Thank you for visiting. I've been playing the guitar for more than 30 years (an eternal intermediate!). Last year I build my first acoustic guitar. I've recently started on my second guitar, armed with a lot of knowledge of what (and what NOT) to do this time around. I would like to share my experience with you. This page contains some pictures and descriptions of my second guitar as I am building it. The guitar
is a 12 fret OM style acoustic. I made the back and sides out of Macassar Ebony and the top is Engelman Spruce. The binding is Bloodwood (more on this later).
You can read my brief descriptions and view the pictures by following the appropriate link. I am not showing the whole building process, just some things that I have done that
may be a little different than normal. I apologize for the relatively low quality of the photos; a new digital camera is high on my want list. I would love to hear from you with comments or suggestions, so please feel free to e-mail me!
Gluing the Back to the Rims Everything is set up in my "go-bar" deck. I use the go-bar deck alot throughout my building process. The back was built on a 15 foot radius form
which keeps the arch in the back. I have already routed in the multicolored back stripe. As you can see, I use both cam clamps and go bars.
Top Bracing I am trying something different here. If you look closely at the photo, you will see
that the main braces are "relieved". They have an "I-beam" cross section, with the spine being 3/32" thick. My past experience building homes lead me to this design. In home construction, we used
engineered wooden "I-Beam" floor joists, which allows for longer spans between supports than typical dimensional lumber. The joist are also lighter and stiffer, but also more resilient. I thought
that I could use this to brace a guitar top, hopefully giving me bracing with the strength of non-scalloped bracing, and the light weight of scalloped braces. I did some experimenting with design before I
settled on this as meeting (Hopefully!!) both requirements. Here is another photo of the top bracing. The bracing pattern I used is symetrical like that used by Larrivee, Manzer and Laskin. Since I really
love the sound of Larrivee guitars, I though this would be a good pattern to use for this experiment. You will also be able to see the bloodwood binding on the edge of the soundhole.
Gluing the Top to the Rims I again use the go-bar deck. I used my son's old POGS between the go-bar sticks and the soft top in order to keep the top from denting from the pressure. Worked perfectly!
I keep the body in the mold during the gluing process. The sides are braced from the inside with forms which I remove through the soundhole after the gluing is complete.
The Slotted Headstock The unfinished headstock is bound in bloodwood and w/b/w purfling. My logo is inlaid, as is the bloodwood circle at the top. The headstock overlay is made from two pieces of scrap Macassar Ebony leftover from the back.
I bookmatched the pieces in a taper to mimic the taper of the headstock. I used a 12 fret, slot-head neck purchased from Stewart-MacDonald. Carving necks is not one of my favorite things to do! Here is a photo of the back of the headstock showing the neat martinesque volute. I was very pleased
with the dimensional and symetrical accuracy of the Stew-Mac neck.
The Neck Joint I kept the dovetail joint from the Stew-Mac neck, but decided to use a single bolt to fasten it to the body. I got this idea from visiting Judy threet's site and seeing her new screwed-on dovetail neck joint. Kinda blends traditional with contemporary. The dark area around the
hole is epoxy that I used to permanently afix the brass threads into the neck. I used a double length of threads to insure that it won't pull out of the endgrain.
The Rosette Here is my rosette, made with a double row of Abalam through a bloodwood circle. The Ablam is bordered by b/w/b purfing. You can see the bloodwood binding on the edge of the soundhole in this photo. I really like this detail. I first saw it on my
Breedlove Northwest guitar, and again on a Taylor GAKS that I used to own. I think it adds a finished look to the soundhole.
Body Detail Here I have the neck test fitted onto the body. In this photo you can see the bloodwood binding on the body and fingerboard, the Ablam purfling around the top and the bloodwood trim along the neck joint. I used this detail on my first guitar, and liked it so much that I repeated it here.
I like the rich look of the bloodwood, but found it quite difficult to bend. It seems to have a high resin content, is very stiff and quite brittle, I believe because of the relatively short woodgrain. I broke several pieces before I was successful. I found that I had to soak the bloodwood for an hour before bending on the Fox side bender. Because for the high resin content, it scorches pretty easily, but only on the surface, so it cleans up easily. Since I planned to glue the w/b/w purfling to the binding prior to bending it,
I needed to use a glue that would stand up to the prolonged soaking. I used Titebond II, which is designed for outdoor and wet weather use. It worked great, and held tight throughout the heating and bending process. I couldn't locate a source for bloodwood binding, so I ripped my own binding from some bloodwood stock I ordered from The Wood & Shop. If you would like to give bloodwood a try, drop me a line, I have lots!. The marks on the fingerboard are
pencil marks for my fret markers.
The Unfinished Guitar Here it is so far. The body is ready for final sanding and finishing. I am in the process of installing the frets and position markers, and then the neck should be ready for finishing also. I will post addtional photos as I progress.
The Bridge I spent alot of time thinking about and designing the bridge. I am convinced that the height of the saddle and the string break angle over the saddle
has a lot to do with the volume and presence of a guitar. On my first guitar, I intentionally raised the fingerboard extension in order to allow for a higher saddle. On this
guitar, I used a radiused top which gave the fingerboard extension the proper angle. I used a stepped bridge design, allowing for .4" thickness around the saddle, and reduced to .25" at the bridge pins. This allowed me to build in an aggressive string break angle. I also angled
the pins in the same direction as the saddle, but at a sharper angle, so that the treble side pins are closer to the bridge than the bass side pins. This was necessary to
preserve the treble string break angle over the lower portion of the saddle. Here is another look at the bridge. You can really see the break angles in this photo. The saddle slot is wider than standard and gave me a lot of saddle to really nail the intonation. All in all, the time I spent on the bridge was well worth it.
The Finished Guitar And here it is! I used LMI's waterborne lacquer and got a very nice, glossy finish. I used the X-linker this time, and I really think it helped the finish. The X-linker gave it a very hard surface which I never once sanded through. It also polished up well, although the hardness and toughness of the X-linked surface made in absolutely necessary to use 2000 grit sandpaper prior to polishing. Otherwise the scratches showed. The combination of Macassar Ebony and Bloodwood make for quite a rich look. And it even sounds like a guitar. There were a lot of
different things that I tried in an attempt to achieve the desired tone: the symetrical bracing pattern and I-beam design, stepped bridge and saddle design, deeper and slightly elongated body. The guitar has a very clear and even sound, the highs really ring out! The bass is full but not overpowering, and for my fingerstyle of playing, it is close to ideal.
Below are addition pictures of the completed guitar. Thanks for visiting. Contact me and let me know what you think!
E-mail me with questions, comments or sugestions!
