1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Take us through building your guitar step by step. Post pictures and tell us what you're doing.
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

So the pore filling is complete. I basically followed the instructions that Robbie O'Brien posted on youtube. Before I got started I had to make a handle that would wedge into my dovetail mortise so I could porefill the back and sides at the same time. It will be handy when I'm putting on the regular finish too, maybe I can put a coat on the entire instrument at once. I also stuffed foam earplugs into the tuner holes and cut them flush with a razor blade (after testing to make sure zpoxy didn't melt them). I'm not sure if this will be a good idea or not, but I think the holes would have been subject to a good amount of epoxy running into them otherwise.

The first application of zpoxy was a bit messy. It takes a bit of practice to get a smooth application and not have it run down the sides when you are applying it to the back or vice versa. After each coat I waited till it was dry and sanded quite heavily, usually seeing splotches of bare wood. It was fun to see the color the rosewood will turn after finish. The curly bindings also lit up and looked really nice. Maybe they will be worth all the pain and suffering. I found that I needed to give the guitar more than just over night to dry completely. It could be the fact that my house stays fairly cool overnight despite me putting the guitar in the warmest room. Calgary is cold in February! An extra day of dry time solved the problem. I also found that the two coats that seem typical weren't enough to fully fill the pores in the rosewood (the mahogany would have been fine). I think I scraped my first coat off a bit too firmly, or maybe I'm just being over careful. In any case, after three coats there are only a very few pores that are a tiny bit low. Level sanding the epoxy was interesting in that it showed me a few places where my guitar wasn't exactly perfectly flat. Nothing to be done about that now, the struggle I had bending the sides is still making itself known. Most of it isn't too obvious, I thought it might be worse actually.

I did a very thorough job on my final sanding and now I will put on a final thin coat to even out the color. Then very light scuff sanding and a coat of shellac before beginning the Tru-Oil. I am excited, but am also staring a one month finishing process in the face. Time for a little patience methinks.
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Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

Here is a pic of the handle I made out of a scrap of maple. I made the shoulders much smaller than on the actual neck so that it wouldn't interfere with the finish looking nice under the neck joint. I bashed it out pretty quickly and it actually pulled in very tightly into the body. If I flossed it a bit it would be just as tight as my actual neck that I spent hours and hours on. Kind of annoying really. I put a screw into the handle through the neck block to make it secure. The hole will be visible from the soundhole, but It doesn't bother me. At least I'm not worried about the guitar falling when I am putting a coat of finish on. I also put a bit of packing tape on it so the zpoxy wouldn't glue it to the guitar.
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Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

I got through the finishing process. Tru-oil is fairly labour intensive if you want a glossy finish. I ended up with about 20 coats, with some leveling in between. Even with this, the finish was a bit too thin in a couple places on the top. Oddly the thin spots were over top of the bearclaw. Maybe they sanded a bit differently and were the tiniest bit raised.

I chose Tru Oil because I've had previous experience with it. The previous time I've used micro mesh to polish it. This time as I was wet sanding at the end I started to see witness lines where I'd sanded through a layer. I don't remember noticing this before and my polishing routine didn't seem to be working out. I was starting to think the finish would end up a disaster and was thinking I may need to put some shellac over the tru-oil. After a bit of reading I picked up some Novus plastic polish, and though the process took a few sessions, it polished up really nicely. Ok, it's not as good as you'd get with Nitro and a buffer, but I'm happy. It's really nice to see the grain under finish. I took all the masking tape off and couldn't resist jamming the neck into the mortise and taking some pictures.

I'm really looking forward to glueing the neck on. I still need to scrape some finish from under the fingerboard and figure out a caul for the glue up.
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ruby@magpage.com
Posts: 1564
Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:03 am
Location: Chestertown Maryland

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by ruby@magpage.com »

Finish looks great - plenty shiny. I'm with Nick Lucas who told Gibson he did not want his guitars to have a shiny finish because he did't want the stage lights shining in the eyes of his audience. In my case, it's just grandkids, but really the same thing.

Ed
Ed M
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

beautiful finish! You should be proud of yourself.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

The guitar is officially in one piece! I scribed lightly around the fingerboard extension with a sharp needle point and scraped the finish down to the spruce. This was easier than I expected. I also sanded the part that had been covered by tape just to freshen it up a bit. There was a little finish that got on the end grain shoulder of the neck joint. I very carefully sanded with a sanding stick until I had just sanded the finish off only to find that the fit of my neck was now quite a bit worse than it had been! I fussed and flossed over it until it actually sank a tiny bit too far into the mortise and became a bit loose. Cursing, I cut a couple plane shavings and glued them to the tenon. I then spent quite awhile sweating the neck fitting. Considering how long i took to get it right previously, this was a little hard to swallow. I did eventually get it fit nicely and called it a night.

The next day I made a little caul to put on the inside of the guitar over top of the UTB and glued the neck in. It went well, but I noticed that sometime in the neck fitting process I managed to scratch up my nice new finish on the top. Since then I've put some paper over the back. I put a little spot of truoil over a spot on the top. I will let it cure for a week or so. If I can sand and polish it and have it blend in nicely I will put a couple more coats over the scratched up area.

Today I made a little wooden thing to prop up the neck and sanded the fretboard flat with my straight piece of aluminum. I then used the straightedge to assess the neck. I ended up with a bit more 'fallaway' past the 14th fret than I expected, about 1/32". The way I understand it this is not a terrible thing unless I end up with a hump. When I put little wood strips on the fretboard to simulate fret crowns and extend the fret plane to the bridge area, I end up at about 13/32". I know that this is supposed to be at or just above 3/8" so I am happy. My only question is: should I make the bridge 3/8" thick or add a tiny bit to match up with the extra 1/32"? Probaby not the end of the world either way I'm guessing. Any opinions?
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Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

Alright, here's an update.

After taking the neck out of clamps I did a final level of the fretboard with sandpaper stuck to an aluminum striaghtedge from Lee Valley. It is maybe 1/2" wide and is supposed to be dead flat. I use it like people use a level with sandpaper stuck to it. The only annoying thing is that it is my best straightedge, so to use it as straightedge I need to take the sandpaper off.

Quite a bit of finish made it into the slots so I had to clear all the slots out with my saw. After this I was wondering about the width of my slot, so I took out a .023 feeler gauge and put it into the slot. Super loose! Then .025 and .027, even .030 all super loose! I was surprised and unhappy until I realized I was using the metric feeler gauges. Slapped my forehead and took out the .023" (emphasis on the ") and it was just perfectly snug. I eased the edges of each slot with a triangular file.

I took a pair of Klein sidecutters that I had blown a hole in as an apprentice when I accidentally cut into a live cable. There is still plenty enough blade to cut frets so I took it to the grinder and ground it down till it the sides were almost flush with the blade. I chickened out a bit and didn't cut right up to the blade.

I cut all my frets to length, about 1/8" longer on each side. I was mostly following a fretting tutorial by Christopher Owen, formerly of Crimson Guitars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOlGz9QNd3Y
. He has a cool trick where he sets each fret lightly into the slot as he cuts them and then puts masking tape over top. All the frets stick to the tape (they did for me even if they didn't for him in the video) and you pull the tape off and have all the frets laid out in order. I was wondering how the frets would go in after reading a few posts from people who had struggled, but mine went in with few problems. I had been wondering for months how I was going to hammer in the ones on the fretboard extension, but I held a little wood block on the inside and they went in just fine. I think my slots may have been a bit wider compared to the fret tangs than some others might use, but I used a little super glue on the tangs (after waxing the board on each side of the slot), so they should hold fine. Maybe I was just overthinking it.

I checked the neck and it had not backbowed at all from the frets. So far I haven't touched the trussrod adjustment, it has just stayed flat. It isn't a super thin neck, so maybe that's why. I leveled my frets with the aluminum straightedge and sandpaper. This all went fairly smooth. I had to level the 'fallaway' section seperately from the main fretboard. I took the fret tops to 320 in this way. I filed the fret ends flush with the neck and beveled them 20 degrees from vertical. I did manage to damage the finish a bit on the sides of my fretboard. To crown the frets I had taken a saw sharpening three corner file and 'safed' the edges on the grinder. For whatever reason I just couldn't make this work well. I sucked it up and purchased a fret crowning file and a fret end file from Lee Valley. These are Uo-Chikyu or Hiroshima brand files and I chose them simply since Lee Valley is right here in town. They seem nice, especially the fret end file. I have a feeling that the Stewmac diamond file would create a much smoother finish on the frets. I put a fairly heavy round on the fret ends which I'm thinking I can get away with because I used 20 degrees to file the ends. Following the method in the link I mentioned above, I sanded the frets starting from 320, going all the way up to 1000 or so. I then took my Dremel with a felt wheel and some Novus polishing compound and polished the frets. They came out super nice looking, but any time I put a ruler on them I scratch the beautiful surface. I think maybe I left a tiny bit too much of the flat top on the frets, not wanting to mess up my leveling job. Next time I will be braver and crown all the way to the top. There is still only the tiniest of flat strips on the top of each fret. All in all I think it went well, but I don't have a fret rocker, so I don't really have a way to double check.
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ruby@magpage.com
Posts: 1564
Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:03 am
Location: Chestertown Maryland

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by ruby@magpage.com »

Talladam

What's the purpose of having all the frets out on the tape?? I just tap one in, cut off the piece, then tap the next one in

Ed
Ed M
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

In my case I think it was easier to put a little superglue on the tangs with the frets pre-cut. Otherwise I guess people do it to avoid picking up and putting down separate tools?
Talladam
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:43 pm

Re: 1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

Post by Talladam »

So the next step for me was to make the bridge. I had originally purchased a Rosewood bridge blank, but it was less than 3/8" thick even with the rough saw marks. I was thinking that it might not be thick enough (in hindsight I think it would have been OK) so I purchased a blank from a local store. The only blank they had was nice dark ebony for a 12 string. First I cut it to length and made it square with a plane. I found it a bit difficult to plane, but it could be that my blades weren't as sharp as they could be. I fixed up a nice little jig to rout the slot. I had intended to do a 1/8" saddle, but I realized that my saddle blank wasn't thick enough for that so I went with 3/32". I've always liked the look of ebony martin bridges so this fit. I really like this one:

https://www.fretboardjournal.com/featur ... rtin-d-28/

I guess that means I should have done a through-saddle, but i mostly took the info out of Cumpiano. I found out that the bridge in Cumpiano is not actually a full sized drawing, so I had to make a template as well as I could based on the dimensions. There is a bridge on the Kinkead plans, but I didn't really like the way it looked. I made a template from clear acrylic.

The router jig worked perfectly, but when I was finished I realized I had cut the slot a bit too deep. I think it would have been OK, but my bridge blank would have been too short anyway. I decided to fill the slot and re-rout. I carefully matched the slot with a piece of leftover ebony (good practice for shaping the saddle). After gluing this in, I flipped the blank over and routed the slot again. This time the slot ended up a bit closer to the front edge than I was comfortable with, so I glued a tiny bit of ebony to the front edge. Finally a nice slot in the correct place! At this point I shaped the bridge down to thin out the wings. I cut the wings down a bit on the bandsaw and finished with a drum sander on the drill press (with a fence). This worked perfectly. Because the top was no longer flat, I flipped the blank over and marked out the curve of the back of the bridge from my template. I was super careful bandsawing just outside the line only to flip it over and find that I had cut the curve on the wrong edge (the slot and the curve were on the same edge)!!!!! Bad words were spoken. After I settled down I filled the new slot with another ebony strip (more practice). You'd think that after all this my bridge would look like a dog's breakfast, but ebony is amazing. It is super hard to see that anything went wrong at all.

The rest of the process went fairly smoothly. I cut an 18" radius on a piece of scrap and stuck some 80 grit on it to help shape the top. After rounding the back edge and drilling the pegholes the bridge looked perfect. I weighed it and it weighed 36 grams. After thinking about this for awhile I decided to cut down on the weight a bit more. I was fairly aggressive with the curve on the back that falls away from the pegholes, and also realized that either the thinning of the wings should come last, or it will need touched up because radiusing the top of the bridge moves the top of the wings away from center. I reestablished this distance and smoothed and polished the bridge up to a nice luster finishing with micro-mesh. In the end the bridge weighs 30 grams. I think there is a group of people who would say a rosewood bridge might be a better choice, but I think the ebony was more fun. In the end it looks a little different than a martin bridge, but I'm happy.
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