Official Luthiers Forum!

This caught my eye in my FB feed today, 4 part downloadable instructions for making an arm bevel from the The Phoenix Guitar Company.
May be of interest to some folks.
I've downloaded them but haven't read it yet, and have never made an arm bevel.
https://www.phoenixguitarco.com/services-8?fbclid=IwAR3lVRQymyKOkLbg7dbgj8HjAQ_68q82x-T9s7qyN9Qjn5vehd-KxwfW4qY
Opinions?

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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.

I did one arm bevel just because I wanted to do at least one. It added 50 percent to the fabrication work on the body. Looks nice, feels nice, one-and-done.

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Peter Havriluk

I did one only as well using Tony Karol's tutorial. On his, the binding and purfling are only on the top of the guitar and not on the lower part of the bevel as shown in the link. I believe the original Laskin style has binding and purfling on both the top and bottom of the bevel. I found Tony's relatively simple to do with a plexi router template and using the same wood for the bevel as used for the side wood (in my case mahogany) and so did not do any veneer work. In hindsight, I should have made it a little longer. It was a good learning experience and I would do a couple of things differently. Sorry for the picture quality. Phone cameras weren't so good back when I built this one.

I've also done one using Kent Everett's method. His method is pretty straight forward and it worked out well. It does add a lot of time to the box construction time so I'm not sure I'll do another one. It's on my personal guitar and I do like it.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

It always amazes me how differently we each approach the same task I've done two so far, one without side purfling and one with. I construct the box as normal aside from using extra large dentellones in the bevel area. It's only after cutting the binding/purfling channels that I start removing material for the bevel.
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10145&t=47798&start=75

For the second one, I cut the main binding/purfling channels, carved the bevel, glued the veneer, and then continued the channels into the bevel to create a sort of split binding with side purfling. For this style it actually would be helpful to make the support block as a single large piece, because then you could just carve through to it and leave it exposed in place of the veneer (assuming your sides are normal thickness, not like in the Phoenix Guitar essay). But without a bandsaw or edge sander or outside mold, I think the dentellones and veneer are easier.

Agreed Dennis. Many ways to do it. I'm re-inspired now and will have to do another one soon. Maybe a belly bevel too.

I kind of incorporated this into my baseline offereing. I do the same thing Steve does above, in fact, I thought I was looking at one of my own projects for a second. Steve, they sell aluminum push pins. Amazon. Much more durable. I have done so mnay of these that it is second nature now. First time I did it, scared the crap out of me.

I can see why Taylor keeps it simple with it's Academy series with the time involved.

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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.

I've done one and it came out okay, Guy that bought it likes it. Not sure I'll do another.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Another method, somewhat simpler, is the Mike Doolin bent top arm bevel. I followed his method, demonstrated here:
http://www.doolinguitars.com/articles/armbevel/

My result, slightly less elegant than Mr Doolin's, looked like this. It is very comfortable to play for a D-sized body.
Doolin does some fancy cutting of extra width binding strips to make the binding fit the side contour. I didn't - I found a standard straight binding strip could be coaxed to fit.

Is the guitar you built also fan-braced like the one shown on Doolin's web page, or is it x-braced?

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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

Neither Jay. I am Australian, so of course it is falcate bracing.

Ha ha, of course it is!

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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