Official Luthiers Forum!

Currently on amp build number three here and this is a reproduction of the 45 watt early 60's Marshall tone monster. I've completed a 1957 5 watt Champ that sounds killer and a 1959 15 watt 12" speaker point to point tube amp that is the best sounding amp I've ever used.

So this is going to be my first half stack. Sounds like a children's book for rock and rollers, My First Half Stack

Anyway at the debugging stage and have low output so something is amiss and I have to track it down. On amp two I put a behind the board jumper in the wrong place and learned how to make creative tools to grab stuff behind the board that can't be seen..... That was fun.....

The Champ fired up the first time and has been faithful and true ever since and sounds amazing for a 8" speaker. These 57 Champs are one of the most recorded amps in history with greats such as Clapton recording entire albums in the studio with a 5 watt Champ.

So this is my new obsession at least for a while, amp making.

Going to get a 4 or 2 12" cab for it and still demoing speakers looking for that tone of my youth.....

These, all three so far have been StewMac kits and the experience has been a lot of fun and very rewarding especially when playing through these amps. They sound killer, best amps I have ever used. My Fender Bassman is going to get lonely now and won't see much use. I may take what I have learned since I know how to be safe inside these things now and retube it and ee if it improves any.

So for the uninitiated what's the attraction besides the fun of building an amp and getting to use lots of cool electronics tools and becoming sterile from breathing solder smoke? They sound better, significantly better than anything you can buy unless you pay thousands more for a point to point, hand wired tube amp. I would liken a point to point, hand wired tube amp properly built to the difference between a f*ctory acoustic guitar and a Luthier made instrument targeted for an adult market that takes care of stuff. Lots of overtones and character and if you are a geezer like me it will bring back memories playing through a tube amp, memories of when everything was tube.

Now I have to figure out where to put it. May have to go in the living room since I am out of room down here.

So what's happening in your shops AND if you would be so kind as to post pics or ask for assistance if need be to post pics? Thanks.

Literally on the bench, getting ready for pre-finishing surface prep, is Number 9:



Here is a closer shot of the front of the body:



Here is a closer shot of the back of the body:



And here is a closer shot of the headstock and most of the fingerboard:



Number 9 has a Sitka top, quartersawn white oak back and sides, Honduran mahogany neck, and Indian rosewood for the fingerboard and trim pieces. It has 13 frets clear of the body. The rosette and purfling are handmade herringbone, using dyed red and natural maple veneers. It has a dovetail neck joint, and it was constructed 100% with hot hide glue. The guitar shows a few mistakes here and there, but I'm moving in the right direction, I think. I'm happy with Number 9 so far. Fingers crossed for the finishing. Thanks to the many OLF members who have provided instruction and guidance!

Looks good, Don. Love the shape!


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Thanks, Brad! It’s basically Dread dimensions with a tighter and higher waist and a rounder tail. G Thang (great program) helped me plan it out. With the 13 fret design, this puts the bridge closer to the middle of the “circle” that defines the lower bout.

Hesh is this going to be a career turn for you?

Love the white oak Don!

I'm finishing up one of my folk art barn guitars, white oak and pine.



Also selecting some BRW for some OM style 45 builds coming up.

I still can't get used to oak as a tonewood. You tap it and it sounds sooooo dead. I like the fingerboard though. Never had anything like BRW.

I have the cello project. Never made one. The body is done, but not glued up. The belly needs the bass bar; I'm fitting that now. I decided to test the deflection to see what is going on. A cello has about 125 pounds of string tension. Since the bridge is so high; 60 pounds goes on the belly; so about 30 pushing down on the sound post. 30 pounds (well 28 or so) on the back gives .06" of movement.

I put ONE rod, 7 pounds on the belly, and it moved almost .040"! So the bass bar has a lot to do, if the body isn't going to collapse!

I have NO IDEA at all what kind of movement is normal on a cello. I'm sure that there is a wide range. Not surprisingly; no one is talking about it. I'll see what a slightly thinned down bass bar does, and work from there. I really wouldn't mind if I got some movement on the the top. It, and the back are both lower than I'd like; but the movement has to stop at some point!

You know what I mean.

Many Venetian cellos, at least the 2 Venetian cellos I have posters for; have very cool arching that is VERY skewed to the sound post. I have, on a couple instruments, added some of that in from the beginning; and they MAY have done that to some extent. How much was done on purpose, and how much is movement I don't know.

Cellos seem easier to me. They are expensive beasts to make, and set up though.

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Why be normal?

Nothing glamorous to share, but still keeping occupied.
Resurrecting an old Epiphone Texan (Kalamazoo) almost destroyed by a supposed friend of a friend while on loan.
Neck reset, fill a some holes hacked in the sides for a cheap large pre-amp and jack, then fit a new fisherman, fill the (adjustable) old saddle slot and cap the bridge to get the original height, fit back a discarded pick guard + some work on the finish.

I set this aside for a day to epoxy a ply backer to a cylindrical radius dish

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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.

She looks great Don, very pretty! Nice to see yet another HHG warrior too!

JF probably not just expanding my Lutherie interests in new directions for me. I'm home a lot now and bored so I need something to do Your BRW looks fantastic, nothing else on the planet looks quite like it, it's beautiful!!!

Ken I'm not sure that tap tones mean a dang thing and that we are not all fooling ourselves... Long ago on this forum I was one of the very first people to ever build a guitar (and complete it) from Tasmanian tiger Myrtle. When the set arrived from down under it sounded like wet cardboard. It bent easy and seemed during the building process to pretty tone dead. Man was I surprised and it was one of the best guitars that I ever built in terms of dripping with tone. I ended up building seven copies of it for clients it was very popular. Still have the original here too and it looks like new and sounds killer.

So you never can tell and this underscores that a guitar is a system or the sum of it's parts and that the individual parts may not mean all that much in the system.

Good looking Cello. Do you know who Kathy M. is, she's on this forum from time to time. She just finished her Cello and had posted progress on Facebook all summer long and it was a great thing to watch come together.

Great looking new bridge Colin. Now we would glue it on like this with no saddle slot and then once the neck reset was done and the frets all dressed or replaced then we calculate saddle position and mill it into the bridge on the guitar with our Collins laser guided, vacuum clamped saddle mill. The mill also makes the improperly located saddles on the 70's Martins easy to fix perfectly with no telltale of the repair and the bridge, the original bridge does not need to come off to do this.

Anyway we are proponents of milling saddle slots on the instrument and not in the bridge off the instrument but you have to have a saddle mill.

Let's see some more shop stuff please?

Reset's should be done, my mill (inspired by the Collins but simpler) is sitting in the wings until the frets dress is finished.
I used it to clean up the messed up original adjustable saddle slot before gluing in a BRW filler strip.
The borrower had thrown the screws away and just put a piezo strip directly under the tipped over metal saddle holder.

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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 finished putting the finish on this octave mandolin-to-be a couple days ago. Now I just have to wait a few days for the finish to cure before I can get on with it.

This is the first one of a new design. The body is the size of a parlor guitar. The previous ones I've built were the size of a baritone ukulele.

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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

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Wow Brad. That vintage Stanley fixture whatever is pretty cool! I haven't done anything like production some I retired from CNC work in 2019. I like that kind of production: the same, but different.

I glued the bass bar on using the idea I just saw on here today from Woodie of putting the bar in the oven at 150! I did that and a quick rub joint in my 59 degree basement. It warmed up a few. Then 4 close pin clamps, because I have them.

We'll let it set until tomorrow.

Not on Facebook. I took the hour drive to your neighborhood, AA, and David Burgess let me use his big bending iron, I just have a violin one. He's a great guy, if I have any real trouble, I'll give him a call.

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Why be normal?

Finished the grunt work for an LP special.
I applied a Maple veneer, color will be green with black hardware and binding.
Khaya, Mahogany, Maple, Cebil.
I really like Cebil for a fretboard. That stuff is hard (Janka over 3000). My daughter is getting me a new fret saw for xmas.
I bought a 3018 desktop CNC to see if I can cut shell. I have some green abalone I want to try.
Waiting on the bridge to define and cut the neck pocket, probably around 2.5 degrees.
I’ll have to figure out how to work the neck angle into a flat top.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I've been moving two daughters to different places over the last couple of weeks. Hanging TV's etc. etc. Not much done but did add some red felt to the plane till in my hanging toolbox. Small things please me at times.

Hesh you've always been so generous sharing your knowledge I feel that I owe you.
So I will gladly store your new amp for you.
I might even come and pick it up.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Colin this looks fantastic, good going!! Going to show it to Dave he will be excited to see what you came up with too. Very cool!

Just finished up a somewhat extensive repair on a 1961 Gretsch 6124 Single Anniversary that came in for a set up. It was pretty clear that there was something more going on by the gap in the heel, but only on the bass side. The cutaway side was a perfect fit. Gentle flexing showed some movement. I figured a neck reset was in order. Getting the neck off revealed that the dovetail on the cutaway side was broken. I think someone had done an attempt at a repair based on the shimming and evidence of some glue in the crack. The tailpiece was also shifted over about 1 cm to "compensate" for the now-poor neck alignment. I got the dovetail rebuilt and reinforced, reset the neck and followed with finish touch up and a setup. I also replaced the volume pot that was cutting out. All good now.

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Tony that joint was a mess. You did well to rebuild it.

Presumably getting at the wiring in those f hole boxes is pretty tricky!

Dave

Thanks, Dave. Getting that neck off was a bear! So much darn glue! I had to steam through both the fretboard and through the anchor screw hole in the heel. So much glue I couldn't even really feel that I was in the gap behind the dovetail when drilling in from the fretboard.

The pots fit pretty easily through the f-holes, so no issue there. The tone "Mud" switch was a new one for me. Two different caps wired directly to the switch to allow for clean, plus two different tones. Really a fun guitar to play. I'm going to be sad to see it leave the shop.

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Must be Kalamazoo FT-79 week. I just finished a mid 60’s Texan. Shattered headstock repair, refret and setup. Someone else had already converted it to a fixed saddle and did a good job. Used my spline jig on this one.
It sounds awesome.

0B561BEF-1BD4-45BC-B4BA-284EF0EE9DFC by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

88521803-3CDE-40D0-9906-0AD75F43E9A5 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

IMG_6231 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr


IMG_6239 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

IMG_6237 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I see some really excellent repair work on at least a couple of very difficult repairs, very well done guys!

Last day of spraying my Canarywood/Spruce Concert Ukulele with post cat Royal Lac.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Was excited to have this lovely jumbo, built in 2014 by Steve Walden in New Orleans, arrive in the workshop today. It’s 10,000 miles from home, much played and loved, and overall in great condition. Just needing some routine adjustment and light fretwork.





She’s a looker and has a clear, balanced tone. All the cosmetic details are neatly executed and the geometry is spot on.

I had not heard of Steve Walden before but he clearly knows how to build a nice axe.

Also got one of these to deal with today.



Not sure what some manufacturers have against endpin jacks. There’s about .050” extra reinforcement behind this, which did little to help when it was dropped on the jack.

Inside:



The original jack location was slightly off the reinforcement anyhow and they seem to have counterbored to desired thickness as part of jack installation, removing material from a sliver of the 0.080” sides in the process. Failure was inevitable.

I just finished up this herringbone OM. Finally had some time to put one together that I can hang in my shop so folks can try it out. And as it turns out it's a darn good one if I may pat myself on the back. Tone-wise I mean, finish I still struggle with.

Carpathian Spruce Top
Laminated EIR sides
EIR back
H. Mahogany neck
BRW bridge and head plate
Ebony FB
Bound in Ivoroid
Grover tuners
Royal (PIA) Lac finish