Official Luthiers Forum!

New style basd on OM - I call it my concert model as I plan for world domination

Plan drawn, Mold has been made and have now glued up back and top

Woods:
B/S - Malaysian Blackwood
Top - old Sitka
Adirondack bracing (top)
laminated spanish cedar bracing for back
Honduran Mahogany neck
Ebony fret board bound
Headstock bound
Tuners - TBC
Bindings TBC

The plan - sorry for rubbish pic quality



Malaysian blackwood B+S



Close up of Sitka Top





Oh and some scrap piece I might use testing (or #50)




UPDATE: thanks to the advice I managed to get thes eposted - just need a decent camera now..

Hey Frank - None of your pictures are showing up for me. Anyone else having this problem?

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Same for me... not sure what I have done wrong... simply added the URLs from flickr within teh img tags..? any help appreciated

The blackwood and top pics can be found here - sorry about the auto link not working

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29991740@N05/8367567678/in/photostream/

First guitar is also still up there with my scrap wood

I link to Flickr all the time. There is an issue that you need to be aware of however. You can not copy the link in the address bar.
First, you must click on the image and get to the spot where you see all of the available sizes. Pick the appropriate size for the forum, then right click on the image. Select, "Copy image URL" and then come here and paste the link into your post with the IMG tags. Then you will be good to go.
If you copy the link in the address bar, the pics don't work. Not really sure why.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Wow, Frank, your #1 is beautiful! The blackwood and sitka for this build are spectacular too. Looking forward to following this one.

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Thanks Tony, followed you instructions and seems to work - pic quality from the phone is awful, will try and use a better camera for progress.

Good luck everyone - should be fun seeing all these new instruments come to life.

Thanks appreciated. She has a few dings and scratches now, but has opened up beautifully - the top was a very tight grained German Spruce from around 1980 so i think that helped, but would love to build with Macassar again. When I bought that set it cost be £150 ($200) in 2008... If I could find one that nice again I would have to pay at least double if not more now... why I took a break and started buying a few sets

Just cause I'm feeling generous, I'll trade you my whole box of scraps for your one scrap

That's some seriously nice wood for a second build. Do it justice

Great to see another UKer on the forum and in the contest. Good luck to you.

LOL - must admit had plenty of similar offers for that scrap piece

Going to wait till I get 10 or so under my belt before using it though...make sure I cn do it justice, as not sure I will ever find anything similar - it rings like a bell!

What's so scrap about it?

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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

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A wee jest that's all, tis my prized Brazilian RW set - I joined the back in a moment of madness as I just wanted to see it... but will wait quite a while til I have the exerience to do it justice... cant wait, but I have a tendancy to 'rush in' where the angels dont like planting their feet' so need to keep it hidden away

Just back from my dungeon work shop - now 10pm here.

Scraped the back to final thickness, and glued up the laminated back braces - also the centre strip glued and shaped - next is get the back braces on, but away with work for 3 days now so will try and post some more pics tomorrow... but then no more til next weekend...

Ok some progress has been made!

Back braces now on, shaped and so with just a bit of cleaning up to do before back is to go. Shaping the brace with a small IBEX plane is a fun part of the build IMHO. Back braces are 5 ply laminated from Spanish Cedar, and 0.3mm maple and dyed maple veneer.





Next up onto the top - the rosette

Those braces are sweet! Very cool! Only bad part is most people will never see them. I bet they are a little stiffer since they are laminated. Do you think so? If so did you make them a little smaller to compensate? Also what is the reason for the top 2 braces to arch over the back strip while te bottom two do not?

Lookin' good, Frank!

_________________
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Um, or just share it? There's built-in functionality for posting to web forums.

Go to the flicker page in question (the link earlier in the thread), click on 'share' (bar above and to the left of the picture), click on 'share HTML/BB code', copy the BB code and paste it into your reply. Voila. Image displayed, with a link to the Flickr image so people can browse the stream or look at larger versions if desired.

Thanks. Main reason was I had the cedar - definitely a little stiffer than the non-laminated material at the same width - width is 8mm, so not a great deal in it. Hoping to get the box as rigid as possible and not too worried about the weight. My first was 'heavy' with Macassar B+S, but gave a very rigid box and some strong bass which i am trying to replicate with the Malysian ebony. - Will see what happens

Do like the asthetic though when looking through the soundhole - suspect I will eventually get some 'flat spots on teh back where my little arches are, but wanted to try that aproach again for asthetic reasons rather than anything structual.

Now snowing heavily outside so means may get a few hours on the top over the weekend

Thanks for that - take it you dont need to post this [img] tags?

...Ok made progress but not too happy with the rossette result

It looks better than the pic, but a couple of issues - 2 x small tear outs and 2 places where the shell has 'moved' and left unsightly gaps...

Pondering whether to simply rout it all out and start again... might be the best option.

What about routing another channel right to the edge and adding more purfling or shell?

_________________
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Could do, but had hoped to keep this quite simple/subtle. Will give it some thought this week as once again have travel with work until Thursday... will post some ideas but welcome any more that folk might have?

If you simply copy the BB code for sharing an image, it handles all the img and other (BB) tags for your.

Sorry to hear about your rosette mishap. It doesnt look all that bad to me. Its actually pretty good IMO. But I know where you are coming from, if i know there is a tiny mistake here or there, even if no one else sees it, it bothers the heck out of me. If you are that way the only thing I could see to do is rout it out and do it again. Maybe make the channel a little wider and do the same rosette with your shell just a little wider than you have now.

What a week, heavy snow and a long drive down and back from Scotland to London for work - glad to be home...

Well Mrs C has me working on restoring the Georgian Shutters in the guest room this weekend which is great as it means i can try and sneeak in a bit of buid time. Still not decided on the Rosette - If I felt comfortable that I could rout out the shell (mask on naturally) I think I would redo - Anyone ever taken a router to ablam (I know - but the Blue paua I have was not a subtle and I wanted a subtle shade on this build) and gotten a decent result?