Official Luthiers Forum!

Sanded this coffee table down to bare wood and added a coat of poly with a foam brush. Yuck, I'll be sanding again.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Some cool work being done out there!
I have three builds on the go, a Cypress/Cedar OM, a 5-String Bass, and a EIR/Lutz OM:

Long time since my last post, I love these threads! I'm applying the finish to this Black Limba weissenborn. My first weissenborn, my first slotted headstock, and my first time trying out French polish. So far, so good!

Black Limba top, back, and sides
Macassar Ebony headplate and bridge
Pau Ferro fretboard, binding, and butt wedge
Red Spruce bracing with Wenge/Sycamore/Wenge laminated floating back braces

I've wanted a weissenborn for years, and after forum member mtracz posted a link here a while back to his YouTube videos documenting a build, I decided it was time to get started on one of my own. Mike's videos are extremely well done and do a great job of showing how it all goes together. I reached out to him through the forum and he's been quite gracious with his time and knowledge answering all my questions that have come up as I progressed through the build. He was even nice enough to send me a pdf of his plans and bracing specs (the floating back bracing, in particular, is fantastic). If you're planning on building one of these I highly recommend watching his videos (link below). Mike's got some great tooling and jigs, and I definitely had more than a few light bulb moments as I studied the videos that have helped me refine some of my processes and do cleaner work. Thanks Mike!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHB9Sij ... zY_Rfojh4D

A redwood 000 that seems to be taking forever but am on the home stretch now I think. A dropped Martin to fix for a friend.

I don't remember poly going on so bad. The last time I brushed it was 30 some years ago. I fully expected it to self level.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Working on the neck of a new design for an octave mandolin. Glued the fretboard on today.

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

Darrel,
I've got a top like that but am worried that the bridge could easily pull off. Let us know how it works and what glue you"re using for that. Thanks.

As always when endgrain is involved, I recommend giving the wood a coat of thin hot hide glue, letting it dry, lightly sanding back flat, and then doing the actual glue-up. The pre-coat plugs up the pores so they don't suck the glue out of the joint after it's clamped.

Redwood is very brittle though, so it could peel up the wood along with the bridge. But I've heard a lot more people worry about it than stories of it actually happening And seen a photo of a 12 string by Harvey Leach with a not-particularly-large bridge on large curl sinker redwood. So I think a typical Martin belly bridge would be plenty of glue area for 6 strings.

Ahhh the smell of tubes burning in in the morning.....

"Hey, hey, my, my rock and roll will never die" was recorded by Neil Young on one of these 1959 15 watt tweeds to give you some idea how it can break up when you want it to.

It's done and I'm happy as a pig in mud. It sounds great although a little light on the trebles that's what EQ is for. Deep, powerful bass, mids off the charts (does Clapton's "woman tone" very well).

Had some voltage anomalies yesterday that made me cautious but when I consulted my StewMac expert (who helped me on a Saturday!!!) (twice) he chalked it up to the supply in our homes is pretty variable these days and not always 110.

It was a rewarding and fun project and the only problem I ran into was the alignment on the speaker as mentioned that StewMac made right and then some and I put a jumper on the wrong eyelet (stupid ***********)

Going to take a week and figure out if I want to build a 1/2 stack Plexi, this has been on my mind...

Lastly it's very quiet which I was going for too keeping all the power and signal wires distant from each other when I can. It's a little quieter than the 1957 5 watt that I built last month so I am happy.

Carl in around 2006 Bob, Zootman Bob aka "Bob's Your Uncle" which I coined for him got in some curly redwood. I bought a top and built a SJ with it and had it pictured on the OLF one month later. Lots of debate back then on if the bridges would stay put or not. Bob also told me that he sold out of redwood tops, 50 of them in only a week after I showed my pics here of mine.

17 years later the original bridge is still on I am happy to report and I just used good ole Titebond original.

Hope this helps.

Agree more people stress over this and I have yet to see a bridge joint failure on a redwood top. I'm sure it happens and poor techniques is always a possibility but with 17 years under the belt of my bridge on my redwood toped SJ it's a non-issue.

This looks really nice!

I find it ironic that people will reject a top because it shows some bireflectance because of a small amount of runout, but will happily accept a top that is totally runout.
Some have suggested (Alan C?) it might improve the long term success of a curly wood top by using a less dense wood for the bridge that has a larger footprint.

I've heard the same thing and have some worries but made one a ten years ago with the same top wood and glued the bridge with Titebond. No problems so far. I made a pyramid bridge for this one but then decided to go with a belly bridge like my last one for the increased glue surface. Not sure if it matters though.

Finishing up a folk art barnwood white oak pine top guitar in French Polish. And just finished the persimmons pyramid bridge.

You can thin oil based poly with mineral spirits for easier wiping or brushing.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Just a thought for Darrel or anyone concerned about the reduced gluing area of a pyramid bridge versus a belly bridge: I have built some pyramid bridges that were 1 1/4" wide instead of 1" wide. They were still 6" long. They look pretty good, and obviously provide more gluing area: 7.5 square inches versus 6 square inches for the 1" wide standard size. This also provides a bit more leeway on where the saddle slot is cut.

This is not a good option for those shooting for a reproduction of an historic guitar, but if you are not completely hemmed in by those sorts of constraints, a slightly wider pyramid bridge might be something to consider.

Binding has happened today




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Way cool Hesh. The closest to that for me (and not very close) is the Bill Machrone suggested mods that I did myself way back when on my Blues Junior. It sounds great to me but I lead a sheltered life!

This poor D-28 was involved in an accident when its owner fell on it. Fortunately, the guitar broke the owner's fall and he wasn't hurt, however most unfortunately, the owner's fall broke the guitar. I do plan on making a separate post for this job, as the guitar needs a lot of work (besides the obvious).

Before:

You'll do great, Jordan. DIVE RIGHT IN!

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

And a few of the pics from after gluing...





As you can see in the last picture, there's still a hole that needs to be patched, which is what I'm working on currently

Thanks Chris!!

I think I built five or so about a decade ago. I ordered ala carte, and they were about half the price of the available kits. The last few were my own takes on Dumble style designs, and it also really allowed me to feel comfortable tweaking things.

Not that I remember any of it now. [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND COLD SWEAT]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As awful as it looked, it did self level. The next day it was awesome. So now, I need to remove some nibs and buff it. I'm tempted to start using it on guitars. We'll see after I buff it out, if it looks like a guitar finish.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!