The back is on

I've been concerned about humidity lately. We had a big snow melt and some days of rain in the past week. I took some readings that were in the 50-percent range, and I was worried. So I borrowed this humidifier and let it run for a few days.




















It seems to have helped, although not much. I'm not sure. After checking humidity dozens of times with my psychrometer, I think my initial reading may have been high. RH seems to be hovering in the mid-40's now, which is good. I've calibrated this cheap hygrometer, which I don't trust, but that still gives me an idea of when humidity is going up or down.



















So, now that I believe I have a good idea of where I'm at humidity-wise, on with the build.

Here's the back being glued on.


















The back is on! The boat is done.















I'm trimming the overhang with a chisel. Doing it this way makes cool patterns.















Here's the top sitting on top of "the boat."














It's starting to look more and more like a guitar.














Oooh...














Ahhh...

















Ok, now imagine the two pics above with wood this color. Mmmmm...















Here's how the bracing has shaped up. It looks very very nice. I'm considering the bracing "done." If need be, it can be shaped further after the guitar is finished. I guess we'll see. Before gluing the top on, I just need to flatten the top part of the rim above the soundhole, and then I'll glue this on too, within the next few days.


















My friends at mimf.com suggested that I slenderize the braces quite abit, so I did. Here, the upper part of the x has been triangle-ized. And I did that to all the major braces. It has a really nice tone...

Bracing just about done

Top bracing re-do

The new bracing started out looking like this:

























It's red spruce I purchased from John Hall. I ripped these pieces to proper dimensions and then shaped them further on my belt sander. Doing it this way I was able to make everything exactly the way I wanted it. I'm looking forward to having the tools to build everything from scratch. A control freak can't have it any other way.

I took off all the old bracing with a chisel. A little heat was applied to the bridgeplate. It was slow going, so as not to damage the top. Here's the top after bracing had been removed and the new X-brace had been glued down.
































After gluing down the remaining braces, I started shaping 'em with a chisel.





























I didn't even own a chisel when I built my first guitar. I picked up a nice Irwin chisel over the winter.

Lately, whenever I need something FLAT I reach for this marble chess board.















I cover stuff up sometimes so mama doesn't see our prized household items getting used on guitars.















It's the upper transverse brace that needs to be flat. This helps to have smooth transition from the fingerboard to the body, in order to avoid the dreaded "14th fret hump."















I glue the bridge plate on last. In these pics I'm just fitting it in place. The final piece will have diagonal notches cut out of it.




























Everything is starting to shape (har har) up...



















I like to look at pictures of 30's Martin bracing while I work and make my braces look a lot like those. I also tap the top and do my best to voice it. Doing both of these things, I hope to achieve an open sound like the 30's Martins that I like so much.


















































It's getting there. I'll maybe have the top glued on again this weekend.

March 2010 update

Some time around early January the build suffered a setback when I realized that top and back had lost the arch that I had built in to them, using shaped bracing. What happened is that I had glued these parts together in November, in my basement, while it was much more humid than I realized. We had been getting snow in November, and the furnace was on a lot, but the relative humidity hadn't lowered yet. So what happened is that when the humidity did get lower, the top and back shrank.

I thought about just waiting for the humidity to rise again, and proceeding with the project after that. But I knew the best thing to do would be to carefully and tediously remove all of the bracing and make new parts.

I bought some really nice looking lumberyard spruce and dried it out in our oven. I made a whole set out of bracing with this stuff. And then I dried it some more. But even after days and days of 200 degree baking, the pieces were still wet when I sanded in to them. So I ditched this project. It did have the whole house smelling like a Christmas tree, though.















I then obtained more air dried spruce from John Hall and made a third set of bracing. That one is a charm, as they say. I've got all the bracing removed now and the third set is working out really nicely.

In the time leading up to this, I've made even more new tools. First of all I put together a psychrometer to help me get an accurate relative humidity reading. I use it to compare the temperature of a wet bulb to a dry bulb. So now, this won't be an issue any more.




























Another thing I built is the tower for my binding jig. It will hold my laminate trimmer which will cut the binding channels as the body is passed in front of it.





























And here is a miter sled so that I can make my own tapered fingerboards.



























And lastly but not leastly we have here a pair of radiused sanding dishes. One has a 15' radius (for the back) and the other has a 25' radius (for the top). I'm really pleased about this because it makes everything so much more accurate, as well as quicker.





























This weekend I'll be posting pics of the new bracing and hopefully close up the box soon after that.

More finish testing

After looking around at various things and asking a lot of people, I recently bought some Transtint brown mahogany dye and began testing with it. Here are more test pieces sealed with shellac and a few drops of dye.





























The triangular shaped piece is an offcut from the body wood, and the rectangle piece is the same as the neck wood.