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I'm measuring intonation for the nut and saddle on a Finnish Olav Löf guitar from 2003. Olav made this one with rowan wood in the bottom, sides and head plate, the neck is mahogany. The bracing of the top is somewhere in between a ladder and an X-bracing. Still in good shape, even if the top had a bit of a hump behind the bridge, the reason for the intonation work.

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New will change the old,
turn to ashes or gold

http://www.gammelgura.se

Ziribari is finished! First experience with UV cured urethane. Learned quite a lot and the next one will be better. Construction wise this one went really well.










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Consider doing your intonation setting with the instrument in the playing position in your lap or if you have one in a neck jig (which is not necessary). You will see on many guitars that the intonation can change several cents or so from on it's back to in the playing position.

I set-up around 600 guitars a year and these are very comprehensive set-ups that people pay premium prices for and the expectation is as close to perfection as possible. The difference in what I read intonation wise and I use Peterson strobe tuners too is noticeable and even audible in some examples when you set the intonation in the playing position.

I'll add for others since I know you know this Roger setting the intonation is important but it's as important to have the nut slots cut low and correctly or your intonation settings will be pulled off and the instrument will be harder to play.

A beauty Brad!

Wonderful looking uke, Brad! I will obviously be picking your brain more over the summer about the Cardinal UV cure materials. Well done!

Yes, there is a difference in the shape of the neck to the guitar when laid on it's back compared with the same guitar in playing position. In my Stewmac Erlewine jig, I have seen on the measuring clocks that the nut will travel down 0.1-0.3 mm laying on it's back compared to playing position, with a light neck and no truss rod (only a carbon rod). An electric guitar or electric bass with a heavy truss rod will deform even more.

I do all my intonation measuring adjustments, not shown in the slides, with the guitar in playing position in my lap. In the Erlewine jig with strings at tension before doing the intonation work, I also set the measuring clocks in playing position before sanding the fretboard and crowning the frets with the guitar on its back.

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New will change the old,
turn to ashes or gold

http://www.gammelgura.se

That checks out with math I did a quick calculation approximating the neck as a cantilevered rectangular beam 40x18mm, 40cm length, 10GPa Young's modulus, with 400 grams uniformly distributed, and got 0.1mm deflection.

Removing a pesky well glued in nut.
All part of life's beautiful tapesty

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

And if the neck is resting on a sort of full length neck rest it presumably will be less?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Great! And you're right electrics have necks that deform much more generally and basses are the very worst of the worst for having flexible necks. Dan E. calls them "rubber necks."

Remember too that the neck is now an assembly with a fret board, taper, nut channel, frets and the weight of frets and even tuners all skewing calculations. And then there is gravity...

So trust me necks deflect and Dan E even calls the worst ones rubber necks.

The shape change is probably due to gravitation acting on the whole guitar, something will happen to the neck shape. But if the neck is resting on a short rest close to the nut, the weight of the guitar will counteract some gravitation movement.

_________________
New will change the old,
turn to ashes or gold

http://www.gammelgura.se

You mean dial indicators, Roger?

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

Not what my translator app told me, but that seems like a great name for the same thing

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New will change the old,
turn to ashes or gold

http://www.gammelgura.se

Really enjoying your detailed article in the current issue of American Luthiery Roger.

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
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Now that is interesting Jim. Cool shape that I've never seen. All fits together. But I don't understand the edge on the top. Is it thick, and then routed down .06" or so over the playing surface? Maybe a band for some kind of inlay? I have no idea what's going on.there!

I see that it isn't done, but you got.me confused. Maybe that's.not.too hard to do?

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Why be normal?

I left it thicker around the glue area and router'd down to correct top thickness its simply for visual effect. No real mystery im hiding lol. The entire guitar is an experiment in trying different ideas. Just for fun.

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Processing the white pine drums.

This stuff is tough to split. Buried the wedge in the middle and learned the hard way that you need to start at the edge.



The marked half on this one has no knots in it.



The quarters:



Processed into a square and ready for the resaw.





The product:

Thanks Jim. It does add interest, it looks cool, and makes people like me wonder what's going on. No downside. I have a weird violin design with a bent top that has an edge like that, but I think I'll have the step on the inside, and put pearl around the edge instead of purfling. Just to be different. I need some spruce for tops! I broke the first one bending WITH the edge routed in. Now I need to bend thin, and add the doubled edge; and I need guitar tops! I can find back wood.

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Why be normal?

Had a spare hour between other projects and made a neck rocker cradle out of a bit of larch leftover from when I built my shop.

Barry Daniels posted a thread at the MIMF about his center finder. It uses the double-threaded rods from a Jogensen handscrew clamp, which have both left- and right-handed threads. The two arms closer to the camera are fixed to the spine; I added an adjustable bridge positioning arm, visible at the tail end, with the black knobs locking it when adjusting for scale length. The whole thing is extremely accurate.

Thanks, Barry!

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Back to guitars for me for a while. Starting a couple 00’s using a new shape modeled up in gthang. Inspired by the L-00 with some tweaks to the shoulders and lower bout. Looking forward to using the red spruce & curly walnut I picked up from the trip to Appalachian Tonewood.






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I recently completed this top repair - it ended up being a totally separated top.



There is a thread here if anyone is interested in my approach: http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10137&t=55004


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Well not much happening in my shop recently but I just got out of the hospital and I am now officially a cardiac kid.... Hesh has a-fib and it's manageable but no more medial weed for me, sadly. Notice my priorities LOL.... I may put my bong in the classified here JUST KIDDING...

But I hope to go back to our shop and do some geetar fixing tomorrow if I feel up to it.

It was pretty scary an ambulance and the fire department came and we thought it was a heart attack. Everyone was wonderful to me and although I am VERY beat up at the moment I think I'm on the road to recovery and not yet destined for that place filled with pre-war Martins and 58 - 60 Lesters or, alternatively and no offense Josh my friend the alternative where old Ov*tions go.