1st Guitar - Starting in Texas

[Kris42]

OK, I've been watching this forum for about a year now and decided to give building a try. My hope is that as I'm going through this, people will be kind enough to provide pointers.

To be clear, this is my 1st attempt ... so any pointers are appreciated!

I'm starting from a unserviced kit from LMI, and plans I picked purchase from Kathy Matsushita. I really liked the Taylor style grand concert cutaway she build ... hey, why not. As I'm starting this out, I have one planned modification from the plans. I want to try a side port on the guitar.

I have been working on this for a little while ... so I'll start by adding some comments and pictures of the progress so far.

[justrfb]

Hello Kris42.
I wish you luck and look forward to seeing pictures and text. Good luck! I hope to be starting soon too...

Sincerely,
Rich

[Kris42]

Thanks!

To help get things started I purchased a Taylor GC form from Blue Creek Guitars. And started on the top.

No special tools for jointing the top. What seemed to work was a cut piece of belt sandpaper attached to a long level with adhesive spray. As I go through this, if there is an easier way ... please comment.




The top seemed to joint cleanly ... problems occurred when trying to rout the rosette. What's that phrase, "Measure twice, cut once"? Good rule of thumb to follow ... wish I had.

So started with top #2.
This one went easier.


I do have a question at this point. If you look at the outer BWB purfling, you will see at the bottom the lower black line is partially missing. I assume it just didn't seat correctly when I glued it in. So when I sanded it flush, it removed too much. Any idea how to help prevent this?

Here is a picture of the current state of the top. (25' radius on the top, ~0.90" thick)



The bracing still needs to be shaped; but, at least it is in place. Yes I realize the go-bar poles are in the wrong place in the picture. The issue is that I'm building this in my garage without humidity control. I'm a bit paranoid that humidity will swing on me and the top will warp (is this a valid concern?)

[Ben-Had]

Unserviced kit, cutaway, side port, first guitar! Yikes, you're a brave man Kris. Go slow and you'll find all the technical help you need right here.

[Kris42]

Thanks, I'm going to take you up on that advice part.

Besides, one man's bravery is another man's ... Eh, you know what I mean.


One thing I didn't state before is that the plan called for a 4" diameter sound hole. Since I was planning on the side port, I cut that down to 3.5", thinking that maintaining the total area of the holes (between the sound port and the side port) might be important. Am I over-thinking this?

[Ben-Had]

Yup.

[darren]

Welcome to the madness!

In theory you are correct to reduce the size of the soundhole when adding a port. Many don't though... I think you may have reduced it a tad too far (depends on the size of your port!) but chances are you'll never know the difference.

How does the rosette look now? did you replace the purflings?

I've played only one guitar which soundported. The sound was anemic and uninvolving with great lack of bottom end. Was the cause the soundport or the combined area of the soundhole and the soundport? Something else? I can't answer those questions. But I can tell you the sound was disappointing. -tommy

This is a quote from a post made by Alan Carruth in a classical guitar forum.
"............ When I make a 'real' guitar with a port I tend to use a 1" (25mm) hole these days: it's enough to be effective and not so large as to adversely effect the sound IMO. I do make the main hole smaller when I use a port. It's a little hard to give any hard rules about that: the effect of a given size port on the 'main air' resonant pitch will depend a lot on where it is, so you can't just say 'keep the total area the same' or something like that. Basically, the larger the port is, and the farther it is from the main hole, the greater the effect overall. Thus the Ruck or Thurman ports, up a the base of the neck, have a larger effect on the sound of the guitar for their size than a port at the wide part of the upper bout. OTOH, since one of the main benefits of the port is to shoot some high frequency sound out, the player benefits from them directly to the extent that they can look into the port as they play. In that respect ports at the base of the neck are less helpful to the player than ones at the wide part of the bout for a given area of port, IMO. I'm sure there are people who will disagree with me. I do find it telling that the people who promote this design feature the most, and use the most glowing terms, are the ones who have patents or copyrights on it. I have no ax to grind either way."

[darren]

I've played only one guitar which soundported. The sound was anemic and uninvolving with great lack of bottom end. Was the cause the soundport or the combined area of the soundhole and the soundport? Something else? I can't answer those questions. But I can tell you the sound was disappointing. -tommy

My gut says this has nothing to do with the soundport, and the easiest way to check is to block the port with something. If it still sounds disappointing, it is some other issue with the guitar. Generally the response is overwhelmingly positive, from a players perspective. I really enjoy playing my guitar that has a port.

[Kris42]

Thanks for the info. If I had heard about that I might not have gone down the path I have ... or maybe I'd try it anyway. I've never had the opportunity to play a guitar that is side ported, so it is something novel to try.

If I get to the end of this road and don't like the sound ... I'll just nail it to the wall and have a pretty remind of what not to do next time (who am I kidding, I'll blame the port for the sound quality and forget about the other "issues" I had along the way).

As for the purfling ...
I left it as a little bit of "character" in this guitar. This is my 1st guitar, so I'm allowing myself some leeway. Note that the sound hole was already cut. My concern was that even if I clamped a board underneath and set a new center hole (to route the purfling out), I wouldn't be able to find the "same" center. Which means I wouldn't be able to cleanly remove it (resulting with something worse than where I am today). If you have any ideas about how I could have fixed this, PLEASE let me know. I'd like to keep it in my back pocket for next time.