nkwak wrote:One step forward, two steps back. I couldn’t wait. I should have. Long story short, I cut the outline of the top and began working with my hand planes to reduce thickness.
The problem: dull blades and tear out. If I were able to even if all out the remaining top would be too floppy and less than .1” thick.
The lesson: sharpen your blades well and work on a smooth stroke. Other than that, I followed Cumpiano and Natelson’s text to follow the methodology. I used a notched blade on a smoothing plane and art up a space on the corner of my work bench. I believe my mistake was in attacking the grain at too sharp an orientation and too much of the blade exposed beyond the sole. I also sharpened the blade and smoothed the sole on my small block plane; I feel more comfortable working one handed relying on finesse than using two and being tempted to power through.
At $20 it’s an expensive lesson (I made the same mistake on a donated Carpathian top) but still worth it IMO. I will be ordering another “student grade” Sitka top - or two. Practice makes perfect.
I've been there and done that, so don't feel bad. But, better a student grade top than a really expensive top. I like the student grade tops; they sound great.
Razor sharp and sometimes at a slight angle to the grain helps. It takes practice to thickness your tops with a plane. My only success has been with a low angle plane though, sharp enough to shave. Honestly, I had more luck with my 6" low angle hand plane, than with a regular jack plane. I've not tried thicknessing with my new low angle smooth plane, but I suspect it would do a good job too. The low angle gives you much less tear out.
You're right about shaving just a very small amount a time.
Actually, I found that the notched jack plane blade didn't tear out the wood nearly as much as the un-notched one. OTOH, a small block plane turned to a 45 degree angle during the stroke - and at a slight angle to the grain also reduced tearout somewhat. I'll have to practice on some scrap.
Yeah, I'm back on the fence with regards to this top. I'm looking forward to starting over with a new top. If it turns out better then I don't have to worry about "wasting" that precut bracing.
I ordered the new top and it came a couple of days ago. While it has much nicer silking the previous top was much more straight grained. I don't think that included a worse amount of runout but that just means that the boards aren't rectangular; it's sort of skewed where I need to plane.
nkwak wrote:I ordered the new top and it came a couple of days ago. While it has much nicer silking the previous top was much more straight grained. I don't think that included a worse amount of runout but that just means that the boards aren't rectangular; it's sort of skewed where I need to plane.
I'm confident I'll figure it out.
That happens; it's one reason why they've labeled it as student grade. I just stack them together and plane the center edge so that it's fairly straight of grain, before shooting together.
The weather is crazy this year. Despite the humidifier the RH in my workshop dropped below 30% and the dry skin on our hands tells me that it's probably a better time of year to do painting projects around the house. I've been up on the ladder caulking gaps in crown molding and need to clean up my sloppiness.
That being said, I continue to "play" with the first Sitka top. I cut out the sound hole and the thickness around the sound hole averages around .11". I marked a spot 1" from the edge of the soundhole and mapped out the X bracing and bridge patch.
I don't pretend to know anything about measuring deflection and my reference weight is unknown (I'm using a brick but am unable to weigh it accurately) but my initial attempt at measuring the top's deflection lead me to believe that it's deflecting roughly around .26".
I've posted a question in the Beginner's section but I've done a little digging and thinking about what I've done and if my bacon is salvageable.
The soundhole is 3-7/8" (which from what I understand is about what Martin specifies for their 14 fret 000/OM) but the Larrivee scale length is 25.5" and I'm building a guitar with 24.9" scale. What that means is that there is about 3/8" between the end of the fingerboard and the rim of the soundhole - and the inner purfling ring exposed.
It's not so dire because I've almost written off this top and plan on working another - but maybe that's a bit premature.
I cut the outline of the top about 3/8"-1/2" outside the lines - and that doesn't count the additional material that will come off when I route for binding and purfling. If I "slide" the outline 1/4" toward the neck joint then I'll still have a little bit of excess.
The back is joined and I've been using a bench plane to reduce thickness on it and the sides. It's slow going because I don't have easy access to a drum sander but I'm making progress. I opted to join the back before putting in the back strip.
Meanwhile, I ordered some materials from the Guitar Maker's Connection in Nazareth and now have back bracing, Spanish cedar kerfing (because who doesn't want their guitar to smell like a Martin?) and two unbleached and preslotted bone nuts.
I also added a ziricote faceplate to the headstock on the neck that John donated to me about 10 years ago. I should've sanded it thinner though, but at least by belt sander is wide enough. Again, it's slow going since ziricote appears to be a very hard closed pore wood.
I also used my bench top drill press to drill out the holes for the tuning machines. I cannibalized my dismantled "lawsuit" Takamine (which has the Martin style headstock) and used it as a template. Despite my best efforts the holes came out misaligned but I'm choosing to live with it.
Finally I used a small kerf pull saw to create a slot for the nut. The fretboard is already profiled for a 16' radius but I have added maple binding just to complicate things so I'll need to hunt for an affordable caul.
Sounds like you're making progress Neil. Do you need a caul for the binding?
All I did was glue each side of the fretboard, put the binding on, using 3M 233+ green tape to hold it in place. I kept it and the binding flat on top of wax paper, on my workbenche, as I taped it. Remember to extend the binding beyond the end of the fretboard, so you can chamfer the corners when you bind the bottom of the board.