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Mon 5 Jan 2009
On Saturday the 20th of December Christine’s mother, Joan, received her guitar at their Christmas. Before I gave it to her I took a few pictures at home. Safe to say she was pleasantly surprised…
Enjoy.
Wed 17 Dec 2008
Work on 12/13/08 and 12/14/08
With the finish polished to it’s final gloss it was finally time to bring the guitar to life by adding the bridge, saddle, nut, tuners and strings… Oh yeah, can’t forget a pretty label.
Immediately after polishing I roughened up the area that was masked off previously for the bridge with some 80 grit sandpaper. Two bridge pins will be used to index the bridge while being glued to the soundboard. The bridge was set in it’s final position and the 1st and 6th bridge pin holes were drilled out. Wood glue was applied liberally to the bridge and the soundboard and put in position. The bridge pins were wrapped with masking tape and reinserted. The bridge as then clamped in place using a long-reach clamp, a shaped caul and some wedges. Any glue squeeze-out was removed from the bridge and the lacquer using a damp paper towel and left to dry. (more…)
Wed 17 Dec 2008
Work from 12/5/08 through 12/13/08
Time for the stuff that really gives a project life and can cause hours of aggravation: the finish. There are two major options for finishing a wood guitar: a clear film finish (traditionally varnish or lacquer) or oil. Oil finishes are super easy to apply. You just wipe on 10-12 coats of oil, letting it dry overnight between coats. The surface of the wood has to be perfect though because the oil will enhance every missed sanding scratch. Oil doesn’t give the guitar much protection either. A film finish is much tougher. It was mainly for this reason I chose lacquer. I chose a water-borne lacquer called KTM-9 that came highly regarded by other home luthiers. Before I could spray on the lacquer I needed to do some prep work…
Tue 16 Dec 2008
Work from 11/25/08 through 12/6/2008
The sole purpose of the headstock is really just to hold the tuning machines. It’s never flat with the fingerboard but angled at about 10 degrees so that the strings exert some pressure on the nut. It can be virtually any size and shape. Most built it with a fairly simple Martin or Gisbon style head shape. I really liked the headstock designs of Tom Doerr in Florida who I got the wood sound-hole rosette idea from. It had a nice asymmetrical shape that gave a lot of free space for the ebony and mother-of-pearl inlay of “Christy”. (more…)
Tue 16 Dec 2008
Work from 11/11/08 through 12/4/08
The neck of a guitar is a pretty unique little piece of engineering. About a quarter of the build time of the entire guitar went into some portion of the neck/headstock. The neck has to be thick enough to withstand the stresses from the strings and not twist or bend. Yet it has to be thin enough to be comfortable to play. The neck also transmits some of the sound energy into the body, so the acoustic properties of the woods needs to be addressed. It also needs to be adjustable down the road… The fingerboard needs to be machined accurately so that the instrument plays in tune for it’s entire scale length. The tolerances required are quite daunting. (more…)
