Official Luthiers Forum!

I just recently attempted this and ended up ruining a top. Is there a tutorial on this somewhere? I don't understand the concept at all. I feel like I got the hang of shaping the braces but when I had to chisel braces off I got lots of tearout. I could plane them down to about 1/64 fairly well but when it came to actually getting down to top wood I had all kinds of problems.

Thanks Jeremy

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Jeremy Douglas

Jeremy - I feel your pain, bro. Even though I have never had to do it since I have never built a guitar I wanted to comiserate.

Can anyone here send him a new top? And some bracewood, and a rosette? Or, is there a redeemable top there? Can you use a hair dryer and a hot scraper to remove the last little bit?

Hang in there, help is on the way!

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Jeremy,

Did you use the radius dish to sand the braces? I'm curious to why they don't have a good fit.

Thanks, David

Thanks Steve. No the top is definitely not redeemable.

David, no I don't have a sanding dish.

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Jeremy Douglas

when carving your braces flip your chisel upsidedown (that is chamfer down) and use your wrist to push the handle of the chisel down as you cut.
try do do shallowish cuts and do them in one fliud cut this will hep you get chamfer the ends of the braces.

as for carving the shape if you are beginer go to pilgrims prodjects a get a ibex finger plane it will make your life much easier.
you can also use these to put a chamfer at the ends but perfer a chisel myself.

as for not having a radius dish i did my first guitar without one and all you have to do draw on your radius with a bent metel rule (marking a curve from 0mm in the middle of the brace-the depth of the radius at the end) then carve this down with a block plane making sure you follow rhe curve perfectly.
you will need to start with a square and flat brace and you will need to get the face nice and square to the edge of the brace when you have finished or else your braces wont fit well.
even a slight side to side curve on the brace will result in gaps that will make them ineffective for a guitar.

if you need a good tutorial may i suggest john mayes' dvd on voicing guitar tops its very good to give you an idea of what you need to do.
you can contat him through his website or through the forum.

good luck,
joel.

John Mayes excellent videos are now available and in stock from John Watkins at http://www.cncguitarparts.com

Jeremy,

I assume you are talking about removing braces rather than shaping them. When I have to do this I chisel them as low as I can get without risking touching the top with the chisel and then sand them down to the top's level - I use my belt sander as I don't have a thickness sander. This only works of course if all the braces are coming off the top.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

What probably happened is you were grabbing the glue with your chisel that wasn't sharp enough to cut it, so it grabbed and ripped. Was your chisel scary sharp?

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

And if you get tearout, i suppose you need to carve from the opposite direction.

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Build log

Yeh that's what I'm talking about Dave. A sanding block and some tape in the right places would probably work well too.

Thanks Todd, the bracing carving jig looks like a good idea.

joel I used that same method.

Frei, I think your right. It sounds like thats what was happening. I did use the scary sharp system to sharpen them. I could sorta shave the hair off my arm with them but since used them to shape the back braces. But it sounds like from yours and Todd's description of what should and what should not be happening that they were not sharp enough.

"A combination of an effective, flexible holding fixture, proper, safe technique, and a sharp edge makes cleaning off a plate a 5 minute job, with a bit of scraping or warm water taking the residue with it."

I definitely wasn't doing something right cause I think it took me an hour and a half before I finally ripped a big chunk out of the top. I guess while I wait on a new top I'll sharpen my chisels

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Jeremy Douglas

I plan on doing that. I've got plenty of scraps to use. It'll be good to test the sharpness of my chisels too, since that's something that I need to work on also. It is disappointing but it doesn't change anything. I'm going to finish the guitar no matter how many parts I have to rebuild.

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Jeremy Douglas

Hey dont feel bad you are doing well for your first solo top.

you can not learn unless you make mistakes.
in fact if you ask even the most experienced luthiers here they will admit that they make mistakes all the time and that part of the art of building a hand built guitar learning to repair any mistakes you make along the way (lots in my case)

at least you are aware of the problem and prepard to start again.
alot of people find it hard to amid they have made a critcal error.

make the most of this situation and use the useless top to practice carving down to the level of the top.

good luck i hope the next one goes better for you.

Joel.

Thanks Joel

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Jeremy Douglas