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Getting started on a new guitar. These cocobolo sides bent really easily on the bending iron. The amount of oil that came to the surface and scorched was pretty ridiculous. Check out the side of the bending iron. Hopefully, it sands off the sides ok. This is my first time using cocobolo.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Toasty!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Well after a good bit of scraping and sanding, that's a bit of an improvement. Phew!

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Got started on two new dreds, wenge and EIR.















Brad


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Wenge really appeals to me. I don't question it, I just embrace it.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I haven’t seen very many sets like this one that have sapwood it in. First time working with it so will share what I learn.


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Brad did you get that set from Elite Tonewoods? If so I have the sister set. Except the sapwood goes from top to bottom.

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I thought it was Aaron Hix but I just looked and it’s from GTT Tonewoods on eBay. GTT apparently stands for General Tire Treaders corp per their eBay profile. So… I dunno.


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It’s dovetail day here at Goodman Guitars….






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This Week in Adventures in Cocobolo:

I glued up the cocobolo back plates for the guitar I'm building the day before yesterday and then thickness sanded them yesterday morning. After killing two strips of 80 grit sandpaper on the drum sander I got them down to the target thickness. They looked great. I gave them a gentle cross grain flex and they instantly popped apart. I have read conflicting opinions about whether wiping down the cocobolo with acetone before gluing is helpful or harmful so I didn't do it. Apparently, it was bad to not do it. So I rejointed the edges to remove glue and remake the joint.

Before re-gluing the plates I wiped down both edges with acetone until no more color was coming off. I clamped them up again in my Bora clamps with a 2x2 clamped on top of the center joint to back it up. When I tightened the last clamp though, one of the plates buckled and cracked. A really bone headed move. I should have known that with the plates now thicknessed down to 0.092" they would probably not withstand as much clamping pressure. At that point, I thought this back and sides set was a goner but decided to work glue into the crack while it was still buckled and then release the clamp to let it close up. I then clamped a 2x2 over the crack and re-clamped the plates and left them overnight.

This morning, the center joint withstood cross grain flexing no problem. The crack also held and was only visible due to the squeeze out. After scraping it was completely invisible. I outlined the crack with white China marker in the lower bout on the right in the photo before scraping. I'm going to go ahead and brace it up. Three of the four back braces will cross the crack. I may put a couple cleats on it too.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I just need to spend a coup of days before I can level and buff this sprayed on Post cat Royal-Lac. This is a sitka\Koa falcate braced `12 fret 00. I have been working on this for awhile anxious to finish it. Here it is just off of the spray gun.

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Looking good, John! Good to hear from you.


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Buttery golden koa, love it!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I don't have a whole slew of necks going. This one was roughed out, but I was thinking about the steps to getting the Torres ready to glue up, and realized that the heel wasn't done. The plan shows the shape of the heel and the back, and the curve between the neck and the heel; but doesn't show the curve on the block, I had to look for pictures, and they are all different. It would be great if a band saw table could be tilted 30 degrees up toward the blade. I suppose I could have made a 30 degree block, or whatever it is I need; and place it under the neck. Then you have to make the slot wider too, for the sides to fit in.

Well. Looking at the neck on the desk here, and that can't work. You could still only cut one side; it's too long. It's just a difficult cut by hand.

It still has some bumps in it, I'll smooth them out. It seems like the back COULD be like a violin back with a button. It doesn't show that on the plan, but some photos have that, and some don't. I think the button as part of the back would be better. Too late now.

I like to finish the neck all the way, before gluing it on. Lots of people do that last. That seems like a terrible idea to me. You have that big body in the way. It is HD cedar decking. You can find nice quartered boards.

I have wondered about putting a truss rod in. Then I'd have to figure out some way to cut the slot. I cut the slot for the saddle in the bridge with my marking tool, whatever they call it. I cut a little taper in it, so it is snug. Rout a slot with my little hand router plane, and get the width with the marker? It should cut easy. The marker was sold by LMI. I bout that, the circle cutter, and a hot hide glue warmer, before they went out of business.

It is funny how the one side almost looks like a 1 piece neck, and the other side you can easily see that it is a stacked heel.

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Why be normal?

That guitar looks amazing!

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I finally got around to building a tool that I've wanted for a long time. An inlay router with a sturdy spindle and transparent base.

Not perfect yet, but much better than my old dremel with StewMac base. The plastic base is a bit flexible which leads to slightly inconsistent depth. I need to remake its 3D printed stiffener out of metal. And the motor driver seems to have a hair trigger temperature sensor that's not too happy being mummified in tape and hot glue. It shuts off before it even gets warm, so I just need to disable it, but that will involve some fiddly work.

The mini-spindle is something I made for my lathe to regrind the chuck jaws (hence why the driver is mummified, to protect from conductive metal chips and dust), and here it is in use to flatten the ends of the threaded rods and drill holes to screw them to the router base.

And here's the router in use, also showcasing the versatility of cam clamps to construct a flashlight holder in a few seconds to get it pointed at the right angle to highlight the score lines. One clamp on the light, another clamp on that clamp, and then a random object under its bar to lift it up and tilt the light downward a bit.

And here's the finished inlay. I cheated, tracing a photo of a real bird rather than drawing it myself, but it sure turned out nice. I cut all the pieces and assembled the bird years ago, but didn't get around to inlaying it until now. Green abalone, purpleheart, black MOP eye, and Duke or Pearl's purple spiny oyster for the beak, feet, and wing tip.

Wooohoo; jointed and glued a torrefied top for #5, waiting for good weather to spray #4.

Still haven’t managed to get perfect light tight edges with a hand plane (with a well tuned Stanley Bailey No. 7 that’s 22” long, no less). I’m still having to take some swipes over 220 grit on the jointer. Disappointed in my hand jointing chops…

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Working on rosettes, just finished the first. Woods used are: European maple, ebony, Anigre, black dyed poplar, Ceylon satinwood, and Brazilian rosewood

That's a beautiful rosette.

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Hey Ken, the plan you're referring to is based on Torres SE-117. There are a number of photos of SE-117 in the Romanillos book (highly recommend picking up a copy while they're still in print) but the back does extend over the heel with the bindings terminating in a "bee sting" at each side of the heel. Here is Torres SE-77, it's basically the same guitar as SE-117 with the exception of a slightly longer scale length (609 instead of 604) and a mother of pearl tie block facing as opposed to the bone facing on SE-117. All other construction and aesthetic treatments are mostly identical between the two guitars however.

https://www.guitarsalon.com/product/188 ... rres-sp-cy

Dude.

You are a serious renaissance man! I tried making a lathe once to try to drill and bore holes to make woodwinds. Even with pillow blocks it was a nightmare. My little mini lathe is not great, but can cut the right taper on pegs and vacuum fittings!

Nice work.

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Why be normal?

Brian, I tried finding that book before; no luck. I did find it just now, on an achieve site. It is in black and white, and you can zoom it. I can read it by zooming and scrolling. I did see a drawing showing a back; WITH the button.

Nice rosette. Mine is simple. I made it to match the bridge:

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Why be normal?

Ken, you can buy the book direct from Marian Harris Winspear, the widow of Romanillos and co-author of the book. Alternatively you can buy it from guitarras de luthier in Madrid, I'm unaware of any USA based shops that carry it though. If you speak Spanish the soft bound Spanish language version is only 50 euro

https://romanillosguitarbooks.com/shop. ... /432426311

https://romanillosguitarbooks.com/shop. ... /432600184

Wow. That’s a knockout.

If you don’t mind saying, what thickness of veneers did you use to make the wheat (or herringbone or whatever you call it)?

Thanks! The herringbone is made up of 0.5mm black dyed poplar, 0.5mm anigre, 0.5mm Brazilian rosewood, and 0.3mm European maple. Each half of the herringbone is 0.55mm, the maple fillet separating the halves is 0.2mm, and the design is flanked by 0.3mm black veneer on each side bringing the total width to 1.9mm. The total rosette width is 19mm. Here's a close up shot