Official Luthiers Forum!

Side tapes, bracing, lining, left me with fine lines created with pencil when I had to draw the layouts as well as glue lines right up against the bracing and edge of tapes.

-How do you guys clean the fine lines of pencil mark that is right on against edge of bracings? Do you sand it or erase it with...sharp eraser? or scrape it off?

-Do you guys draw the bracing layout on each and every guitar you build or do you use some sort of jig?

-Glue lines...I'm not talking about glue squeeze out that I didn't clean. I used a popsicle stick to clean glue being squeezed out. However there are light film of glue that I can get out with stick,finger, or cloth. After it dries, edge of the braces, side tapes, etc has shiny glue film lines against it's edges.

So how do you guys deal with this?

Thanks, David

Pencil lines. Put them outside the area of the top or back, the places that will be cut off. If they have to stay inside the area, naptha cleans off what you can't get with a gum eraser.

Glue lines. Normal scrape initially. Razor blade scraper. Followed by an old tooth brush dampened. This leaves things very nice and crisp.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock,

How do you place your braces without pencil lines inside the board?

Does naptha nuturalize glue if it soaks into beneath bracing?

Are there any negetive effects if you have bunch of pencil marks/lines between the braces and board?

Thanks, David

I am not Brock but I played one in a high school drama once

I don't know Brock's way of marking brace locations but I use a #2 and draw brace boundaries as they will fall and do so with a light hand as not to indent the wood as I draw them. I glue the brace in place. Use a straw to remove glue squeeze out. Once braced and cured I will clean with naphtha on a paper towel. If any lines are still visible a gum eraser and clean up with a small cabinet scraper.

No naphtha will not harm cured glue.

You trim your top over size while building. Just make your marks for the X and the upper transverse brace in the area that will be trimmed off (or under the linings). And on the tonebars and fingerbraces I put the marks on the X brace and then erase them later. You may need a tiny mark at the ends of the tonebars and fingerbraces, but put it just under the far edge of the brace so once it is glued up it covers the mark. (I glue up braces in stages so I have stationary points to reference to.) Any left over stray marks can be pretty easily cleaned off with a gum eraser or naptha.

Try the toothbrush trick too. After you scrape as much as you can a damp toothbrush will really get that corner nice and clean.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

If you layout your brace lines so that they are just slightly less than the width of the brace, you'll avoid this problem entirely. For a 1/4" brace make your lines 7/32" apart and make sure you can't see any pencil line on either side of the brace when you clamp it down. If you can see a line on either side, your brace has moved and you need to reposition. Works for me.

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Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

I keep most of my pencil marks outside the outline of the body. But I don't really see anything wrong with leaving some pencil marks behind.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

If you look at Jose Romanillos book about Torres you'll see many pictures that show pencil lines on his top and neck block(foot)

I would not worry to much!
I personally use end marks-that is i do not have to draw a line for each brace-just where the braces end
I put an X on the side of that mark to let me know where the brace goes!!

mike

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Mike Collins

I tend to leave pencil marks under the top and where they're not visible from the soundhole. A small flexible 6" ruler inside a wet cotton cloth is great to remove glue in the corners.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Thanks for the info guys. However I'm afraid that Naptha isn't working for me. I used paper towel and rubbed some naptha on to dry glue residue and didn't help much.

This is bit frustrating since some of your work seems flawless without even spec of dust...Brock?

I also realized that some clean the glue as soon as the clamps are on and others waiting until it dries a little and tears them off. Well I tried both methods and still left slight film of glue on the wood it self no matter how hard I tried. The small amount that got into the pores would just not come out and gives you that wet look.

Is it time to sand ???

Thanks, David

I mark where I can outside the body profile too but am not adverse to leaving a mark or two where it does not show either.

For squeeze out a 6" metal engineer's scale with damp paper towel works well for Titebond and HHG that I didn't wait long enough to clean. For HHG when I wait long enough, 6-8 minutes or so, the engineer's scale used as a squeegee with no paper towel seems to pull it off nicely in long, snot-like rubbery segments that my dog loves to eat...... So turn me into the humane society - I don't care.....

When I am doing the final clean-up on a top or back tri-folded sand paper gets in the corners nicely to remove any residual glue and pencil lines. It also helps, me at least, to make very faint lines in the first place and use an abundance of light in your go-bar deck when placing and gluing the braces to be able to see the faint marks. And of course I always clean up what I can at once and then revisit it in 5 minutes to get the additional squeeze out.

I'm using fish glue at this point so excess has to be removed immediately. I use a sharp chisel but more as a scraper than to cut.
To be truthful though I don't mind some pencil marks showing, they show evidence of my working method which I think becomes part of the instrument's practical aesthetic.
A small amount of glue sqeeze is OK too as long as it is consistant throughout.
Working over the top's interior too much can quickly take it in the wrong direction.

David, just a comment on that pic: very handsome workmanship...
simply a beautiful top.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thank you Steve.

Nice work Dave-clean!
Don't ya love the fish glue?

Is that a guitar for the GFA convention next year ?

mike

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Mike Collins