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I started an acoustic guitar kit when I was in high school 15 years ago, but didn’t have the skills or patience to finish it.

I recently found my old Irving Sloane book. It got me excited about the hobby again, and thought I would try to log my build here.

I cleaned out an old cabinet to see what I had. I must have been planning on building more, because I had a stash of wood that I had forgotten about.

I’m not sure the species of some of it.

Spruce Top



Yellow Heart? Sides and back



Ebony Fretboard


Brace Wood?



Now to get started.


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Cool! Now you have some well seasoned wood

Could be Cypress back/side set? I have built with Yellow Heart and it kind of looks like that too though the stuff I have is more uniform, it's also pretty hard stuff.

The very first guitar I built in 1992 I used Sloanes book. It will get you there but I would recommend against using his neck joint and instead look into a simple bolt on butt joint. Much easier to make, adjust the angle, and so on. Also easier to remove.

About ten years after I built that guitar I had to reset the neck and I basically had to break the heel off. BUt almost 30 years later I still have that guitar and play it once in a while and it still sounds great.

Good luck!

Yes. Well seasoned...

Thanks for the tip on the neck joint. The old kit I was building had a bolt on neck. That seems like the way to go.


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+1 for using a bolt-on butt joint for the neck

The top looks pretty nice - lots of silking.

Do you have wood for the neck?

There's a lot of work that needs done but don't let that discourage you. I had an IT instructor who used the phrase "it's a lot of simple", meaning there are a lot of parts to get it done, each is simple, there are just a lot.

The Cumpiano book was great help when I started. I actually checked it out from the library before buying a copy.

Have fun, take your time, and know when to call it a night if you're getting frustrated, DAMHITK.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

This weekend I built a longer shooting board, and joined the top. It took a couple hours to get the hand planing figured out, but I was able to get it to fit with no light showing through the joint. Can’t wait to take it out of the clamps today and see how it looks.




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Took the top out of the fixture, and am pretty happy with the results. Some of the grain seems like it is converging into the joint instead of running parallel. I think that is making the joint more visible.

Out of the fixture



After scraping joint flush


Started planing. I’m going slow. I’ve never planned a surface this large and thin to such tight tolerance.



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FWIW for next time, I will cut along a grain line each side of the joint so that when joined, the grain does not come together at the seam...

Don't beat yourself up over that. It doesn't look bad, and besides that, I doubt that there was enough stock there to make the grains perfectly straight even if you tried. Tapered slightly that way, especially since the grain is slightly squiggly, and has decent silking, the top will look really nice.

Judging from the chips, your plane blade is nicely sharpened. If your planing is going that well, you must not have a runout problem. That would be far more noticeable than your imagined tapered grain. The fingerboard and soundhole will make that a total non-issue.

_________________
Why be normal?

It does look a lot better after planing.


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I got some more work done this weekend.

I finished planing and scraping the soundboard. I was able to get it between .100 .120 everywhere. I think my plan is to cut the rough outline and then take measurements in a grid to figure out what still needs scraped.

I also joined the back. This was much tougher than the soundboard. The grain in the yellowheart (I think) made it impossible for me to shoot without tear out. I resorted to the sanding stick. That worked, but it took a lot more time. I still have to thickness it and I’m worried I may have to scrape the whole way to avoid tear out. Only one way to find out I guess.




Lastly I built a “radius stick” for sanding and clamping braces on the top and back.




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If you have an extra plane iron and a dremel tool you could make a toothing iron for a "normal angle" plane to avoid some tear out. A very sharp blade and a close set throat in a Bailey plane will also help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9jVI1CDuNQ

In the video he comes back with a smoother, but you could also finish up with a scraper (or even coarse sandpaper) to remove the tooth marks instead.

Hmmm.... I do have an extra iron for my jack plane.

I will have to give this a try.


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