Official Luthiers Forum!

Always great to see someone else get involved. It’s a fantastic hobby for many of us. I’m on....14 kinda lost count... I’m just barely getting to the point that I’m proud of my builds ha. The mistakes I make are getting so that the mistakes are better than my first effort on the early ones... TONS of places to improve... just enjoying the process!!!

Have fun. Don’t get stressed about stuff and finish what you start.

You’ve got this!


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I’ve built for eighteen years and helped teach a class for four. I always tell the students that:

1) the worse sounding guitar is the one in a box in pieces in your garage that you didn’t finish.

2) That first guitar will probably play and sound better than that $1,200 Martin or Gibson you currently think is the ne plus ultra. You are going to spend 100+ hours on it. They can’t spend more than 25. The time and care WILL pay off.

3) it will be full of cosmetic mistakes that will only bother you. You will likely NEED to build a second just because you KNOW the next one will be flawless.

4) Leave the mass spectrometer, electron scanning microscope and 1200 year old spruce at home. The Internet is full discussions from top luthiers who have built hundreds of guitars (and people pretending to be) chasing minute refinements. Reading about how modern jazz masters use upper extension triads to best reharmonize a progression won’t help you if you’ve never played a single note on a guitar. Likewise for building a guitar. Just build a tried and true design. That’s what Martin does, and people seem pretty pleased with them.

5) It is NOT a cheap way of getting your dream guitar. If you love it you will build dozens more and have to explain to your wife why you NEED a $300 binding jig. If you don’t, you won’t finish the first.





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But you really don't need a $300 binding jig. The beauty of the Compiano book is he shows inexpensive methods to do many of the things factories turn into million dollar processes.
Many of the tools that are nice to have you can live without. My wife saw me "testing out" a couple of small brass violin maker's planes I bought off eBay and asked if I was "playing" or actually doing something constructive with them (I was playing). At the prices they usually retail for I felt it wasn't worth the use I would get from them. For the past 40 years I got by without them. These Chinese planes are quite a bit cheaper but appear nicely made and work fairly well (I haven't sharpened them yet but they plane spruce easily).
Also materials need not be expensive. Many fine instruments have been built with run of the mill materials, when careful selection of those materials is done by a knowledgeable person. The most important part of the guitar (soundboard) can be purchased inexpensively if a few cosmetic flaws are tolerated.
But most of us (myself included) are addicted and overspend on tools and materials.

In my experience of building jumbos, it's probably better to leave the top and brace on the thick side. That way you retain the highs. A jumbo is so big that there's ample room for the top to move as the string vibrates, so no need to make it light and thin.

Just by using a standard Martin style bridge improves the sound quite a bit, that J200 bridge is very heavy.

Also, epoxy fill covers a multitude of binding gaps, cosmetic blemishes, and whatnot. Highly recommended!

Speaking of electron scanning microscope... here's the one I used to use at the university...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

He he, we have them where I work as well.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I notice from the topic of the thread you’re after a particular “type of sound”. Imo just get it built and TAKE NOTES. Note the thicknesses, brace heights/ widths ... all of it.
If you’re patient and willing to stay in the learning curve you’ll love building guitarS


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Well, it took 10 weeks of calendar time to get it built, but it's done and was used this weekend for the first time in a live setting. Interestingly, of the ~150 hours I spent on it I would bet 100 of those were making templtes, jigs and molds.

Anyhow, it looks great, feels and plays great and can handle the hardest playing i could dish out. The problem is that I need a lot more fullness and low end to get where I'm going.

The second one has the head neck and heel blocks glued in and top and bottom braced. Looking to close the box in the next few days.

If anyone has suggestions based on J-200 builds I'd be happy to hear. I did already get some good input on another thread, but wanted to close this one out with a picture.

As far as the materials and such, this is what I ended up going with:

- Adi Top ~.010
- IRW Back and sides ~.095
- Spruce bracing
- Mohogany Neck
- Cocobolo Bridge, fret board and headstock plate
- All wood rosette (various species)
- Gotoh 510
- Martin Retro .13's

Finally figured out why the photo wouldn't post...

Terry that's a humongous photo of a big accomplishment! It's a beauty. Now you are hooked. Nice job!

Ken

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Why be normal?

Well, that sure looks good, especially for a first build!

Did you get the Gore/Gilet books? They contain all the information you need to get the fullness you seek...

I bought the somogyi books and read them a few times. Does the gore filet cover different theory?

The Somogyi books I found to be less helpful and short on actual data. The Gore/Gilet books are jam packed with facts and figures regarding the physics at play with acoustic guitars. In particular, the modal tuning was for me a game changer. So, with your guitar, and any guitar, whether you’re doing it consciously or not, the top, the back, and the air chamber have resonant frequencies. These frequencies can be measured, and intentionally changed resulting in dramatic shifts to the tone and responsiveness of your guitar.

The books contain suggestions for what those resonances should be for different sized instruments. Then you can play with these numbers to make your guitars do what you want them too...

The math and physics are horribly complex, but applying the knowledge is fairly straightforward...

And they're half price from SM with SM membership.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

your guitar looks nice
now for some advice
The first one is seldom your best one. A few things that you need to work with are
A weight
knowing where to loose weight and not hurt structure
B Gluing
keeping the joint pristine helps with energy transfer
C understanding bracing
Braces influence the energy transfer in the top. So you got the first one done , don't make a lot of changes on the next one. You need to learn
and understand the bracing structure and what it can do. Learning to voice a top can take years.. It took me about 14 guitars to get it right.
D it can be done keep notes learn the cause and effect of what you do,

I have seen and heard great guitars that followed and broke the rules. So enjoy the journey. You will learn much more from a failure than success

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Gore/Gilet is one the way.

I've not read the Somogyi build book but I read his first one on the philosophy of building and found that it was a great book to read but didn't really give away too many secrets on building a guitar. But I think it's a great accompaniment to the G/G books of hard knocks science. Somogyi's book is sort of like alternative medicine while the G/G books are lab tested and rigorous. Each one compliments the other. It depends on whether you are an engineer or a poet. But in either case the engineer could use a bit of poetry in his build as could the poet use a bit of engineering. Even if you build according to the G/G books you are going to throw in a bit of your own into it and that's where the Somogyi philosophy comes in. G/G tells you what to do while Somogyi shows you what to do. That's my take on it anyway.

Bringing back an old thread to present some closure as a nod of appreciation to everyone who has offered there input.

That first one (pictured above) did what it was supposed to do. It put a stake in the ground. I immediately went back to the G/G and Somogyi books (and a brush of Companio) to understand what I did and how that related to what I got, and more importantly... why. The second one was right on the nose. We use it as our "demo" guitar, and I have yet to have someone play it and not be genuinely interested in buying one.

For those who have a couple minutes to hear, this is the recording we made of that second guitar (Z002) in my living room with 4 nice microphones and no effects or processing. We had a couple cardioid mics in the corners to capture the natural reverb. Being played by a friend of mine who was kind enough to share a bit of original music for the recording:

https://soundcloud.com/vine-guitars/zion-drop-tuned

After building 9 prototypes, we are preparing to order parts for our first two "release customers." I've found that building them in pairs is very helpful with tool setup in the early milling stages. Not so much once you start bracing and inlay type work.

Thanks again!

Ahhh... and a couple pics. Also done by some good friends who know what they are doing with a camera!

Sounds great!

Doing a scratch build means acquiring or building a good number of jigs. Binding cutter, side bender (or heat pipe, ugh), radius dishes, molds, forms, circle cutter (router), side templates, fret board slotter, fret board radius shaper, neck and body jig to cut mortise and tennons, and on and on! In the beginning, its all I seemed to do!

Another way to learn is to purchase a highly serviced kit from Stew-Mac or LMII or BluesCreek. I recommend John Hall at BluesCreek because you will have a live human here and there to advise you.

Ya made me laugh Mike, I have two side benders and a heat pipe. I prefer the heat pipe and haven't used a side bender in years. Funny how we all have our different preferences.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for posting Mike. I'm sure the extra perspective will be handy for other first-timer's reading this. I just revived this thread to report back results after building my first couple guitars, based on a lot of great advice above. I agree, the first one was more jig and template building (did them all myself) than guitar building. But, I didn't mind that so much... knowing I would be using them many times over.

FWIW, I decided to use pre-bent sides from LMI, since I was building off their plans from Rick Micheletti. Imho, there's little tonal advantage to bending them yourself, unless you are laminating (not yet for me) or trying to use your own unique body shapes (also not yet for me). If you are buying rough sawn lumber and re-sawing it yourself, then you have no choice, but I don't need that extra complication in my life with so many easy ways to get really nice body woods milled and matched. Also, my business brain told me that having someone else assume the risk of destroying expensive wood, plus not buying all the bending equipment was an easy cost-benefit decision (assuming I believe what I said above). My estimate on a break-even for bending my own (without labor) was about 40-50 guitars.

Now that I'm on number 9 of the exact same design, I have determined that I would like to get more mass in my sides without having to bolt on weights (credit Gore & Gillet), so I will either be laminating in the future (credit M. Greenfield) or trying to bend my own extra-thick sides (credit Goodall), but for right now I have other models I'm looking to start in the next several weeks.

Oh, I did by a fret slotting template that I put on cross-cut table saw jig I made, inspired by Greenfield, so I guess there is one template in my shop I didn't make from scratch myself... but c'mon. Trying to make one of those yourself, and get every slot to within +/- .001" sounded like madness to me. Interestingly, a strike plate off of a typical interior door lockset was the exact thickness of the indexing slot on LMI's newer fret slotting templates.

Build on everyone!

I'd say that's a very impressive first guitar. Sounds like you have a future to me.

Yeah, I’m just floored you went from zero to production in a little over a year. The guitar sounds great. Kudos.


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Thanks much gentlemen. I have to credit over 25 years of woodworking and a ton of reading/research for the quick start. Plus, I've been a musician for over 30 years, several of which I spent mixing and recording, so I may have had an unfair advantage for a new maker. Without all that I could see the journey taking years to get this far.

We are about to start our first Dread and Parlor. Fortunately I have people interested and offering down payments... but that means the first couple have to be good. No pressure

All that said, there's nothing quite like seeing a fantastic musician use one of your instruments in the real world. Humbling and encouraging.

Now, back to making sawdust... and looking for a guitar in the leftovers.