Blues Creek 000 Martin Build from non-guitarist

[stevemac00]

I've been a hobby furniture builder for thirty years but getting old and decided to learn skills used on smaller projects in my retirement. My son plays guitar so I decided to try and build the 000 14 fret for a Christmas present.

To demonstrate how naive I am, I immediately took a photo of the top and ask John why the rosette was so sloppy (not realizing the fret board would cover this). I also asked what to do about the black rings. John politely answer my questions without pointing out how ridiculous the questions.

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I glued the blocks in per Cory's book and while the glue was setting I, got concerned the blocks weren't correct (funny, heh?). Again, I have no confidence about my guitar knowledge.

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I looked online to find pictures and determined I was good but I noticed everybody else's tail block had smooth edges. That made sense as I could imagine the sound waves rippling over the hard edge. The next day when the glue was cured I planed in a chamfer and smoothed over with sandpaper. It was more difficult after gluing in but still worked fine.

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[stevemac00]

Here's the top with the braces glued on. I used a gobar deck from John Hall. Note the upper bout brace. It doesn't match the pencil lines at all. Since I didn't know better, I simply centered it on the lines. I later found out this was a mistake.

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What good were those pencil lines? A rookie mistake. All I can do is remove it and try again.

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I used a straight edge as a heat shield and slowly worked on the brace to remove it. It took quite a bit of effort as the Titebond was solid but nothing was harmed.

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After cleaning up the dried glue I made sure it fit under the neck block, did my own marks and re-glued.

[stevemac00]

I noticed the cross braces had some gaps and I learned there were many ways to deal with this. I really didn't like the looks of the wad of cotton and glue although maybe that has the best sound. I decided to use West Epoxy and Fairing Filler.

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Here's a photo of fairing around the cross and tone braces

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The next day (West takes a good day to cure) I removed the tape and sanded the bracing. The 407 fairing filler is easy to sand and form so now I have nice smooth corners and increased strength with negligible weight. I have no idea if this improves the build but I feel good about it now.

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[stevemac00]

I found these dowel registration pins were indispensable for helping to quickly re-fit the top each time I took it off to sand a brace for fitting.

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I first stained the back center brace with a mahogany water based stain (mixed from Moser dye) per Cory's recommendation. What I failed to realize ahead of time is the back brace doesn't go to the end because of the blocks! (What an idiot I am sometimes - so concerned with the dye I didn't pre-fit the brace.)

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Scalloping braces? I simply followed the looks of Cory's who followed the advice of Scott vanLinge. I have no idea of the consequences but it looks graceful.

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The base x-brace has a small piece of paper backed veneer I used to fill the gap in my mortise on the top. The height of the brace is only about 3/32" but this will still prove to be a problem with the binding.

[tippie53]

nice job the cantilever of the neck block on the next one can be removed , that is actually a cawl for production and I do take them out on my guitars.
Work looks clean . I see you put more plate material than you needed. Keep the pictures coming. I can looking forward to the end result

[stevemac00]

I learned there are many methods for gluing the top and back to the rims. I like the idea presented by John that states "Once you put the rim in the mold, it stays there until the top and back are glued on." This made sense to me. I cut a rough "halo" out of 1/4" luan and cut pine strips to use as my gobar rods as the fiberglass ones would be too long. The back rim is sitting in the 15' concave sanding disk. Note the pressure bending up the top of the gobar deck. I left it like this overnight.

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The next day I removed the bars and flipped the guitar over. I placed the top on a 25' radius disk to glue on the back. Cory says you want to be careful to keep the tail and neck blocks parallel so I measured top to bottom and diagonals to make sure I was parallel then cut a piece of maple to fit between the blocks. Per Cory's advice I removed the stretcher and behold - the tail jumped out about a sixteenth of an inch! I have no idea why because the mold seemed properly centered. Perhaps some elongation after gluing the top?

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Anyway I put a couple of clamps to bring it back before gluing the bottom.

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[stevemac00]

I set up a chip containment section on my workbench and routed the top and back flush using the PC laminate trimmer and a flush cut bit. I cut the excess off to about a 1/4" of the sides first then used climb cuts followed by conventional (CCW).

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Something I forgot. Save any pieces you cut off. I happily threw everything in the trash forgetting I might need something for a patch later. So far I haven't but I'm far from done and wish I had those scrap pieces in a safe place.

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[darren]

Hey it's a guitar shaped object!

looks good so far!

[stevemac00]

In my kit the binding was missing. In hindsight this was a gift. I now had my choice of binding and I chose Tortoise. I also bought a matching Tortoise tail wedge from John. In the meantime I decided to make a binding jig. I already had a 9" lazy susan laying around and I bought some heavy duty drawer slides from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000D ... 00_s02_i00) for $17. They had very little slop. I used phenolic for the side braces and scrap maple for the arm. The rest of the box was 5/8" and 1/2" baltic birch. It took about four hours to make. I used the information from this fellow for my inspiration and guidance http://www.dewguitars.com/BindingJig/Binding%20Jig.htm

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I was just going to smooth a piece of oak or nylon by chucking in the drill press as I don't have a lathe but John sold me a nice little nylon donut for $15.

Be sure to watch John's youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lan2pKWE1Do for hints.

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I taped up the top/side for minimize tear out and I had none. The holder is a quick little thing I made out of scrap maple with a plywood base which I clamped to the flat table (melamine on saw horses). The jig turned a fearsome job into child's play and my channels were perfectly square with the rim. I used the standard binding cutter and bearings from Stew-Mac. Not cheap but I couldn't find anything else that would cut the width I needed although I learned later some people use copper adhesive tape around bearings to change the channel width.

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[stevemac00]

After routing the binding channel I looked at it under the magnifying lamp and noticed the bracing was below the binding channel!

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This is magnified as I shot it inside my magnifying glass. Note the offending brace is less than half the height of the back. It was just a sliver and I wouldn't have noticed without the magnifying glass.

My ever helpful coach John said "this is one of many reasons I don't put braces through the side."

Sometime I plan to ask him more about this statement but I already ask too many questions so I tabled the thought. I decided to stain the end grain pine with mahogany and you'd never find it even if you know where to look.

Photo of scraping the plastic binding with a card scraper. This works so easily. You do have to be careful to avoid chatter but I found if I took light cuts at an angle I could remove any chatter.

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You can see some scraper marks where the burr isn't perfect and I was concerned about how to clean this up for a polished look but John said that's a good thing to help with lacquer adhesion and it will look fine after finishing.

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