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I have not been blogging this as it does not have any new techniques in it. Unlike many of my previous builds this has pretty standard x-bracing. I have Kent Everett voicing a Steel String Guitar and I have been trying to follow his method of voicing the guitar. I will be interested to hear how it turns out. The top does have a good tap tone now and to my feel has the right amount of flexibility. We shall see.

This is the first time I have used Indonesian Rosewood. It is the same species as East Indian Rosewood just grown in a different environment. It seems and works just like EIR. I will bind the guitar with Australian Black wood with a BWB side purfling. I also used it for an end graph, instead of a wedge. More classical like trim. Here is where I am now with a few construction photos thrown in.

I used a shooting board, a jack plane and my LMI plate joiner jig to glue up the plates







No problem bending. I had the sides tightly profiled before I bent. I took a lot of care lining up the center of the waste. The top is profiles with a 40' radius dish and the back a 15' radius dish. This is my first use of the 40' instead of a 28' dish. I found I did not have to fuss with the upper bout angle with the 40' I usually find I need to flatten the angle when using a 28'







I used a 3/32' end mill to route the rebate for the rosette. It is just the right size to pack in 2 bwb prufling strips. Using the same router setting for top and the rosette assured that I had the right width rebate a rosette ring for my final rosette.











Did all of the brace glue ups in my go bar deck not bothering with the vacuum box I have.



Marking and cutting the notch for the x brace. The joint was very tight and for once straight.







I put some shellac on the redwood to protect it. I am also working with a 5 mill mylar template tape to the top. Here is a picture before I covered the top



Cut the channel for the end graph with a scalpel and a chisel.







I marked out and cut the notches in the linings for the top and back and am in the process of cleaning everything up before I close the box

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I just closed the box. This is the first guitar (other than an acoustic bass) I built using a 40' radius dish for the top instead of a 28' or 30' radius. When I have used a 28' or 30' radius I would always have to somewhat flatten the angle of the upper bout (mostly removing wood around the waist with a flat sanding bar). With the 40' radius I was right on. Given that the rims kept the 40' radius profile and all the braces except the center of the transverse brace were radiused to 40' the top fit like a glove (not OJ's).

My target is 2.5 mm from the plain of the neck to the top at the saddle.



Top on before gluing, when I did glue it on I started getting a bit of squeeze out just from the weight of the top.



Still a bunch of clamps were involved





I am all trimmed up but stopped for the moment, I am still waiting for a new batch of bindings from Australia and when I went down this morning to start the neck I realized I did not have a neck blank.

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Looks awesome. I have always liked the look of redwood tops, but never played one. I may have to try to build with one. What are your objectives wrt sound for the guitar? Just wondering what drove the decision to use redwood.

Thanks!

Glenn

Thanks Glen, I used redwood before. I find the sound a bit warmer than spruce. I mainly chose this top for its look, the guy I am making for wanted an older looking guitar, slot head tuners, 12 frets to the body. He wanted a darker wood. So I had him pick from a few tops that include Western Red cedar, mahogany and the sinker redwood top. He liked the streaky looking top I am using.

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looks unbelievable. i have been interested in a Redwood top 12 fret 00. I am envious of your build. Good job man!

Thank You

I bent a set of Australian Blackwood bindings with a BWB prufling and leveled the the sides getting ready to bind the machine.





I was planning to do some fancy mitering when I routed the for the bindings I lifted over the endgraph a bit by gluing on a stripe of purfling to the top. Then I finished cutting the binding rebate by the end graph by hand.



But in a loss of focus, when I noticed part of the rebate was not cut cleanly I ran the router clear around the guitar so now I am set up for a clean butt joint between the bindings and the end graph. I am OK with that. A clean butt joint looks better than a bad miter. In any case I glued in the bindings with an additional black fiber strip on the top.



With the binding glued on I routed the mortise in the top of the guitar using the jig I have from Luthier tools. I had no problems or excitement and ended with a clean centered mortise.





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I had been doing finish prep for the last few days, so I drilled for the neck bolt so that I could put the guitar into my finish jig and applied the first coat of zpoxy. I am really liking how it looks on this wood combo.

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wow those colors are popping. Gunna be sweet John.

I hope this pops to a second page. because this post is going to have a bunch of pictures as well.

I have the neck carved. It still needs some final sanding but I stopped for the day as my standards for what I would take was going lower. This my first with a classical heal for a couple of years. Also as the client wants a older style looking guitar it is a slot head with a carved volute.

I cut the neck out a a large Mahogany neck blank. I normally build up the necks from 1" mahogany neck blanks. I do slice up all of the waste into neck and tail blocks.




I clean it up, square it and locate the nut line using a jack plane.





Before cutting the tenon I cut the bottom of the heal at 1.5 degree angle planning for a 3/4" tenon. With the heel trimmed I was able to install the brass inserts without fear of cracking the tenon.





I used my table saw using a table saw miter guide and a tenon jig. I have one of the fancy jigs that I can use a router to cut the tenon but it is such a hellacious experience I have moved to the table saw.





I used a japanese saw and a chisel to trim the tenon to the correct size. Note the heel cheeks are below vice clamps Nicking the cheeks with a saw at this point is bad.



I drew in a rough guide for the heel shape



I use a router on my router table to cut the truss rod slot.



I made a fret board using a 16" fret board radius bit





And I used my LMII fret board jig to cut the slots.



I cut the fret board out on a band saw, clean the edges with a plane and trim the end on a sander.



I had a template for the head stock so I used it to trim a 2 mm thick slice of amboyna burl (the red will match the top)







Getting closer



The next post will finish the neck

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I use a hand plane and my safe-t plane to square and thickness the head stock. I lift a bump to allow for the volute. I have a fancy slot head jig to drill the holes and route the slots.







Now we are getting somewhere



Before gluing on the fret board I made sure that the neck angle was good and centered. It is a real pain to work the cheeks after the fret board is install. Especially if the neck needs to be pitched forward a bit.





I used #16 brads to index the fret board and glued it on.



I used a chisel to carve the volute and it came out OK I was ready to plane the whole thing off if I could not get it looking good. I basically carved off anything that did not look like a volute.





I laid out some lines for the primary facets and use a spoke shave to cut them. I use some nice rasps to get the areas that the spoke shave does not cut.



I glued a thin black fiber sheet to a scrape piece of amboyna burl and super clued in place on the end of the heel. sorry no good pictures



I used a chisel to carve the basic heel shape and then used rasps to provide the rest of the shape. Using the heel end cap the center line and the heel outline as guide lines the heel will naturally take shape if you use look sweeping strokes with the rasp.



With the basic shape established I use my eyes to cut secondary and tertiary facets on the neck it self and sand the facets off with shoe shine like sanding.

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Thanks all who looked,

I cleaned up the neck quite a bit and slimmed up and took some height off the volute. Then all that was left before finishing was the fret markers and my logo. I ended up cutting the logo out twice. the inside hawk was just a touch big, it was oh so close and I cracked the moon pushing it in. Oh well I did a better job on the second one.

Here are some pictures of the logo work and where I am at now.

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