Official Luthiers Forum!

I might as well join the maddness. No idea what it will be yet, but I promise not to a big cheater like Wud.

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Im not Big ! LOLOL ....... um yeah i am

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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/

O.K. I guess just for fun I'm going to see how many stringed things I can build for $150. I know I can get three, maybe more, we'll see what happens.

Steve

First up will be a Pickin' Stick. Forum member JRessler wrote this book just so he could see how little he could earn per hour. It's an even lower pay scale than guitar building, somewhere down near prison labor.

It's a pretty simple insturment, three strings tuned to an open cord (G) with a diatonic scale. If you count the frets you'll find an F# thrown in for fun.


For the materials I went through my pile of leftovers. The wood for the neck is the scrap from a 5/4" Jatoba top for the lower section of a hutch I built. The top is Douglas Fir that first served as a 6x6 post holding up a front porch. The back is going to be a piece of Birdseye Maple that is left over from my TDPRI challenge telecaster. The twig is some sort of rosewood cut from a chunk I got from a friend. It will be used for the saddle and nut.


These tuners are from the strip down of an old Teisco or something. This was a six on a side set, the other three are on another "Stick".

I can tell this is going to be a fun thread! At the end you should post a video of all of the instruments played at once.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I have Johns Book and its a nice addition to any Luthiers collection . I picked it up for my daughter to make her first build . I reccomend this book to any newbie that has intrest and needs to hone skill !

_________________
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/

That's right Filippo, here at Wheeler Guitars "We spare no Costa"...um, is that already taken?
Yes Bryan there will be a pay per veiw concert at the completion of my build(s). My main concern is having enough room left in the budget after this build for the Timpani.

It's amazing what you can accomplish in a couple of hours. Simple insturment and easy to build.
Here are the major parts milled to size with some layout lines.

Drill press action.

Tuner shaft holes first.



1/2" bit to clear waste from the headstock slot.


5/8" hole to terminate the wishbone.

Used the table saw to cut 1/8"x1/8" notches for the nut and at the end of the fretboard. Then 1/8" is removed from the "body" so the top of the sound board is level with the fret board.

Fun with the small band saw and the edge sander.

Headstock shaping.

Time for frets already?

This hunk 'o steel ground flat with 100 grit PSA sandpaper stuck on makes neck and fret board leveling easy.


I use WFret for any odd scale lengths. A razor knife and machinists square mark the fret locations.


Cutting fret slots is easy when you only do 1/2 the slots in 1/2 a fretboard.


Hammer Time.

Back to my new favorite tool, the edge sander. I've always wanted to try dressing fret ends in this manner but haven't had the opportunity until I got this machine. I bet it didn't take 12 seconds total to get all the fret ends flush and beveled. I'll get a better pic of the ends tomorrow.

Now here is a handsome group of photos.

First, an out of focus shot of cutting the waste from the wishbone.


A nice close up of finishing the cut on the bandsaw. Maybe getting a bit more bandsaw blade in the shot would help.


More focus problems.


Best for last. Fabulous shot of sawdust artfully framed by an end block freshly clamped in place.

Finished up the head stock shaping with a rasp and some files.

You're really cranking on this thing Looks like a lot of fun.

I need to try designing and building some super simple instruments like this.

When you say "spare no Costa" are you suggesting that you kill my family members? Because at Costa guitars, we don't know who you are or what you want, but I can tell you this: if you're looking for ransom, I have tons of money but I won't pay you. What I also have are a very particular set of skills. Skills honed over a lifetime of being sarcastic. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you stop the Costa jokes now I will forget this ever happened. But if you don't, I will hunt you down, I will find you and I will post a goat pic in your challenge thread that gets it shut down.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Good luck.


Oh and Tony, get some rest. You look tired.

I am. My two year old broke his leg on Tuesday so he has not been sleeping very much. As a result neither have the wife and I. But I think my "Taken" reference was pretty good despite my lack of sleep. You have to give me credit for that.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

A couple of free hours this morning so I thought I'd finish this one.

Shaped the neck with a 1/2" roundover bit.


Cut the ends of the sides flush to the tail block.


Back to the hunk o' steel to true up the gluing surfaces.

Some back and top prep.

Glue the back.


Then the top.


Made a nut while the glue dried.

Some trimming and shaping.



The two end tuners need new string holes drilled. I drill the countersink first to keep the 5/64" bit from falling off the post.

Installed 3 4d trim nails to hook the strings then strung it up and glued the saddle in place.



All done save for finish sanding and satin polyurethane. I think maybe I'll install the third fret also. A bit dificult to play a C without it.