Number 13 - EIR\Sitka Drednought -Finished

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Dooling drednaughts. You caught up to me.

[johnnparchem]

Whoops this is a fairly long post as I have not been keeping up with the blog. Since the last post I have completed the bracing of both the top and the back and have fitted the braces to the rim. For those that want to follow I will lay out the pictures of the procedures I followed.

Those viewing my previous posts might have noticed I put in the x-braces before I put in the bridge plate. I normally do it in the reverse order and glue the bridge plate down on a flat surface. No big deal but when I did glue down the bridge plate I used my massive fiberglass slats to force the un radiused gluing caul down in the radius dish. Normally I used the much safer and friendlier fiberglass rods. Also in the pictures I sort of went back and forth between glued rough shaped braces and just radiused braces.







Sort of mixed into working on the top I also worked on the back bracing. Based on advise for the wood I am using and the purpose and size of the guitar I am building a non-live back guitar and have used four full height braces shaped with a plane to a near triangular shape. Trying to up my game on this back I took much care to get everything square and to have clean and square cuts into the back strip for the braces.

I first put 15' radius on all of the back braces. I use a combination of a plane to rough shape the radius and the sanding dish to finish it off. In the past I used the back strip as my guide for back braces. This guitar I made sure I had a straight edge to work with as you can see in the pictures. I used the straight edge and the square for all of the cuts I made with a scalpel and a new blade. The scalpel is so sharp there is no need for a saw as it cleanly and accurately cuts the slots. It worked out well as the braces pushed into the slots ended up square.











I went after the top and back braces with my chisels and block planes until I got the shape I wanted. Again trying to clean up my normal style I took more care to protect the plates while working on the braces. In the past I always ended up with some scratches deep scratches from the chisels. I ended relatively (to my past efforts) clean. Once I had the top braces to plan. I did tap tune them a bit mostly taking wood off of the finger and diagonal braces to the top felt alive. After the guitar is finished with the bridge on I may do some tuning from the sound hole based on the tops performance. I am happy where it is now it has some nice tap tones.














I fit the top and back to the rims. Here as well I have been trying to assure a tight fit from the beginning making sure to clearly center and carefully mark where the braces intersect the rims. Part of carfully marking the braces is I make sure that I can see and that I have access to mark them. While all of the tails of the braces are close in height I still individually set the my die grinder for each brace before I route the rebate into the kerfed linings on the rims. All in all the procedure went well for the top and the back.













With the top properly fitted, I rechecked that the angle on the top was right where I want it. The idea is a fret board extension flush to the top will be at the correct angle to give me the planned string height off the top at the saddle location. A 2.5 mm drill bit rolled up tight right at the saddle location.



Time for a shot of Everclear! (I only really use it for shellac).

[johnnparchem]

I used a bit of figured maple to make the end wedge. It is a relatively simple wedge without a black prufling strip. I went back and forth and finally decided if I could cut a clean channel a simple maple wedge would be fine. I think the only thing I started doing to achieve an accurate cut is to use a scalpel with a new blade instead of a razor saw. It takes a few passes with the scalpel but once the initial line is made it is easy to follow the cut. I had a couple of time on previous instruments where I slipped or managed to widen the cut while using a saw. Not shown is that I chiseled the waste out before I glued in the wedge. Being a wedge I probably could have gotten by with out clamps, but I clamped it down. ultimately it came our alright.














I used the fox style bending machine to bend both the bindings and the herringbone purfling. No problems bending the curly maple or the herringbone.









At this point I am nearly ready to close the box. I did add one step to my process, I use a 28' radius dish to profile the top rims including the heel block. To complement the flattened upper transverse brace, I took a couple of passes on the heel block with a plane to give a flat spot to glue the fret board.

flattened the heel block


I glued the back on first. This gave me a chance to make the back look nice as it is the one people see through the sound hole. I used a flush cut bit to cut off the waste.





glued on the top.





The next shot is me keeping a promise. I completely leveled the sides before gluing on the bindings. I promised in my last build that I was not going to be stressed out about thin bindings when I still needed to sand the sides. I used a hand held drum sander with an inflatable bed.



Sorry no pictures but I cut out the binding channel and the purfling channel. I am not sure how I did it but I cut part of the channel on one side for the herringbone too deep. (.5 mm or so) I caught myself before I went to far. Luckily I bent 2 extra binding strips. I glued one in to the channel I cut too deep, leveled it and I re-routed the channel at the correct depth. It is all inside so nobody will see. It is structurally sound.





I also promised myself no more gaps in the binding. I glued up binding and herringbone and wrapped the bindings tight with my new rubber strip. It worked! More tomorrow.

[tippie53]

nicely documented
how many splinters did you acquire?

[justrfb]

Wow!!...Beautiful build and awesome work.

Sincerely,
Rich

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Coming along nicely John. Are you sure you didn't nip the Everclear right before you routed for that binding? :>) Just kidding of course.
Good save.

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

Coming along nicely John. Are you sure you didn't nip the Everclear right before you routed for that binding? :>) Just kidding of course.
Good save.

Kevin

I was being so careful as well. I checked the router set-up multiple times with scrap wood. I am still baffled how it happened. I rechecked the test cut and it had the correct depth.

Thanks, Rich and John; Now that you mention it I got a cut under my right hand index finger nail. It is amazing how often that finger is used in life.

[johnnparchem]

The rest of the binding went well with no mishaps. On the back I decides to add a BW purfling to the binding. The purfling maple matches the center strip and the black fiber frames the contrast with the bindings. I am liking the rubber strip for binding. For the first time ever I had no gaps to the plates or to the rims. I used LMI instrument glue for the binding, so I only did one strip at a time. The LMI glue does not have the longest open time. I think in the future I will use fish glue and at least bind both strips for the top or back together.

I had an a couple year old LMI neck with a matching heel block that I am using on this guitar. I drilled a couple of holes and used a flush cut bit to open the mortise. The neck is centered nicely and with only a little adjustment is at the correct angle.

[johnnparchem]

Since my last post, I glued on the headstock veneer and profiled it. I cut the slots and profiled the fret board and carved the bridge. I used Brazilian rosewood for these three parts.

Nothing too exciting, in any of these processes. For the head stock I rough cut the head stock profile out on the band saw, I sanded the nut edge of the headstock veneer to the correct angle first and carefully placed and glued it to the headstock (You can see in the pictures I had a little help). In the past I would use template following router bit to do the final profile, but seeing as I ruined multiple neck when this process went wrong I just shaped it by hand with a plane and a rasp.












I use LMI's fretting jig and templates. The first thing I do is to get a straight edge on my shooting board to use as a reference through out the process. The jig and the saw make quick work of the fret board. The BRW is a lot easier to cut than the ebony I cut in the past. I use the long stewmac 16" radius bar to radius the slotted fret board. To make life easier I planed a rough radius on the fret board first.











You can see I have a matching body and neck angle.



This is the first steel string bridge that I carved. I copied a martin style bridge as closely as I could. I cut out the rough shape on a Brazilian Rosewood bridge blank, did most of the profiling using my luthiers friend sanding station on a drill press. I used the drum as both a spindle sander for the shape and as a drum sander for the wings. I used my 16" radius bar to put a radius on the bridge itself to match the fret board bridge. I noticed that my store bought bridge had a 12" radius.













I still need to install the nut inserts into the neck tenon and glue on the fret board until I can start my finish prep, but I am getting very close.

[johnnparchem]

With the neck bolt inserts in and the fret board glued on I am ready to start finish prep, I still have a bit of fussing to do with the neck including the fret board inlays that I am waiting for.
and drill the tuner holes. Other than that I can start prepping the body.