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I believe it was West System 3 this time.

Thanks! The winner likes it considerably more than his previous Kenny Hill guitar and plans to use it for his Julliard audition later this year. I used Liberian finishing oil as does Kevin Aram. Aram wrote a tutorial for applying this finish in American Lutherie no 127, fairly easy to apply but requires considerably more prep work including sanding the guitar to 2400 grit micro mesh.

“My buddy tried to fix it by squeezing some more glue underneath and clamping it back down.”

Yeah, that always works... (eyeroll)

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

Checking out a new tower binding jig.

Linear rails and bearings with DeWALT D26200 router and counterweight.

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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.

Some progress after a bout of Covid.
EIR/torrefied Sitka, flame maple bindings, polar burr rosette and tailpiece.
Bindings fitted and Sound Port cut
Apologies about the pic sizes.

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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.

Just off the bench: a ‘69 J45 I posted about earlier. It had cracks, loose bracing, cracked bracing, missing bracing requiring replacement, destroyed threads for the adjustable saddle (customer opted to repair and keep rather than delete this hardware), a lifting bridge that was warped and missing so much wood it required replacement. And the fella wanted a K&K pure mini installed.

A big Honkin 18” Archtop almost done.








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Just finished up this homage to Torres FE-13 for Brandon Acker. Top is old Swiss spruce from Andres Marvi, European Birdseye maple maple back and sides, ebony binding and fretboard, madagascan rosewood bridge and head plate, strung with nylgut strings

I started collecting hurricane debris wood several years back and decided to build an OM from it. 1st pic of the headstock inlay. The top and peghead overlay are what many would consider "unusable/undesirable" lighter pine and the back and sides are red oak.




anywho, that one didn't stay too long, some guy from Louisiana " had to have it" so I started a dreadnaught

Yikes! I must have not sized that last pic correctly.

Flossing the neck.
Goes much quicker after I started routing the undercut in the cheeks (instead of chiseling it) leaving about 4mm width of contact each side, 3mm after fitting the board and trimming the neck.
Also introducing my hi-tech neck alignment tool designed using the KISS principle.
Strip of perspex with a series of holes drilled to fit short steel rods which go into the truss rod slot, and to draw fine black marker lines at the butt end ( OH! - can I say that, or will it auto-correct?)

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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.

I'm basically a hack butcher compared to many here, but I finally put strings on the cello last night. I started it 10 years ago. Made the fancy 3 layer form, roughed the belly, did a bad job slicing the back wedge, and tried to salvage it to no avail; so it sat. Found a slab for the back, and made a back for my archtop with part of it, and then finally made the cello back. In the winter I dropped it, and had to replace 2 ribs, and that turned out like nothing happened at all. The forum works really good.

It still needs a new sound post fit, I think it needs to be longer. The bridge is still way too high. The nut is too high. I need some touchup where I had to file the neck to match the fingerboard. The fingerboard is Surinam? Ironwood. 1.33 sg. very hard stuff. It wasn't that hard to make. Put the taper on, carve a 70mm radius on the top, with some relief. Straight forward stuff.

I had to make a peg shaper for the pegs. They were 14mm at the head. Too big. I usually make pegs. A REAL shaper is $150 or so. I made one by reaming two tapered holes, a small and a bigger for the top and end of the pegs, making a notch in the board to clamp on a plane blade that I use as a scraper. It worked. Not great, but it worked.

The nut and saddle need to be polished up. Both cracked. Apparently the one end of the Ironwood board had checking that I didn't notice.

But the strings are on!




A cello sounds like it it an octave below a guitar to me. More like a bass. I tuned it with the archtop, and it was like I was tuning octaves!

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Why be normal?

Don't beat yourself up too much. I don't see anyone else here taking on a project like building a CELLO! Congrats on getting to the finish line.

Waiting for lacquer spraying weather. I used 3M professional masking tape and sprayed the purple lacquer with an air brush. I had no bleed-through or rough edges.


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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I'm working on 5 guitars and I need to drive the bus on all of them. It was such a daunting thought to do this to all of them in a shop that's 85 degrees. So I finished up my dish sanding system that I started up a few years back. This isnt the final design, i had to replace a lot of the parts with more appropriate ones. Ive also added two dust ports to the shroud.





I am also trying out some different clamps for fitting and gluing my linings. This is the first attempt. After this session i realized it would be better to flip them so they clamp from the inside.

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Marcus, in the last pic, is that an outer shell that is used to stabilize the side while clamping in the lining?

I’m playing with the idea of doing the Collings approach of having a caul baked into the mold. It’s interesting that you’re clamping without the mold.

Also, do you clamp from the inside because then the weight of the clamp is actually pinching the joint closed at the bottom (meaning the part that is no routed for binding).

Brad


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No, this side is actually just a cornucopia of laminated wood. The original intent (of this particular guitar) was to have maple laminated with maple (with carbon fiber between). I absolutely roasted the inner maple set on my bender somehow so it got pretty dark. I decided to laminate the inside with some Mac ebony veneer.

With that buildup the sides are super, super stiff, so I dont really need an outside mold.

I will now clamp from the inside of the mold because the clamping part (that is attached to the bolt) is a narrower profile. This way i can add a small caul and get more center-focused clamping pressure. Its not a huge deal on the straight parts, but with those big sweeping curves, it appears to be a bit of an issue.

Here's a little illustration of the "problem"

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Better to have narrow points of contact when clamping on curves.

Awesome stuff as per usual from all OLF'rs around here.

This is the first time I have tried this sharpening system and... Call me a convert!

Spent this morning doing blasphemous things to a 100-year-old 0-size guitar





Another luthier has already very nicely rebraced the soundboard for steel strings but sadly the non-reinforced neck couldn’t take the tension and it developed a permanent forward set. The fret board was also starting to loosen around the body joint. After this rod install, a neck reset is also on the cards as well as a few loose back braces.

After watching the Bashkin documentary and with a couple of backs to join I tried his go-bar method. I must say it worked just fine.

IMG_8684 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

IMG_8686 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

As mentioned, beveling the frets. Got a tip from Dave Farmer to wax up the masking tape runway. Working good so far!


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I’m working away on this clone of a Two-Rock John Mayer Signature amp here and there during the evening after the girls have gone to sleep. I don’t remember exactly how many amps I’ve put together, but I’d guess 5 or 6, with the last being thirteen or fourteen years ago. There was support then, but the level of documentation and resources has really soared and made this very approachable as the neuroplasticity kicks in and I remember this and that. There’s enough to get you going, but also enough to force some decision-making. I.e. am I going to make it 100 or 50 watts, and what needs to be done to make that work?

One enthusiast in particular (Ryan at http://thetonegeek.com) has been a god send.


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Very cool!!! I remember an amp you did over ten years ago that you made a nice wooden face for the cab and finished it. It was beautiful. Please post a pic of that one James if you have one? That was some of my early inspiration to try amp building which is great fun!!