Week 4 . . . Day 16

The Home Straight . . .

So we are entering the last week of the course . . . and we are all on track to finish our instruments in good time plus do a few other things on the Saturday.  We are planning to have a get together on Friday evening as Patrick cannot come on Saturday due to another commitment . . . we’ll get a few pints from the Lewes Arms and play some music with Richard and his offsider Chip and then have a meal somewhere.

Phil and I arrived early as usual . . . he spent £5 on a Rumanian gypsy jazz guitar that was hand built by a direct descendant of Jean ‘Django’ Reinhardt – or at least that’s what the bloke at the car boot sale said!  And being the canny Yorkshire man that he is, Phil had been watching the guitar futures market very closely and noticed that the price had dropped from $8 – so a 37.5% price reduction can only be seen as a steal!  I think Richard’s sensibilities might offended by having such an ‘instrument’ in his fine workshop at Patrick says he paid about 100% too much!

My first task ‘before work’ for today was to sort out my frets . . . I cut them the other day but predictably I knocked them over and I had to spend five minutes putting them back into size order. 



But it was a bargain!



Putting them back in the right order!

Giant Lollypops . . .

Our guitars were standing up like enormous lollypops standing on their sticks in the vices as we were about to start work.  The first task was to closely examine the back and side surfaces to see if any other filling is required – you will recall that we put an epoxy resin all over the bodies on Saturday.

Phil and I needed to put some additional wood filler on the back and sides of our guitars and rub it in very carefully – and then sanding it all back being very careful not to go through the layer of epoxy.  This is very exacting work using 320 grit sand paper and it took a couple of hours until we were done and the guitars packed away in bubble wrap ready for sanding tomorrow.

Ready to go

Extra filler going on

Sanding - carefully!

One of the last times you will see this

Ready to go

Today’s Visitors . . .

There is a sense of collegiality amongst the luthiers of Lewes . . . they are all happy to share ideas, materials and equipment when needed.  Today we had a visit from Jerome who builds beautiful Gypsy guitars in the tradition of Maccaferri  . . . we saw him playing one of his guitars at the Snowdrop last week.  Jerome invited us to his workshop as he is doing some French polishing . . . we will go tomorrow morning.

Of course Nick arrived to do some more inspections of our progress and to assess our characters to see if we are worthy to be called a luthier . . . I suspect we might need to make a lot more guitars before we can even think about doing that!  And then we had another visit from Richard’s lovely family – his wife Hazel and daughter Mia popped in to say hello.  Unfortunately Hazel has hurt her foot which means she is having a few days off from her normal occupation of aerial dancing.



Jerome

Everyone shares their views

Lookout - Nick's back to check on things!

Mia, Richard and Hazel

Back to the Necks . . .

With the guitar bodies packed up and ready for sanding we all then went back to our necks – we are at different stages so the story will ‘diverge’ from here.  My first job was a rather small one – I needed to ‘round’ the guitar end of my fretboard.  This is quite simple – I used a file and take of a sensible amount of ebony and then sand it to the right shape . . . remembering to sand WITH the grain.

Rounding the edge

More Routing . . .

My next job was to remove a lot of excess mahogany from the back of my neck . . . which meant putting the neck into a simple jig and ‘mowing the lawn’ down to the desired thickness and it was done!

Set up in the jig

'Mowing the lawn'

All done

Fretting . . .

Next came the frets . . . you will recall that I had already cut the frets to approximately the right length.  The frets themselves are rounded and smooth on the top but they have a ridge which fits into the slot.  However, to get a neat end it is normal (though optional) to ‘tang’ the ends of the frets . . . which means cutting the ridge away at the ends of the fret so that it is not visible through the side of the fretboard.  I did this job over lunch as it does not require much supervision! 

Next I installed the frets into their designated slots using a hammer.  The trick is to lightly tap down each end and then gradually move in towards the centre from both ends – and then tap right across the fret a number of times.  Some of the frets take a fair amount of hammering to get properly seated – and I had a couple where I needed to use a fret press . . . a special curved clamp which is used to put additional pressure on the fret or when the fret material itself is too soft to hammer without marking.

Once they are all in place they need to be glued with superglue . . . a couple of drops are drizzled at the end of each fret so that it ‘capillarises’ along the fret inside the fretboard.  It is a surprisingly effective method and you can see the glue coming through the other side on some of the frets.  Lastly a special mixture of black wood filler is ‘blobbed’ on each fret end to fill the slot – and then the all the gunk is sanded off very carefully with 120 then 180 grade sandpaper.

Getting going

The tangs are the little cut out bits

Tanging machine

All good so far

Need a bigger hammer

The luthier's friend again

Fret clamp in action

Filler going on

Mmm - that's a neat job!

Volute or Flute . . .

Next I needed to make a decision about something I didn’t even know had a name . . . would I have a volute or flute (or something else) where the neck meets the headstock.  The fundamental problem is that the neck and headstock are on different planes and you need to make a neat transition from on to the other while maintaining strength of the whole structure.  We all we all settled on a volute following Richard’s ‘standard’ . . . so I needed to start removing wood in that general area using a block plane, chisel and curved thumb plane with the objective of setting a smooth lateral transition between the two surfaces while leaving a ridge on the upper neck.  I got as far as scribing a semi-circle on the forthcoming volute . . . which will now be Wednesday’s job.

The volute

Removing the excess

Getting a smooth transition

Very careful planing

Even more care planing

Marking the volute

The Others . . .

Both Patrick and Phil also worked on their necks – they are probably running about an hour and a half ahead of me.

The quiet achiever quietly achieving

A mistake can easily become a design feature

I hope one of Richard's valued customers does not see this thing!

What can I do now?

Working on the neck

Tomorrow’s Plan . . .

Richard is going ‘off site’ to spray our guitar bodies with lacquer tomorrow so we are free to run riot in the workshop – you won’t recognise the place when you come back Richard!  Actually we all have a few tasks to carry on with – like fitting the saddle into the bridge and I need to put the dots on the top of my neck.  It is tradition to mark a set pattern up the fretboard on steel string guitars to provide an instant visual guide where each fret is – but somehow classical and flamenco guitarists don’t need them!

We have also decided to go on our own class excursion – we will spend some time at Jerome’s gypsy guitar workshop and the visit the Acoustic Music Company in Brighton, which Richard says is the best guitar shop in the UK.  Apparently the owner is a very interesting man – but we are always up for a challenge!

World of 'Music' . . .

Richard’s  PA system in his workshop has been dispatching some wonderful music from around the world over the past few weeks . . . we have listened to some lovely English folk and roots music from Richard’s iPod and a few antipodean bands and artists from mine – and sensibly Patrick hasn’t played any.  But the collection that has astounded us all comes from that most eclectic, innovative and interesting mind of Phil – as he often says “you should try living in here”!  His music defies description and classification – it would do a librarian’s head in.  I enjoy watching the ‘we are not amused’ look that Richard has when he walks in after lunch each day to be assaulted with yet another selection from the lunatic fringe of British music.  And what is more, Phil knows all the words and sings them at the top of his voice!  I defy anyone to make any sensible connections between this albums other than being by artists from the edge of sanity . . . and this is only a random selection!

Half Man Half Biscuit
Butthole Surfers
Bombay Bicycle Club
Bowling for Soup
Brendan Croker and the 5 O'Clock Shadows
Captain Accident and the Disasters
Col Ray and the Scary Cats
3 Daft Monkeys

Dave Woodcock and the Dead Comedians
Dead Like Harry
Hayseed Dixie
Hootie and the Blowfish
The Horrors
The Lancashire Hotpots
The Legendary Shack Shakers
Little Johnny England
The Muffin Men
Seasick Steve
Skunk Anansie
The Sons of El Roacho
This Town Needs Guns
Trailerpark Trash
Two Door Cinema Club
The Wombats

We all think that Britain is a much safer place now that Phil has retired as a senior civil servant . . . you can imagine him walking into Downing Street and pondering “what that big red button does” as the nuclear warhead that the Brits have secretly had aimed at Paris since that dastardly day in 1066 is set on its way thus changing the course of history.  But . . . there is a crack in everything because that’s how the light gets in!



But Richard - I like my Osborne guitar better like this!