Dexter room. Hehe

The dish is a 25ft radius. More radical on the upper bout.

The picture does make them look thick eh?
They were bent at .085


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Installing/scraping the bindings and purfling on my Stahl Style 6 build.

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Having fun learning every day.

Binding an OM.

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Working on a Les Paul DC Redwood veneer project.
I glued the veneer to the top tonight.
I'll need to select a fretboard material and work on the neck before I do much more.
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Wow! That's very cool. In my college days, I could have stared at that for an extended period when in the appropriate frame of mind...

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Don,

I'm using 2" thick white foam panels, R 7.5, added to the inside. The rooms are large enough that I'm not loosing space, and its easier than ripping off all of the exterior cladding. Over the years I've done some of the other rooms, currently I'm just doing the living room and entrance. Then, one last bedroom when I get that far along. To add this, I smash holes into the old drywall in order to compromise the old vapour barrier, add the foam, then do the drywall. This adds 50% more insulation to my 2 x 4 walls with their fiberglass bats.

Ripping out the glued down parquet in the kitchen, dining room, and one bedroom was the worst. But the worst is done now.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Wow, that's a lot of work Doug, but I guess it's better than going completely to the studs and it will sure make a big difference. I hope it all goes well for you. I have completely redone our house except for two bathrooms which I plan to do in the next year or two (just finished the kitchen) - then I'm never moving, ha.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That's better than adding 50% to the fiberglas batts because you're covering over the stud edges with the foam board, cutting down the thermal bridging that occurs through the studs. (Heat conduction through the wood.) Each 8 ft stud at 1-1/2" wide has 1 sq.ft. of surface area and a 15 ft stud wall with no windows or doors will have 13 studs for a total of 13 sq ft of area. At about R4.4 for a stud, that's almost like leaving a whole stud bay uninsulated. You just increased that 13 square feet of wall from R4.4 to R12.

I did the same thing in my shop, with 1-1/2" EPS (pink rigid foam board) over the stud cavities which were filled with 3-1/2" rock wool batts for R23 walls. (And similarly, R38 ceiling). The last thing I need is bigger energy bills.

I'm excited to finally have something to report here. I just glued the braces on the top for my #1 guitar - a mahogany/lutz OM built from the OLF plans. I used the vacuum frame press I built for the occasion. It worked out pretty well with one little glitch - I glued the tone bars and little finger braces all at once and the lower tone bar kind of leaned over a bit so it wasn't making solid contact with the top. I had to carve it off and replace it. I'm a little concerned about being able to avoid that in the future. I might try making some spacer blocks to put between the braces or something like that. But the vacuum was great for gluing the X-brace and everything else.




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Did you use 3 inch drywall screws?

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Pat

I became interested in the work of Greene & Greene architects a while back, so about the middle of last year, I decided to build a guitar using their design motifs for inspiration. The guitar is a new size, a bit wider than on OM, Lutz top, padouk B&S.

padouk bridge with African blackwood accents


Amboyna burl rosette


1937 Dodge grill


Pat

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

Excellent work, Pat! I love that bridge. 3 dimensional details are even cooler than inlays.

It's great to see design ideas that are new, at least to me, and those are especially nice. I like to rosette a lot and I agree about the 3-D aspects. Did you incorporate those sorts of elements into other parts of the guitar?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks. I didn't know how it was going to pan out with the inlays standing proud on a guitar, but was pleased at the outcome.




The fretboard inlays will be small paua squares, playing off the inlays on the bridge. They'll be flush; seemed weird having them sticking up on the fretboard. Side markers will be inlaid into the neck, small blackwood squares, also flush. The tail graft will echo the soundport, with recon stone jade.

Pat

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

No, I used 2" screws because the 1.5" EPS foam has a rabbet at the edge that overlaps a furring strip. The strips are installed horizontally, across the studs and the foam board (2' wide) is between them, with that overlap so there is only 3/4" of foam over the furring strip. With 1/2 gypsum board the 2" screws were long enough.

Since I teach I had more time in the shop over the past week than normal so I was able to get my latest up to the point of applying the finish. This one is Ziricote with bearclaw Sitka top. I've always loved the look of Ziricote and have built several guitars with it before that I planned on keeping as personal instruments but they have all sold quickly since other folks like the look and sound too. Maybe this one I'll get to keep for awhile, or maybe not since selling a guitar is pretty cool also.



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