Mahogany Size Two

[darren]

Darryl, I used the same purfs on the EIR/Cedar L-OO I finished last year. You can get it at Grizzly or LMI. It has a nice vintage vibe to it. :) I'm not ambitious enough to try lay up my own block, so I'll go with the pre-made stuff for now.

It was a little harder to bend this time around, maybe my heat was too high or something. I remember being surprised at how easy it was to bend, but this time it twisted really bad - Hard to keep it bending in just one plane. (this is by hand, not on a fox bender) Hopefully bending the top purfs goes better.


Here it is on my L-OO, where I added another B/W inside and outside the marquetry:

[darren]

Trying something new out here... well new to me anyway. I spent the week scratching my head over this - what a lot of angles to consider.
I'm really interested to see how the rim feels when I'm able to get this out of the mold.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I really like that purfling and want to use it down the road too.
Darren, what is it that you're trying to accomplish with this brace setup?

Kevin

[darren]

Kevin,
The buttress system distributes the load of the neckblock to the waist of the sides, which should stop any neckblock rotation in the future. It's built with .25 carbon fiber tubes and is extremely light and stiff. This isn't my own design, I've borrowed heavily from Dave White's construction methods. ( http://defaoiteguitars.com/ ) I'm sure there are a few other more well-known luthiers who use a similar buttress system.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Thanks Darren, ya know, I don't get out much! :>)

Kevin

[darren]

Hey Kevin, I remembered another luthier who uses these, Rick Turner: http://www.rickturnerguitars.com/pdf/05 ... er_all.pdf

It looks like he even omits the Upper Transverse Brace and uses a much smaller neckblock. I'm not quite there yet... :) One step at a time.

[darren]

onward...

back braced, and starting the fitting process.

[CavalierKingCharles]

Beautiful work Darren. I really like the Buttress, just another thing I want to try.

Scott

[darren]

Thanks Scott. I know the buttress is probably overkill on this little body but I'm working myself up to a baritone build and wanted some practice with it. :)

In the last week or so I've braced and carved the top and fit it to the rim. I scalloped this time, which i did on my first, but not since. I've been doing a parabolic taper, which I actually really like. It will be interesting to see what difference, if any, I feel/hear with this top.

Looking at these shots the bracing looks huge, but it's just perspective, and a really small body shape. this is .25 bracing and about .5 at the X.




I think I got a little low at this end of the X... :)



After some cleaning up it's glued up. screws in the mold, mold clamped to the table, and strap that sucker down on the rim.

[darren]

the boat:






and the box: