Official Luthiers Forum!

First, thanks for the challenge. It's finally motivated me to make sawdust out of the wood I've had "drying" under my bed for the last year. I plan to follow the plans in Kinkade's book. Back and sides are black limba. Soundboard is spruce supposedly salvaged from some old bridge timbers. The neck is one-piece mahogany. Not shown is EIR for the fretboard and bridge. I'll figure out what the rest of the parts are going to be when I get there...

Second, thanks in advance for all I've learned hear over the years just lurking.

Jim

Alas, after a couple tries I can't seem to upload a jpeg from my Mac. I'll have to work on that later.

I started with Kinkade's book, and still reference it. One note. The fret spacings are incorrect for a couple of them, so do your own math. Also, the plans are not to scale and some of the angles are off, so make sure to check all your measurements and calculate the neck angle as shown in the book. It's a good book, and I look forward to seeing what you turn up....

Cheers.

So I've given up trying to upload photos here. I can't seem to get my Mac to save a photo small enough. Hope this flickr link works:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jstraight/ ... 138928244/

Anyhow, here's the basics: Black limba back and sides, mahogany neck, some kinda spruce top. My first troubles started with using a handplane. For the life of me, I can't seem to get it tuned and sharp enough to consistently get good cuts. And when I have, I couldn't seem to get a nice, even thickness across a board. I destroyed an EIR side set trying. My first black limba side set that was close got destroyed when trying to bend it. I don't think my bending pipe was hot enough. Two sides destroyed. I'm already trying to figure out how to afford John Hall's side bender and forms for guitar two.

So, surfing Craigslist, I found an 18" Grizzly sander for not too much money and hardly used. Just in time saved for me, it's worth it. Not to mention, the sides come out flat, smooth and the right thickness.

On to bending the second side set. I changed my pipe from a heat gun to a charcoal element like has recently been discussed here. That worked much better. If I ever have some spare sides, I'd love to just practice making bends and see how tight a bend I could make, push it until they break to learn the limits.

Now I've got a lesson in accuracy. Starting with the full size Kinkade plans, I made a half template to make a mold. That was a little off. The mold I made is a little off. The sides I bent are a little off. I was so please when I pulled the bent, kerfed sides out of the mold. It was something I made and actually looked something like a guitar. Then I set it on the bench to snap a photo. The top/neck block is off 2-3 degrees from the center line.

When I started on my neck, it seemed the simplest neck would be a bolt on with no joint. However, I've already cut the neck off 1-2mm past the line for the 14th fret. I'm wondering if that will be enough to adjust for neck block being skewed. Or, am I simply screwed?

The rosette peghead veneer is black limba from the first side set I destroyed.

Alrighty Jim lets see if I can describe this in a way that will help you. On my number 2 guitar I was not paying attention and ended up with the sides being lopsided and the centerline of the neck and tail blocks did not align properly. To fix the issue I drew a center line on the tail block and one on the neck block. I then put the sides in the mold and used shims around the body to manipulate the sides until I had the centers where they belonged. I used a straightedge on top of the body to assure the two center lines were properly aligned. I left them in this mold with the shims until the back and soundboard were attached. Once that was accomplished I took it out of the mold and everything was properly aligned. The top and back just need to be glued on with the sides properly aligned and once the glue dries it should hold. Hopefully you will be able to do this or something similar. Good luck!

Hey Jim! Set your camera picture size for email/web sized photos. You shouldn't have any problem uploading! I hope this works for you!

Alex

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