BluesCreek L00 is in the House!

[Srick]

Acoustic #3. This will be an interesting build - I know just enough to not be dangerous.

The sides have been glued to the neck and tailblock and are now sitting in the mold. I had toyed with the idea of purchasing a custom kit, but then realized I would get just as much enjoyment and learn as much from one of John’s guitars that was in stock. The back and sides are very nice straight grained mahogany - I believe, 100 years old. I am not sure of John’s source.

FWIW, I have a custom dread made from an old mahogany table leaf of about the same vintage. If you are looking for great pieces of mahogany, check out old pieces of furniture.

[Srick]

As I begin this build, I’ve already come up with a bunch of take-aways.

• When I made my mold, rather than cut the plywood layers individually, I put the whole sandwich through the bandsaw at once. The result was far better and the mold needed far less sanding. I just had to take my time feeding the wood into the saw and not get flustered when the blade came off the wheels.
• John Hall’s idea of checking your tailblock and neckblock clamping outside the mold was a very good one. Glues can be an effective lubricant and your perfectly fitted joint will often shift when clamping. It felt really good to have the visual assurance that these joints were spot on. And of course, if you don’t know it already, these are two of the most important glue joints in your guitar.
• This L00 has ribbon reinforcement of the sides. The primary role of the ribbon is to prevent\inhibit any cracks from spreading. Do wooden side braces make any difference? Who knows? There’s always someone who will argue the point that a stiffer side will absorb less of the sound and allow the top to project more. But there are a lot of old guitars with ribbon reinforcement that sound fine
• You’ll notice my fine collection of Harbor Freight clamps on the kerfing - They’ve got a decent spring and at $0.98 a piece are about the third the cost of anything you’ll find labelled “for luthiers.”

It feels great to be in the shop again. I am using a lot of fish glue in this build and find its properties to be really intriguing. It dries hard and thin. I am on the fence about getting into the hide glue game. For now, the fish glue is very convenient and I don’t need the speed of hide glue.

[tippie53]

there were 2 pieces I got one was a recycled door the other was a purchase from a cabinet shop. Both were nice looking stock .

[Srick]

That was my profession for 42 years. Luthiery, especially the detailed stuff, brings back memories. At the end of the day, I would come home stiff and clenched because every procedure had to be spot on - mistakes were hard to cover (or explain!!!) <LOL!>.

Memories flooded back as I routed a new slot for the rosette. I hoped that the circle jig that I had for my Dremel was up to the task. And memories of a slipped router depth setting while cutting the binding channel on my last guitar still had me on edge.

Two weeks earlier, I re-discovered a small shop about ten miles away that sells inlay (Masecraft Supply, Meriden, CT). In their 10 x 20 showroom, they had thousands of inlays in their drawers. Here's what came back with me:



I had purchased this circle jig years ago and never used it. It only took about an hour of searching to remember where I had stored it!



Here, I removed most of the rosette that came installed in the soundboard. Fortunately, it worked perfectly. Part of my success was the workboard that I used as a base (REALLY nice baltic birch left over from our kitchen cabinets). I drilled a precise pivot hole for the Dremel and went slowly. The bits were from StewMac. No way was I going to cut corners with some cheap EBay inlay bits - I only had one chance to get it right.

You can bet that I was clenching every part of my body as I made the multiple passes necessary to create the slot.

[Srick]

Annnddd.....

Boy, this is going to look sweet.



It takes a lot of careful measurement with a pair of calipers to create the correct channel. The TLC is worth it. I used fish glue as opposed to CA. In another 19 hours, I'll let you know how it worked. I'm giving it a full 24 hours for obvious reasons.

[Srick]

I didn’t wait the full 24 hours… I never can. But I am going to pass along some thoughts about shell inlay. And it actually is appropriate for almost all of the detail work that we do!

When you watch a video, always remember that the guy on the screen has likely done the procedure dozens of times. Even then, things will screw up, but they rarely show that part. The difference between a novice and an adept is how you handle those issues. Show me a video on how to fix the ‘clams’ - that’s where you really learn.

In this case you have three materials of different hardness in really close proximity to each other: A soft spruce soundboard that will show even the slightest damage; Ebony binding (ebony being a very hard wood);Hard shell inlay made of calcium. You have to work around all three and above all, not damage that soundboard.

Hints:

• Use magnification and a good light
• I put a very narrow binding on both sides of the shell inlay - this is great for appearance, but on the flip side, it takes a lot of care to shave down and repair
• A shallow carving gouge is a better tool for removing excess binding material as opposed to a straight chisel. There’s less of a chance that you will nick the spruce top with the corner of a straight chisel.
• Cut a protective mask for the soundboard before you start your carving. If you are going to use tape to secure it, decrease its tack by pressing it against your tee shirt. It’s too easy to pull up grain other wise.
• Glue will be on the surface of the inlay when you’re done and it will take a lot of patience to remove it. I had a set of inexpensive micro chisels that I got off Amazon that helped a lot. I also use single edge razor blades for the majority of the scraping. Again, I recommend getting several hundred at a time from Amazon.
• You’re going to do a lot of scraping. Take frequent breaks.
• the glue will be a lot harder than you anticipate. And, see above the above - you’re going to do a lot of scraping.
• beware CA glue - it can wick into the soft spruce and leave a discolored area. This happens even when you attempt to seal the routed channel with shellac. Next time I’ll use even more shellac.
• Be prepared to repair short sections of the binding that will have an issue. In my case, a couple of areas pulled away while I was carving them down (they weren’t seated all of the way. I used the microchisels to create a new channel and cut a new piece of the binding to fit into the missing area. Also, a piece of shell tipped into a divot at the base of the channel leaving a gap on the side. Likely I’ll try to remove it and replace it. That’s a procedure that could really backfire if I am not super careful.
• Stay away from the sandpaper until the very end. Any ebony particles that you may have missed risk getting embedded in your soft spruce top. AND before you sand, seal the area around the soundhole with shellac!

I’ll post a semi-final photo once I have finished my repairs. I worked on the inlay for about two and a half hours this morning and am taking a well- deserved break. Total time invested so far is about six hours.

[Srick]

Here it is. There was a little tear out during the circle cutting, and a little bleeding of the black CA into the spruce. All-in-all, not bad for a first timer!



It could use a wee bit more flattening, but that's for another day. Next up - hmmm - should I start the bracing, or build a better binding jig?

[Srick]

No matter how well we plan and execute, some days, things just don't work. When that happens to me, I find a way to establish control over my life until I can return to the situation at hand. Today, that meant stepping away from the guitar and cleaning the basement stairs - then, I did some accounting. In a few minutes, I am going to sort my clothes and donate the old stuff to those who can use it (this is my wife's influence speaking) - I'll probably do some more organizing of the workshop, and if I am super motivated, I am going to sharpen some tools.

What's the point of this post????

Always be smart enough to step away and do something else before you royally mess things up.

I probably learned about this sometime during my 42 years as a dentist - especially in the early days. Occasionally, I found it necessary to step out the back door to re-evaluate before I got even deeper in a hole (no pun intended, but it does sound appropriate!). In the worst case, I'd patch things up and have the patient come back another day. I only had one chance to get it right.

Today's issue came from fitting the top to the body. It drives me crazy that I cannot see the fit of the brace within mortise. Plus, wood moves and my mold is not a perfect fit. I find it really difficult to see and mark where the braces need to be placed. For the next build, I really like John's idea of using a plexiglass halo to serve as standard measure of the interface between the top and the sides - well, that ship has sailed -next time.

I stepped away and came back to the problem about an hour later. And then, I re-evaluated why I was seeing light between the top and sides when everything was clamped. On the small scale, brace by brace, everything fit. The problem? It's the neck block - time to drive the bus for a few more minutes.

So I dedicate this post to all of us newbies (this is build #3 - #4 if you count an electric). Don't be afraid to step away.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Perseverance!
It seems to be a luthiers motto.
I too struggle with the brace fitting. at times I get it very right and others I chase the fit ending up with wider than needed slots. in the long run they end up almost totally not seen.

I struggle with the finishing these days as my sight is not as good and I. try as I might look for and find all those little gaps around purglings, rosettes, etc. after fixing what i find and start spraying more amazingly show up. For sure an ARG! moment. But if I step back, think it through, begin gap filling (hich is easy to do with nitro lacquer) and take my time it usually turns out, not perfect. but quite acceptable.

And always listen to your wife's guidance.....after 52 years with mine I'm learning she is pretty wise about things!

Carry on!

[Srick]

All of the futzing and fitting was worth it! I just removed the clamps and the top is beautifully glued to the side. Today I will be tapping the top with my mallet and try to convince myself that my ears can be just as good as Dana Bourgeois’.

Soon it will be time to cut the dreaded binding channel… but has my credit card cooled down long enough to cobble together a decent binding tower?

An interesting lesson learned once again: Your eye wants to see all of your mortises look square and level. That’s what a cabinetmaker wants to see - BUT a guitar (in the style that most of us build) has a slightly arched top and a more rounded back. The mortises and tenons are going to need to have a small slope that corresponds with the sides. It’s counter-intuitive - we like straight and square.

Evaluating the fit of the tenon (the brace) into the mortise (the slot in your kerfing) is difficult because it’s a blind fit. Rocking the top and marking the fit of the brace tenon into the side mortise with carbon paper works OK, but is tedious. Violin makers use a method referred to as chalk fitting. In fitting crowns to teeth, dentists will often use a 3-dimensional material like a quick setting silicone putty to visualize the interior of the joint. I hope to will post pictures of the techniques later.

And ultimately, does it really matter that are braces are notched into the kerfing? The majority of forces on the top are rotational concentrated at the neck block and at the bridge. Taylor cuts a trough around the perimeter, and many builders don’t notch. Who knows? Our ability to evaluate potential joint failures is clouded. Not only do we not know the conditions that a guitar will be living in over the next fifty years, but we only see the failures in the repair shop - not the successes.

We worry too much.