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After repairing a Shamisen that needed a new head even goats look like instrument parts

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Bone nuts and saddles?

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"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

No progress for a while. Tomorrow is my daughter's 5th and my brother's 40th birthdays. I am rushing to try to button up his surprise present, an L-00 cutaway. I will see him Friday night so I'm under the gun. The good news is until recently, I thought we had only three months for this challenge.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I haven't updated this in a while but I have been working (very slowly). Part of the reason that I have been so unproductive is that even when I do get time in the workshoppe, I have been dealing with a welcome distraction.


We will be watching The Lorax tonight so I will try to re-size my pictures and post them while we watch. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

One of the very few legitimate excuses

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Adorable!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

So this is a new design that I am kind of winging. As I said, I thought of this shape for a guitar but feared it would look silly when done. Think of this as a scale model prototype.

So this is the basic shape, sort of fake mandolin/guitar. The upper bout curve is let into a kerf and was going to be put in with wedges. The glue up didn't go according to plan, so kindly ignore the mess of veneer strips shoring everything up. . .


What self respecting progress thread would dare leave out the obligatory (if not clichéd) shot of the integral swarf linings clamped up.


So now we have a completed rim that is nice and stiff.


I have to be honest with you all; due to the deadline, I'm not bothering to clean up the inside of the linings or scorch marks like I normally would.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I got the back thicknessed and started laying out the plates. I came really close to making a total rookie mistake. Anyone notice what I almost did?



yep almost cut the back out backwards. . .

Hey, look at that, I also was able to get these pictures to load larger than the other. . .

With the rim done, I can start laying out the sound holes. There will be a thin curly soundhole that (hopefully) will mimic the line of the upper bout curve coming out from under the fretboard, and mimic the scroll of an f style mando. I'm having trouble deciding what size oval soundhole will look good and also allow me access to the neck bolt. By the way, can anyone please tell me how to do an oval soundhole and rosette.



I was able to cut out the back without reversing it, get it braced and glued to the rim.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Cool shape. I'm looking forward to see how it comes out.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I can't help but notice the mess of veneers now that you pointed it out. Otherwise, it's looking good!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks Tony, your secret is sfe with me. I won't tell a soul. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

The back is on. Not really interesting, but I have the photo so you might as well look. . .


I had a go at doing the fake mando soundhole. I wanted to bind it with jatoba like the rest of the body will be, but my hot pipe is way too big for the tight radius I needed. While looking around the shop and muttering to myself, I found a stick of 1/2" copper pipe left over from plumbing a sink into the new workshoppe. I stuck it in between the galvanized pipe and the charcoal starter and it worked perfectly.


I sized the spruce with hide glue and wedged the pieces in with some UHMW plastic strips. First one,

then the other.


It came out okay, not perfect but passable.


Now on to figuring out how to do the soundhole. Seriously guys, how do I do an oval soundhole? I'm kinda stuck until I figure it out or punt. I can't thickness the top until I am done with the rosette and I'm itchen to brace this puppy and close the box.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

So I got impatient and started rooting through my daughter's toys. I found this toy can of chunk chicken that looked about right.


I traced it on a scrap of masonite and made a template.


Since I wasn't sure how to cut the rosette channel neatly and the chicken can was a bit bigger than I wanted, I decided to bind the hole instead. It still needs some clean up, but it should look alright when I'm done. Hopefully this picture will give an approximation of how the curly-q soundhole will look.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

One more question before bed. This is going to be a glued pinless bridge with mandolin tension. Here is my first thought for a bracing pattern (10" lower bout). Anyone see anything that needs to be changed?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

No idea on the bracing really but it looks like it should be ok to me. I do like the curly-que fake soundhole thingie.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I like the look so far , the faux curl turned out excellent in my opinion . As for pinless bridge , I have no Idea what to tell you on that . Those strings produce alot of tourqe

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Very nice.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I believe I'd square up the X and shift it down so that it clears the soundhole. That would put the X braces closer to the bridge, I think you need them under the wings.
A pinless bridge with no tailpiece is possible, I've replaced the bridge on a tiple, which is basicly a ten string uke with steel strings. The bridge was about 4 1/2" x 1", it didn't hold the first time I glued it. It was really difficult to clamp with a small soundhole.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Thanks for the input Rodger. Looking at it with fresh eyes, I could tighten the X up a bit. I was planning on having a fairly wide bridge but I think you are right, I could make some adjustments. Keep em’ coming guys and gals.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I’ll have to get the pictures of my phone later, but I got most of the top bracing done. I had a PM exchange with Grumpy (who made a similar beast a few years ago). His bracing was a little different than mine, but he calmed my fears about my design not being up to the task. So I’m going with my instincts. Thanks Mario! He also tipped me off to a potential problem that I had not considered. He was not happy with how his pinless bridge worked out with the loop-end windings of mandolin strings. On his advice I bought a set of strings to have on hand when I design the bridge. We’ll see what I come up with.
In the spirit of this being a super low budget project using free wood whenever possible, most of the braces came from the scrap bin. I think I mentioned that I rescued a bunch of brace wood that had been held captive in an exterior door for the last 35ish years. Well I cut some up for the L-00 I just finished up but I wasn’t happy with how the lap joint came out so I made more brace stock. I was able to use the legs of those braces to make the X for this mando and most of the other braces were offcuts from the guitar too. So not only is the wood free, but it is re-recycled. I almost feel like I should pay myself for using them.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

So here is the bracing. The bridge plate is an African Mahogany scrap I had lying around, it is actually quite light and smaller than it appears in the picture. I added some awkward looking cross grain strips under the curly-q to (hopefully) protect it from breaking off.


Now the box is all closed up. I forgot to make a bridge clamping caul so I will have to get creative later. . .
Front:

and back:


This will get a simple/thin jatoba binding, end wedge and point block to match the FB and bridge. The pick guard will either be jatoba or a reasonable color matched veneer. I want to keep this very simple, blond with dark red accents no purfling or other bling. I would have liked to forgo the point block but my miter on the cutaway is not perfect. I've never been able to pull that off.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I like it - the shapes work together nicely.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looking really good!

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Looks awesome! you should sunburst it.

With the box all closed up, I turn my attention to the neck. I want to get it roughed out before I do the binding in case I run into any unexpected problems fitting the neck to this new shape.

Keeping with the theme of this thread, I will be betraying the fact that I use crappy tools with less than fancy set-up. Laugh if you will; if just one newbie sees this and decides to jump in despite a lack of tooling or skill, my humiliation will be worth it.

First I have to go through my pile of choice fretboard blanks. Okay grab one of the hunks of prefinished flooring I got for free. This one is perfect (it is long enough. . .).


After I run it through the thickness sander to remove the finish and make it flat, I dress one edge to reference square from. I tape down the wfret print out and put a marking knife in the line, slide the square up to the blade and clamp it down. Next I carefully saw using the square as my guide. I think I have had enough of the tedium of this method and will explore the table saw method in the future. Note the ball of cheese wax for the blade.


Once it is slotted, I mark a center line perpendicular to the kerfs and measure out the nut width and 14th fret width (minus binding) then rough it out and plane down to the line.


I found some scraps of oak veneer in my waste pile that I put in for a small contrast to the jatoba with jatoba binding. This will be the "fanciest" adornment this girl is going to get.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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