Official Luthiers Forum!

I needed something to occupy myself between customers (which there isn't very many of), and something to show potential customers for commissions, so I decided to make a demo guitar. I chose a OM style cutaway because I felt the smaller body and deeper waist allows for a better looking cutaway, and I wanted to try something other than a Dreadnaught anyways.

unlike in the West sourcing birch plywood with high ply count is impossible. Sure I could order the stuff but since I needed a lot of them for making jigs, the cost tends to be very high. Instrument wood is no problem of course, because I don't need as much of them.

I start with the neck blank since I needed to set the preliminary neck angle:





I had a very dull bandsaw blade so the cut skewed by a fair bit, so I had to do a lot of planing to correct it.





I've used hide glue for all construction, because I wanted to see how it would hold up. However I would still use titebond for things requiring more open time.





I then leveled one side and the top of the neck blank. I had to make sure both of these faces are squared to each other, but in doing so I actually angled both faces a bit, although they are square to each other.





Not wanting to order additional materials, I made my own kerfed lining.





The heel/end block and the neck blank was prepared.





Moving onto the plates, I had a set of rosewood back and side sitting around for a year or so, I also had a set of sitka top but the grain runout was horrible, something like over 30 degrees. Not only that, the grain was sort of wavy and the quarter was very off (also around 30 degrees), so after planing them to thickness, I realized it wouldn't make a good top and scrapped it, instead decided to use some of the nicer German Spruce top I just bought...





I forgot to shoot photos of these step but I had been thicknessing the side, back, and top, and fingerboard. I made a backstrip by cutting out a 1/4" strip of a maple back material then laminating them with some maple and rosewood veneer. Like I said, I don't want to order additional material if possible...

This is what the guitar will have:

Body: OM cutaway style
Top: AA Grade German Spruce top
Back/Side: Indian Rosewood
Fingerboard/Bridge: Gaboon Ebony
Binding and trims: maple
Rosette: still thinking, possibly a contrasting wood rosette.
Neck: Khaya Mahogany

_________________
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

thanks for the photos; nice to see the process in detail for those who have yet to build an acoustic. the black marker makes me cringe a bit, but i assume you don't use it anywhere near "final" wood

The black marker is used in portions of the wood where it will be sanded off... I use them so that I don't make a mistake because I can't see the marking.

_________________
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

Fingerboard planed and leveled



Cutting off the bad portion and setting the nut position





Slotting fingerboards, took a long time and arm was very sore.



Finished slotting the fingerboard

_________________
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

Finished thicknessing the back. It still have some tear outs from the plane, but it will be sanded out later.

_________________
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

Bending binding and sides:

_________________
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

Nice work there ! I dont use a hand Plane , I have tried and mess up everthing i touch with it

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I am sorry for not updating for a while, here are a bunch more pictures:

_________________
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

Nice box!

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Don't mind the soundboard... the German spruce does dirty easily, but I've protected the whole soundboard with a light coat of shellac to prevent it from staining the wood too deeply...

_________________
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

Neck complete and inlaid

_________________
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

Nice guitar on the way!

The bigger advantage of using a go-bar, is the easy access to clean the glue before it dries. You should take advantage of it.

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Guitar is ready for finishing (I plan on oiling the neck with Tru Oil, and french polish the body)

_________________
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

Can you tell me what radius' you used, back and front,,,,did you use white glue for the whole box or hide glue on the top and back?

Nice job,,,how much time did you have into it?

Regards

Joe

I used hide glue for everything except for closing the box, neck and heel blocks, and fingerboards. In that case I used titebond I.

Front and back radius is 25' but I am thinking of using a flatter radius for the top because I keep ending up with gap under the fingerboard that I don't quite know what to do about. The trouble is fitting a wedge under the fingerboard, I can't produce an exact fit without a lot more time just fitting one joint.

I haven't counted the exact hour but I started in December and finished end of April.

_________________
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