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I made good progress on the new model 'June' last week. It's a new shape but the main different between June and Elise is the lack of supporting rails inside June and the addition of a sound port. In Elise there are many supporting rails which tie the front and back surfaces together...preventing them from resonating. With June these rails are eliminated which will result in a guitar more characteristic of a true semi-hollowbody.

Note the yellow and purple panel is Bamboo and Purple Heart. At first I thought using an engineered wood was going to detract from the guitar somehow. As I worked with it I became fully enamored of it. It is SO stable and machines SO well. It's hard not to love it.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

That is a truly beautiful instrument

I like the Myrtle capped one and the Sapele back. Very cool!

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jw ( o)===:::

Nice work. Looking forward to seeing more.

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Brad
Avon, OH

Bamboo as a tonewood? Interesting.... should be hard and strong.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

i love the look of bamboo...i have been wanting to make a solid body out of a bamboo cutting board...
being a grass, it has high silica content, so you may notice your cutters going dull pretty quick

very nice work indeed

Evidently Fender has been making some guitars from it for a while now. I think they call it lamboo.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

A fitting name for it. Bamboo only grows in fairly short continuous segments so to make a plank out of it, it has to be processed from chutes into strips measuring about 1/4" x 1". They are glued end to end to make a long strip and then the strips are gathered and glued together side by side to make a plank which is then planed to a 3/4" thickness. I can't get it any thicker than 3/4". On its face it gives the impression of having WAY too much glue involved to ever make a musical instrument...but under a microscope there isn't much to see with regard to a glue line between the strips. Pretty amazing really.

To me...it's quite beautiful to look at. It's going to be wonderful under a finish.

I must again emphasize how stable this stuff is. It does absolutely nothing with moderate moisture ingress and egress. The neck I made with this stuff?...no chance of it doing anything untoward over time...I'd bet a lot on it.

As a tonewood all I can say is that it rings on a tap test on necks (raw, without the fretboards glued on) similarly to other necks made from known tone woods. I'd list them but I can't remember them all. Peruvian Walnut was one of them. I can't say I'm expert on knocking on wood but this little experiment is encouraging.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Wow,
Those are really cool!
It's great to see something new and exciting.
I would have never considered using bamboo.
Awesome!

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Ah, June... When will it be ready by?



Jk nice work as usual.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

I'm sorry...didn't see the question.

I'm making four prototypes. I'll probably be done carving the bodies in a week. The necks a re finished so it's only finishing left after the bodies are doen. If I go with the catalyzed polyester or urethane that I've been experimenting with it won't be a another week or two after that before final assembly.

I'm pretty eager to get these done. I'll begin to market my guitars once I have these to photograph.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Stuart, Would that be a 2 part urethane? if so what sealer are you using?

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Yes Brain....PPG DCU2021.

I've tried it on test panels with epoxy pore fill because that's the schedule my finishing guy used. Very good adhesion...easy enough to use.

I haven't tried this yet but I'm going to test the adhesion of that urethane topcoat to a catalyzed polyester pore fill that I've had good luck spraying on. I'm not satisfied using epoxy as a pore fill. It's simply too difficult to level on all the complex surfaces of my guitars. I need to be able to spray on a pore fill that doesn't trap bubbles and will sand relatively easy. Polyester sanding sealers (Seagraves and another I can't remember) thinned with acetone go down and seal nicely. Then you can build a film as thick as you like and the whole business will be fully inert the next day with 80 degrees of heat overnight. That's the beauty of polyesters. With a little heat and the right amount of peroxide based catalyst they can be gas free and ready to level within hours of application. The best aspect of this is that with the system I have, the amount of catalyst can be adjusted to create the time frame for the cure (within limits). If the objective is to level the sealer/pore fill coat the day...it's pretty easy with polyesters. If the urethane topcoat sticks REALLY well to the polyester...and I expect it to, I'll have found a schedule I can live with forever.

I need to also try the polyester sealer on some light edge grain. The angle of the grain makes a huge difference in the color of the Bamboo using epoxy. That's OUT as a sealing solution for the Bamboo. When I had the same problem with Port Orford Cedar I solved it with an acrylic sanding sealer but it took MANY successive coats and I'm not doing that again. Maybe that polyester will spray onto that Bamboo without the uneven color.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I've been using PPG DCU and sometimes DCC for repair work on import guitars with poly finishes. Epoxy was my fill and seal but as you well know can be a PITA to use. I have recently done a neck re-finish using medium ca as a filler and sealer. It worked quite well, but I don't think I want to do a whole guitar with it. Using the thickest CA may be best but still a labor intense process. The polyester sounds like a real good idea. I am looking for a one step seal and pore fill I could use under any top coat and this may be it. Is this the sealer you are currently using 971106 - Clear Polyester Sealer (Ceraglaze®)? How many coats does it take to fill the pores in something like mahogany? And have you tried it on any of the more difficult to finish tropical woods?

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Ya...971106 sealer and the other one is Simtec 28x50 sanding sealer.

On the 971106 I thinned it 20% (after the catalyst) with acetone and sprayed it on THIN....just enough to make it wet. I sprayed in one direction then went over again immediately in the other direction...a criss-cross deal. So....that's the sealer coat. The coolest part of polyester is the adjustable open time. So you wait until the sealer coat starts to gel and then spray on a non-reduced coat in the same criss-cross manner. On both Sapele and Peruvian Walnut (my biggest pore filling challenge) test panels this seemed more than enough to fully fill pores and still not sand through. It goes on pretty thick without reduction but if you do it over raw wood you'll get trapped bubbles under the surface inside the pores. So...you have to do the thinned sealer coat first regardless of what they tell you at Seagraves. I did it their way and got micro-bubbles in the pores. I'm not sure how many people care about that...because you almost HAVE to magnify it to see them...but I can't accept it.

I might be able to put the sealer/filler coats on thinner...as in maybe thinning the second coating session at 5% or 10% instead of at full body but the clarity was great the way I described above....so why risk it? The stuff sprays and hangs pretty nicely at full body but it may run if your not careful when thinning.

I want to be clear. So far...I used both the Seagraves and the Simtec systems ONLY with their respective polyester topcoats...and only on test panels. Both systems have great clarity but MAN are they hard, especially the Seagraves.....and hard to polish as a result. Using that PPG 2021 as a topcoat over a polyester sealer/pore fill might be the best possible combination for me. The adhesion between the topcoat and base coats is EVERYTHING to me at this point. I do controlled impact tests on these panels. When I've made a determination on this I'll be happy to let you know.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I talked to a chemist at the coatings lab for my main supplier today (not PPG). They make some urethane sealers, including one specifically for oily tropicals. They have a high build that would pore fill, but all the schedules for their urethane sealers are a bit of a nightmare. Long waits to short spray windows, definitely not oriented to small shop production. In my experience on other things, DCC and DCU will stick to anything that will survive the application. Basically if it doesn't lift right after being sprayed it will stick, provided it has good mechanical anchor, but that was more in line with these coatings design purpose. I have sprayed some over UV cured polyester and it seemed to work well, but I have no intent on dealing with UV poly on top of everything else I have going on. It also holds well to what ever type of conversion coatings are being used on imported electric guitars, again provided there is anchor. As I mainly use these products for repair I may just stick with the epoxy when I need to do something.

I did also find that my coating supplier makes a heavy body post cat sealer that will pore fill and is suitable under nitro. Since most of my finishes are FP or nitro I may give this a try. Paste pore fillers, no matter how well done always look a bit unnatural to my eye. And anything I can do to cut time out of the process will free me up to do other things.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/