Cuban Mahogany and Lutz Spruce 00

[Darryl Young]

I don't have any pictures to share at this time......but I wanted to be the first one to start a thread in the new blog-your-build section!!!

Pics later, hopefully today! <smile>

[nkwak]

I can't wait to see pics! (hint hint! ;o)

Seriously, I got to play a Cuban mahogany OM with a cedar top and I loved the warm tone with strong fundamental. Prior to playing it I was always a rosewood kind of guy but after playing the Cuban hog I found that the overtones of rosewood made my playing technique sound muddled.

[Darryl Young]

Finally joined my back and I now have my top ready to join so here are a few pics.

Here is the top already leveled and ready to join. Note this is Lutz spruce from Shane. It was seconds due to randomly having a pitch pocket or knot shodow. This one had a small knot that would fit right into the soundhole so no big deal. Since this is a 00 and the boards are wider than needed, I decided to trim the boards on my tablesaw down to 7.5" width to remove the knot and make sure shoadow was completely inside the soundhole. Not sure if you can tell from the pics but this board has great silking so is perfectly quartered.

I tested this piece of Lutz spruce and first bending mode is at 61Hz so doing some calculations it has a Young's Modulus along the grain of 11,877MPa which equals 1,723 KPSI. Right in the midrange of spruce stiffness which is about right for a 00 body I would guess.

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And a closeup of what I removed, The soundhole will take out the rest of the shodow.

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[Darryl Young]

And a pic of the joined Cuban Mahogany back. It's not even cleaned up yet so you can see where tape was used to join it. Sorry about the cell phone pics.

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And a shot of the back and top. As soon as I make the final bracing decisions, I'll post a pic of the plan I'll use.

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[Kevin Sjostrand]

Darryl,
This just goes to show you that you can turn a "second" into a "First"! That is a great looking top. We can get mahogany out of Cuba, but not cigars????

Kevin

[Darryl Young]

Well, the Zootman can! <smile> This may be sawn from boards that were imported preban, not sure. (not even sure if there is a ban) My understanding is that mahogany from Cuba was the best......a little denser than from elsewhere.......and was overharvested till no longer available decades back. Take that with a grain of salt. Normally Cuban mahogany is denser than say Honduran.....but I could be wrong about the availability and overharvesting decades back. Maybe someone else will know.

[Darryl Young]

Here is the plan I drew for the Norman Blake Jr. 00 (14 fret body and 12 fret neck). It uses the Martin short scale. I have the X brace angle at 90 deg. Wouldn't hurt to go slightly narrower as like the NB 000, the X-brace legs just catch the front of the bridge. I want to leave the angle as wide as possible.

Soundhole is at the 19th fret (18 frets installed) and it is a 4" soundhole. I could move the soundhole down 1 fret (0.465") but the center of the soundhole would be below the narrowest point on the waistline (which I thought would look odd).

Went with 1 tone bar as the bridge is so low it doesn't seem to warrant another one. I asked Mario for advise on one finger brace or two and he suggested one angled finger brace. Mario also suggested moving the UTB lower since there was room and it would reduce the gap between the UTB and the upper X brace arm. No flat transverse brace above the UTB. Used the reverse A bracing that Mario uses which supports the edges of the fingerboard and adds strength to the upper bout. I will use thinned Elmers glue (or similar) to glue the fingerboard to the top plate and only use it around the perimeter as I want the glue joint to fail before the top cracks per chance it's subject to low humidity. I drew in a 1 9/16" deep neckblock (like old school Martin)......but I may just use the normal depth one.

The pic is bad......taken with my cell phone at an angle so the body is our of proportion (check out the oblong looking soundhole). Of course it isn't like that, just an angled pic.

I welcome your comments.

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[Darryl Young]

I'm taking off to deer hunt this Sat. - Tues. (opening weekend) so won't make any more progress till next week. Feel free to comment on the brace plan.......pro or con.

[Oval Soundhole]

Looks similar to the bracing pattern I used on my 00. It worked great, really great actually: an ideal fingerstyle guitar.

[Darryl Young]

Sliced some Ash to use for laminated linings this afternoon. I've only tried kerfed linings before so this will be a first for me. Here is a shot from my cell phone so not the best quality. Even though they are sitting on my table saw, I sliced them on my bandsaw.

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