Week 2 . . . Day 8

Bling Day . . .

Today is the day that Patrick and Phil revealed their logos to the world – remember these images as they may well be as iconic as the Apple logo one day!  Both of them look fantastic and their creators are very pleased with the results . . . although we had to hold a focus group to decide whether Phil should use the 2mm or 3mm dot!  I decided to pace myself on this task and let these two young bucks make all the mistakes first so I could at least avoid those ones – mostly out of a well honed sense of enlightened self interest as many of my less than polite mates will say ‘what happened here’ if there is the slightest imperfection in such an obvious part of the guitar!

I am sure that is something rude in Korean

Bling boy

Pacing myself!

More on the sides . . .

I arrived early this morning and got into the building by scurrying like a sewer rat through the basement and up into our little area.  My first task was to quietly work on my logo, but the first main task of the morning was to take the ‘guitar’ out of the mould and dote over its great beauty for a few moments . . . and put it back into the mould to screw down some internal braces.  In fact Richard had to make a few adjustments as this is a new mould and the internal blocks did not quite fit as expected.  Once in place I drew a ‘datum’ all the way around the side of the guitar (top and bottom) so as to provide a line to come down to using the chisel or plane.  More Indian Rosewood needed to come off the front of the guitar because of the taper.

A word on the complex shapes we are making . . . the curved bottom has already been described as each of the braces was curved with the router and each brace was glued into place (using the Gobar Box) when the back was sitting in the 15’ radius curved dish.  The top is slightly more complex as the top of the sound board (under the fretboard end) is flat but the rest is curved using the same process but with the 25’ radius dish.  And both the top and bottom of the sides are slightly tapered towards the neck – hence the need for datum lines.

Once marked it was a relatively simple process to chisel and plane down to both lines reasonably accurately and insert the whole thing into the 15’ radius sanding dish and get the base evenly sanded.  The 25’ radius sanding dish was put only top when it got reasonably close to the datum to provide extra weight.  The 25’ radius sanding dish was then used to sand the top down to the datum – and you can tell when it is ready because the dark rosewood dust can be seen all the way around mould.

Once completed the insides of the sides are cleaned up with 120 then 180 grit sand paper to get a good surface – and it is all carefully cleaned up with the ‘Hoover’.

Now I am calling it a guitar!

Shaping the top

Chiseling the sides

And planing the sides

More sanding

Sanding the top

Beautifully cleaned up

On with the Kerfing . . .

The next major task involved cutting and gluing the kerfings.  These are also called linings but I just like the sound of the word kerf – which are wedge shaped strips of wood with closely spaced slits that allow the strip to conform to the inside surfaces of the instrument.  Their primary purpose is to increase the surface area for gluing the top and backs to the sides and reinforcing the seam. 

Installing the kerfs is something that tries your patience because you first have to very carefully (they are quite fragile) clamp some kerfing roughly into place, mark an area where you need to put some extra cuts in the back (reverse kerfs) so it will bend the other way and mark the required length – exactly.  Then you need to take it out of the clamps and evenly spread the right amount of glue along the entire length (quite tricky with such a flexible and fragile part) and then ‘working swiftly’ (one of Richard’s favourite sayings) clamp the whole thing back into place using as many clamps and pegs as possible and without breaking the kerfing.  The objective is to glue the kerfs 1mm proud of the sides . . . which mostly remained an objective for me.  All the clamps and pegs then need to be scientifically wiggled into place and the any excess glue cleaned up using and extra piece of kerf.   Of course we all broke our kerfing . . . but it is quite is easy to ‘cover up’ the break. 

This whole process is then repeated three more times . . . the other side of the top and then the bottom.  Of course the top kerfing needs to dry before taking off all the clamps and turning the guitar over.  How good is that . . . I have used the lovely sounding word kerf nine times in this section!

More bracing - and starting the kerfing

Kerfed!

Binding – from Scratch . . .

  

Patrick and I have decided on the same binding for the top and bottom edges of the guitar (where the top and bottoms meet the sides) – Indian Rosewood running on the other grain to the sides and separated by a thin white line.  How this was done had always eluded me, but it is very simple.  Like when making elephant soup you first find an elephant, the first task involved finding the right piece of Indian Rosewood and then planing and sanding (thicknessing actually!) it down to the right smoothness.   One 6.5mm slice is then taken off the wood using the band saw – the binding will eventually come down to 5.5mm.

Now for the maple stripe . . . I first cut out a piece of Maple veneer roughly to the shape of the Indian Rosewood (about the only rough task we’ve done on the entire course so far!) and glued them together.  Once down then they need to be clamped as hard as possible using as many clamps as will fit along the length.

Start with some Indian Rosewood

Thickness it

Cut it

Add some Maple veneer

Use just the right amount of glue

And clamp it - see it's easy when you know how!

Planing the Edges – Again . . .

Once the second lot of kerfing had dried and all the clamps and pegs had been removed I used a thumb plane to carefully smooth any irregularities on the kerfing (the kerfed surface?).  It is important not to be taking any off the sides but just get a nice flat surface between the two glued components.

Planing the edges

Other Guitars  . . .

One of the things we have all agreed is that we will never look at a guitar the same again . . . instead of just taking a glance at the instrument and then playing it we are now all taking a very close look at how certain things have been constructed and even having a look and feel inside.  We did it when Phil’s cousin brought his electric guitar up to the workshop today, when Richard took out his personal guitar that he has brought in for a band practice tonight, when Patrick took out his girlfriend’s £120 Takamine (which is surprisingly good) and when Richard took out a beautiful 12 fret Collings for a setup as we were leaving at the end of the day.

Richard also showed us where we are headed joining our guitars to the necks – one of his evening class students did that last night.  And speaking of the evening class – thanks again for the broad beans Mick, they are delightful! 

Howard's guitar

The £120 Takamine cost less than half of Richard's woods!

Richard's guitar

An upcoming lesson






The Collings

Thanks again Mick!

Back to the Top . . .

It was a special moment when I introduced my sides to my top.  The sides were very carefully placed on the top and lined up to exactly the right position not only in relation to each other but also their overall position in the mould – which all took some jiggling. 

The purpose of this exercise was to mark where the braces on the top touch the kerfing in the sides – so the braces could be trimmed to size.  This requires some care – a mark is made and all but four of the braces are cut 5mm outside the mark.  The job requires cutting very carefully with the Japanese saw and then cleaning up with 2mm chisel.

Top meets sides!

Fine Tuning . . .

The next task for me was to make some final adjustments to the top bracing . . . which involved reducing a few heights, taking out some of the hips, scalloping new shapes at the ends and scalloping along the length of the tone bars.  All of this is an exacting task and it was done under Richard’s close watchful eyes . . . and he did a lot of ‘tonal taping’ and bending – all of which will be continued tomorrow morning.

Just the right amount of sanding

Yet antoher tonal tap

Scalloping the braces

The one on the right is definitely better!

The Others . . .

Patrick moved so fast we thought he had nearly finished – but he had in fact brought his girlfriend’s guitar in for a set up!  From what I saw he mostly worked on aligning his back to his sides and cutting into the kerfing where the braces are to go.  He also inserted his back graft!

Bloody hell - he's fast!

Cutting the back braces

He's so fast I can't focus!

After the glow of success about his logo had subdued, Phil focused on his front and back braces for most of the day.

Top bracing

Top bracing

Measuring where the braces need to be cut out

Top bracing

Contributing Editor’s Comments . . .

In breaking news “just off the wire”, Phil has made this erudite contribution . .  .

After a day spent standing with chisel in hand, shaping and scalloping top braces, Neil and I have decided to build our guitars inside out so people can still see the vast amount of work on the inside. This might reduce their effectiveness as a musical instrument, but hey, sometimes sacrifices are necessary for the sake of art.

Radical Lewes . . .

Given that Lewes has always been a hotbed of radical thinking and events (seriously – martyrs burnt at the stake, Thomas Paine’s hometown before he invented the USA, the Radical Lewes Festival and they still do some weird stuff burning effigies), this evening I went for a walk to assess the mood of the town and determine whether or not it was about to join in the current wave of riots and civil unrest sweeping through the country.  Apparently not . . . I came across some townsfolk playing bowls inside the castle precinct.  They have played bowls here every Wednesday afternoon for the last 400 years . . . and it looks like some of them are using the original wooden bowls and a couple of the old blokes looked like they aren't much younger!  The ‘green’ itself was pretty much a smoothed off paddock and there were three or four games going on simultaneously.  Most of these people looked as if their rioting days were over and the rest of the town would rather go to the pub and talk about it all over a pint! I do wonder, however, whether things might turn a lot nastier if, for example, Bill's were ever to run out of organic felafel.

Do you think they're about to start a riot?

400 year old wooden bowls - or very old anyway