Wilborn Guitar Attempt

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Great job. It looks good.
When you glue on the binding try and keep any glue from getting in the slots.

[scamp]

Great job. It looks good.
When you glue on the binding try and keep any glue from getting in the slots.

Any suggestions how to do that? This is my first bound fret board. I see some recommend using a fret dam silicone material sold by stewmac that you put in the fret slots to keep that from happening. I was thinking of gluing on the binding using titebond vs CA as the CA might be too brittle for the neck binding but I can see how easy it is to get it in the slots.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Sure here is what I do now
I clamp the binding (you can use tape to do this) in place on the edge of the fretboard leaving about a 1/2" exposed between the tape. Pull that taped up tight and keep it flush while doing it with the bottom of the fretboard. I'll do one side at a time. Then take thin CA and wick it in the joint where it's exposed....stay away from the open fret slots so the CA doesn't flow in there. Go up the side on the top and either hit it with accelerator or just let it sit a few minutes. Then do the same on the back side.
When dry remove the tape and wick in more CA where the tape was.
Just be careful when applying and you can keep it out of the slots.

The whole process can be done in about 15 to 20 minutes.
This works especially well with ebony on ebony..

After you get everything scraped sanded flush if you see and gaps just apply a little CA and sand it. The fretboard will look like it isn't even bound.

You can use the same process with any fretboard and binding. I like this process because it's less stress getting things in place with all that titebond there letting things slip around. I used to use titebond and slide the whole thing into a wedge press and its messy and the binding can creep up on you and when done not be flush with the bottom if the board.

Give it a try. I do all my wood to wood body purflings and bindings this way now too. Get a good fit, tape in place and wick in CA. No stress.

[scamp]

A key element of the guitar I'm trying to build is properly built laminated sides.
According to Ben Wilborn, the laminated sides he uses has 3 layers.
A 0.06 inch "pretty" outside layer, a 0.03 inch structural hard maple middle layer, and an OK looking 0.03 inch inside layer.
The inside and outside layers aren't too much of a problem.
The middle one is. Not only is it 0.03 inch hard maple... worse yet... the grain runs perpendicular to the sides to provide support and keep the sides from cracking etc.
If you want to go look for hard maple boards 33 inches long with the grain going perpendicular you won't find them.
The only way to do it is to take quartersawn maple boards about 3 inches wide and 30 inches long with the grain going the long way and then cut them up into 5 inch lengths and then glue the pieces together like a long cutting board. After that, you resaw the resulting board and thin it down to 0.03 inches.

This is what I did.
Here are some pictures.


It wasn't all smooth sailing.
I used epoxy to glue the blocks since I thought it would be more heat resistant when bending the sides.
While I was thinning down the resawn sides, a few of the joint failed.
I was able to repair them with CA glue and keep going.
In the end, I used CA glue on all the joints just in case. Will they hold together when bending.. Who knows.
If not, my plan is to just rejoin the joints with CA glue on the bent sides.
They just need to hold together well enough to get into the lamination mold.

Is this worth it???
I have my doubts but I'm just trying to follow what the master luthier does..

Middle Layer Board Glue Up 2.JPEG

Middle Layer Board Tin Down 1.JPEG

Middle Layer Tin Down 2.JPEG

Middle Layer Tin Down 3.JPEG

Middle Layer Done.JPEG

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Now that is crazy. I hope they bend for you.
I think you probably could have just resawed boards not worrying about grain orientation as that sandwich is going to be pretty ridged anyway.
Looking good!

Kevin

[scamp]

Now that is crazy. I hope they bend for you.
I think you probably could have just resawed boards not worrying about grain orientation as that sandwich is going to be pretty ridged anyway.
Looking good!

Kevin

I think I agree with you. If they totally fall apart when I try and bend them I’m just going to fall back to a standard veneer layer.

[scamp]

Well if you were wondering if my glued middle maple side layer would fall apart in the side bender the answer is in. Yes. Literally every joint failed. Amazing each section was properly bent but the epoxy joints couldn’t take the stress/heat. So… now what? Just for fun, I reassembled the sections using the bending form, tape and CA glue. Amazingly, it didn’t come out too bad and I think I may be able to use it.

To make things even more interesting, I found out after my failed bending attempt from Ben that he doesn’t bend this inner layer since it is so thin ( 0.03 inches ). It just bends around the form in the middle.

So… I have some extra glued up maple so I will make another side to replace the one I tried to bend , thin it down and use that approach.

Here are some shots of the depocal. Note that I added extra springs to the bender for the upper bout. The radius is so tight the existing springs couldn’t overcome the springiness of the spring steel slats.

IMG_2208.jpeg

IMG_2210.jpeg

IMG_2219.jpeg

[scamp]

Decided to work on something else vs getting more frustrated trying to do the cross grain middle layer of the laminated sides. So.... I decided to do the laminated curved spruce bracing for the guitar. Rather than the traditional cross bracing for the majority of structural support, this guitar has two separate curved braces. The braces are about 1/4 inch wide. To do this you laminate 6 layers, each about 0.04 inches thick, using epoxy in a form. Because each layer is thin enough so you don't need to prebend the wood using heat etc. It just goes right into the mold. Here are some pictures.

Laminated Brace Layers.JPEG

Laminated Brace in Mold.JPEG

Laminated Brace Done.JPEG

After you get these curved braces you need to contour the bottom of the braces so when they are glued down they are perpendicular to the fret board plain and match the curvature of the 28 foot radius top. To do this I built yet another jig. This one holds the curved braces about the right distance apart and perpendicular to the fret board plain so they can be sanded down in the 28 foot radius sanding disk. I know... at this point you think I'm a bit crazy and I don't think I could argue with you.

Laminated Brace in Sanding Jig.JPEG

[scamp]

I know I should just punt and do a more traditional laminated side with maybe three layers with the grain all running the long way and forget about this hard maple cross grain middle layer thing but I can't, at least not yet. If I could do it, it really would add considerable lateral strength to the sides without a lot of weight. I was thinking of using the not yet bend 0.03 inch maple side I built as Ben suggested and "hope" it contours properly when forced into the gluing mold but I'm concerned that the joints will break when forcing them into the mold and everything will get miss aligned and a total mess. I could also use the maple side version that I bent, broke into pieces and then reassembled. Problem is... when reassembling the pieces they didn't fit perfectly so there are lumps at the joints etc. Also... it also may start to break when being pressed into the mold. So what to do....

First thought was using epoxy to join the maple blocks was a mistake . So... I did an experiment. I edge joined 0.11 inch think pieces of maple together using Clear Gorilla Glue, Titebond Original and Titebond III to test how strong they were vs epoxy and CA glue joint. I then measured the lateral force require to break the joints. Turns out Titebond Original and Titebond III broke at about 6 lb, Clear Gorilla Glue at 4 lb and epoxy and CA at about 4 lb. All broke at the glue interface. Bottom line is... in my opinion no glue is good enough to make this work much better.

Glue Experiment 2.JPEG

Glue Experiment.JPEG

So... here is the plan I came up with. I plan on epoxying the 0.03 inch flat middle maple layer to the unbent inside layer and then bending them together. What is nice is I can epoxy the 0.3 inch maple layer to a thicker inside layer and then sand down the inside layer to the proper 0.03 thickness ( 0.06 inch total ) which makes this process easier. Once this is done, I bend this two layer side. I think this is possible since it is still only 0.06 inches thick, the middle layer is cross grain so this should easily bend and ... epoxy tends to flow a bit over 110 degrees F. Once this is done.. I then epoxy the pretty outside layer to it in the mold. To test this out, I decided to make a mocked up short side piece for the curved portion of the Florentine cut away as an experiment. I used thinned down maple ( .08 inch thick ) for the inside layer with the grain going the long way and then epoxied three pieces of 0.03 inch hard maple with the grain going the other. When done... I will thin down the inside layer to 0.3 inch and then try and bend the side in my bending mold. Hope this works!!!

New Lamination Method 1.JPEG

New Lamination Method 2.JPEG

[scamp]

Well the results are in. Trying to bend the laminated middle 0.03 and inner 0.03 layers epoxied together didn't work. Some pictures are below. What I found was the laminated layers that were under pressure ( under the waist press ) did OK but the sections not under significant pressure while bending basically partially delaminated. From what I have read, and was my concern with this approach, was the epoxy glue would essentially melt at high temps ( above 120 degrees F or so ) but then solidify again as it cooled. The sections under pressure were essentially reglued when the epoxy cooled but the sections not under pressure separated a bit and when the epoxy resolidified the layers didn't reglue ( sort of like trying to epoxy two layers together without putting pressure on them. Oh well.... Time for another plan.

Lamination Bending Experiment 1.JPEG

lamination Bending Experiment 2.JPEG