Official Luthiers Forum!

Beautiful work Michael, very clean as always.
Is that a 00 size? Beautiful lines!

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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.

Thanks Colin, that means a lot coming from you -

This is actually a Parlor/0 size instrument. Parlor sized instruments got a lot of attention at the La Conner guitar festival last year - figured I’d better get on board!

Cheers, M

Interesting clamps there, nice looking guitar guts.

Thanks,

The clamps are from Elevate Lutherie. https://elevatelutherie.com/product/side-clamps/

M

Binding installation day…

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I’ve only made one guitar, but I’m hooked and have two more underway. Now I’m making a few furniture and tooling upgrades.

Bought this new workbench and made some leg lifters to bring it up to a more comfortable level.

I needed somewhere to store my guitars that are in progress so I built this cabinet out of a 3/4 birch plywood. The drawers are 1/2 birch plywood. I put a butcher block top and casters on the bottom as I do everything in my shop.

Got a new set of chisels, spent way too long sharpening them, and built a rack to hold them.

And finally this week, I built a mold to laminate sides. I got the idea from a video by Driftwood Guitars. His idea for a vacuum bag using sheeting material was ok, but i found it much easier to use a blanket vacuum storage bag.

The plywood looks weird, because my cnc tears up and splinters the outer veneer layers so I run it through my thickness sander after the cnc is through with it.

Looking good! If you want to avoid the tearout on the plywood try a compression bit. You may already be familiar with them but, a compression bit does both upcut and downcut. The trick is you have to cut the first pass depth a little deeper than the upcut portion of the bit (marked as B1 here):



Before I had a CNC that was powerful enough to drive a compression bit I used to start with a downcut bit and then last pass would change bits to an upcut, reset the Z and run the last pass as a separate toolpath. That might still be faster than running the pieces through a sander.

Maybe some of that is useful.

Brad


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Where are you getting your Butcher tops?

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Pretty happy with the way this top refinish came out. Not perfect, but close.

Looks great Jf, nice work.

Thanks, Brad. I use compression bits on my big machine at work, which is how I made the cabinet. My smaller machine at home just uses a router and not a spindle. I could be wrong but I figured I needed to sand anyway to get a good glue surface and the veneer is so thin, I’m basically through it after only 2-3 passes through my thickness sander anyway.

Through a local cabinet supply shop. They are locally made. This uses a 24x48 and cost about $350.

I thought about getting a finger cut bit for my router and making my own, but decided I’d rather spend the time making guitars.

Woodcraft and Home Depot (and others, no doubt) also have butcher block tops.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Cleaning up prior to assembly.
Mahogany top and back with Maple center.
I have matching purple Dimarzio pickups and knobs.
All other hardware is black.


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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Someday, when I’m rich, I am going to commission one of your SG’s! They are the coolest slab guitars I’ve ever seen. I’ll stop playing jazz and I’ll only play AC/DC from then on.


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A commission I took for a pre-Christmas delivery. 000 style, long scale, Pau Ferro, Torrified Red Spruce, Shertlers, Koa trim, Royal Lac Post Cat. It’s been a bit stressful, I agreed to do it in less than three months, normally I require 6 months. I was very happy to get the setup strings on today. It already sounds really good but I’ll let it sit till Monday then do the final setup and get it delivered next week.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A beauty, Steve! What’s the neck situation, is it tinted?


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Test piece for a Florentine cutaway (laminated sides) in my bending jig.

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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.

Thanks Brad. Yes, neck was very light colored mahogany so I airbrushed it with Colortone in shellac. I left it light in the middle just cause I like the way it looks.


Steve

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

This old spokeshave is my favorite tool for the initial shaping of the neck shaft.

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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

Just a follow up post, that trial for the Florentine cutaway piece turned out fine, and with the heat on 200deg F) the final glue up with high strength epoxy the cure time was less than an hour.
So laminating in the form can save time

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P.S. spot the mistake.

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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.

Along the "Now for something completely different" line...




Got talking to a couple of locals about dulcimers, had some wood that looked like a dulcimer, so I thought I'd make one.
Came together really quickly, works like it should.

Best part is, it got me fired up about building again.
So I started with some walnut sets I resawed not long ago....


And spent the weekend in the shop. Backs joined, sides bent, things getting braced, etc. It's been great.