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Some small progress to report since last time. Installed the back reinforcement strip which I made from an offcut of the redwood top, installed the side braces and the end graft (Doug fir bark to match the rosette), jointed the curly maple neck billet, and cut out one neck blank. I'm hoping to get the braces on in the next few days.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

It's looking good. Guess you could call it curly!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Nyuck nyuck

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Today was productive. Got the braces glued to the top and back. Brace carving is on the agenda next.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Vacuum sealing the braces? Interesting. Looking good.

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I had planned to have a closed box today, but as I was getting ready to glue the back to the sides, it occurred to me that the clamping caul I use for that step might not be small enough to fit a parlor size body. Curses, foiled! So the box gets closed tomorrow.

I did get the braces carved and finited to my satisfaction. The patch across the x-brace joint is a piece of redwood from an offcut of the top. Fitted the top and back to the sides and glued the top on. In the last photo, the top is resting on my cylindrical sanding dish which I used to profile the top edge of the rims.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Beautiful, nice and clean. Since this is my first parlor size, I am glad to see some bracing shots showing up. I"ll be hoping to see lots of examples before I get to that stage.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

This is my first parlor size guitar too. The bracing pattern on this guitar is what I came up with after looking at a bunch of photos of parlor guitar bracing patterns on the web and a photo of set of parlor guitar plans.

The main differences between this bracing and the bracing on my larger guitar design are that the x-braces are a bit narrower, the scallops are deeper, one finger brace instead of two on the treble side, and one tone bar instead of two. Also, the ends of the bridge don't overlap the x-braces as much. The x-braces just catch the soundhole side corners of the bridge. You can see that on the plans on the first page of this thread.

The unbraced top had a fairly loud, resonant, low tap tone. I was surprise by how different it sounded after gluing the braces on (uncarved). The pitch was a lot higher than I expected and there was no drum-like resonance left. Carving the braces brought much of that back and lowered the pitch though. I wonder how much of the effect of gluing the braces on was due to the smaller size of the top and how much was due to the redwood which I have no experience with. I'm really looking forward to hearing how this sounds in the end.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Jay, that looks good. Funny that we are going down similar paths. I'm also doing a first parlor with my first redwood top so I'm following yours with great interest.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looking good.

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Update for this past week's activity. I got the top glued onto the sides, trued up the sides, routed the binding and purfling channels, bent the binding and side purfling, and installed the side purfling, which I do as step separate from installing the binding. I do it that way because it makes it easy to get nice miters at the end graft and it makes it much easier to also get the miters nice at a fully bound cutaway. I picked up this method from Michael Glitzow who posted on how to do it on this forum. I would have been able to get the binding on this weekend but my plans were cut short by a chisel incident on Friday.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

A few more:

This is how I rout past the endgraft. I learned this approach on this forum. I can't remember who posted it though. Two pieces of side purfling CA glued to a piece of double stick tape.



I place a straight edge across the end graft with its edge ailigned with the full depth bottom of the binding channel and then scribe a line to mark the bottoms of the ramps on each side of the end graft. The ramps are then removed with a chisel.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

That's slick! Nice job around the endgraft.

On the side purflings, I gather you sandwiched them between the bindings but did not glue them to the bindings and then bent the bundle together? Second question, how do you glue the purflings in? How do you keep them snug in the channel while the glue dries?

You've made a great job so far Jay

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To be someone must be a wonderful thing!

Nice tip, I may have to use that.
As the late, great Freddie Prinz would say, LOOOOking Goood...

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

I use the purfling on the top and back trick to get the end wedge height right but I'd like to hear more about installing the purfling first without binding. How do you get it glued down without the binding pushing it down? I'd love to not have to fuss with getting the miters and binding length right with the purfling glued to the bindings!

I know one luthier who installs the binding then routs out the side to put the purfling in after the fact. Lots of different ways to get there.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Sorry rlrhett and Bryan, I didn't get notices of replies to this thread so I didn't see your posts until just now.

rlrhett - Yes, I sandwich two pieces of purfling between two pieces of binding without gluing them to the binding, tape them all together, and then bend them on a hot pipe.

rlrhett and Bryan - I glue the side purfling on with low viscosity CA after spraying a section of the channel and the purfling with accelerator. I also do the whole installation with the body on edge in a side bench clamp I made from two pipe clamps and a couple cork-covered boards. The main trick is to work in short sections at a time keeping the section being worked on on top by rotating the body in the clamp to keep it "uphill" from the previously glued section so that any excess new CA you add flows backwards into the already glued section. I use a bone nut blank to hold the purfling against the bottom of the binding channel while gluing it in place. The straight sides of the nut work well to hold the purfling firmly and flat against the bottom of the channel. The CA sets up very fast because of the accelerator and as long as you aren't too liberal with the CA, the nut doesn't get stuck. And the CA doesn't stick very well to the bone anyway. A teflon block of a similar shape would be even better.

Stepwise:
- First, I miter the ends of the end graft purfling and the ends of the bent side purfling to match each other.
- Starting with the body in the clamp with the end graft up as shown below, I spray accelerator on the purfling and the area of the miter on one side of the end graft, position the side purfling piece to make the miter joint, hold it firmly in place using the nut, and then apply a small amount of CA to the joint to tack the purfling end down.



- I then rotate the body so as to position the lower bout at the top like in the photo below. I spray accelerator on the purfling and channel in the section from the end graft miter up to the high point of the lower bout. Starting at the lowest point which is the miter, I press the tacked-down purfling against the bottom of the channel with the long edge of the nut and apply CA to the purfling/side joint so that it wicks into the joint. I only apply CA to a length of the purfling that is firmly against the channel bottom (a bit more than the length of the nut). The CA sets up in seconds, then I move the nut uphill to the adjacent unglued section, clamp the purfling down with the nut, glue that section, and then repeat until I reach the high point of the bout.



- I then rotate the body again in the clamp to keep the next unglued section uphill from the already glued section. You don't want CA running ahead of the section you are working on. The body can be positioned in the clamp so that it's uphill all the way from the lower bout tip to the upper bout tip. I spray the section from the lower bout to the waist with accelerator and then glue the purfling down in steps from the lower bout to the waist. Then do the section from the waist to the tip of the upper bout.

- Rotate again and do the section from the tip of the upper bout to the neck joint area like in the photo below. Once you get the hang of it, this goes very fast.



- Repeat for the other three pieces of purfling.

A few tips:

With the body in the clamp, I glue the purfling in on the side of the body that is away from me toward the benchtop. I find it easier to pull the purfling toward me with the nut than to push it away. Plus it provides good visibility and access to the purfling-to-side joint for applying the CA.

The bottom of the binding channel has to be clean and flat as usual.

After the purfling is installed and before installing the binding, I use a razor blade to scrape any and all excess CA glue off the surface of the purfling that the binding will rest on.

I've been doing this with the maple and black fiber purfling from StewMac. As it comes from SM, it is about 0.105" tall and for me it sometimes wants to crimp in tight radius bends instead of making a smooth bend because of bending it on edge. To make it bend easier, I reduce it's height to about 0.085" which bends nicely.

I think this approach makes getting good miters at the end graft easier than with purfling glued to the binding, but where it really shines is when you also want to have mitered side purfling at the other end in a fully bound cutaway like below.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Update of progress since last weekend. Got the binding and purfling installed on the top and back. Sanded the angle into the fretboard extension area of the top. Made the neck part of the neck/body joint.






Here, I'm sanding the neck angle into the top. I use a flat board with sandpaper on one end while the other end rests on the spacer at the bridge position.


This shows the neck angle sanded into the fretboard extension area with the straight edge just a hair below the top edge of the 3/32" spacer.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

The way I've designed my guitars, the curve of the upper bout continues through the neck/body joint so the end of the neck has to be concave to fit to the curved end of the body. I use a jig to cut the radius into the end of the neck and cut the vertical angle of the neck at the same time on the band saw. I use a bolt on attachment with a tenon with barrel nuts. Since it's not practical to make the radiused end of the neck with a tenon in place, I glue a tenon into a mortise in the neck after the radius has been cut and the neck has been fitted to the body. The tenon is a laminate of three layers of mahogany with the two outside layers at right angles to the middle layer.

First I do an initial alignment of the neck to the body with the end of the neck cut square. Placing a straight edge on the fretboard extension area that has the desired neck angle sanded into it and then running it alongside the neck shows how much the neck angle is above the top of the body. That tells me about how much to shim the headstock end of the neck up in the jig to get the target angle.


Here's the jig with the neck in place for cutting. The part of the jig that carries the neck pivots on a vertical bolt in a block that is clamped to the band saw fence. The axis of the bolt is on a line perpendicular to the front edge of the saw blade. The distance of the bolt axis from the saw blade determines the radius of the cut. The radius of the cut is slightly smaller than the radius of the body. The centerline of the neck is aligned in the jig with the line from the bolt axis to the front edge of the saw blade and a shim is placed under the neck toward the nut end get the neck angle.


Close up of the neck in place for a test cut. There's enough extra wood at the end of the neck to do several test cuts if needed to zero in on the ailgnment and shimming of the neck in the jig. The second line from the end across the heel corresponds to the position of the 12th fret.


After a test cut:


Once I have the jig set up, I cut the end of the neck off square at the first line from the end and rout a mortise in the end of the neck and the truss rod channel.


Then I put the neck back in the jig and rout the final radiused end at the 12th fret position.


I make a tenon of three layers of mahogany, drill holed for the barrel nuts and bolts, thickness it for a slip fit into the mortise, and glue it in.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Looking good, Jay! I like your "loose" tenon heel joint - much easier than a conventional tenon that needs tweeking to solve the end grain problem.

Alex

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

Nice work Jay. I've done one loose tenon heel and it worked out just fine. Lately I seem to like dovetails.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looks sweet Jay. I now have a case of tenon envy...

Very cool.

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Made progress on the neck and made the fretboard.

Rough tapered the neck shaft with the Safety Planer.


Glued ears on the headstock. I cut each ear from the same side of the end of the headstock so the grain would match.


Cut the pearl logo for the headplate.


Glued the headplate and black/white/black veneers to the headstock. I use dowels through the headplate to hold everything in place.


Did a rough cut of the headstock shape on the band saw and then did the final shape on the Robo-sander.


I use a sled to taper the fretboard on the router table.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter