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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Attaching the Neck

Well this another one of the high stress cutting into a perfectly good guitar body moments.. But once doe the whole thing looks like a guitar - risk vs reward.. I'm still not 100% happy with the jig I have for this so it my well be on the list to make a new one.. The process however worked out fine and it now looks like a guitar.

Body mortise cut

And the tenon

See it looks like a guitar



Bindings Done

Things really start to take shape once the bindings are done. You can see the finish line it feels like..

I'm very happy with how the Bloodwood looks with the Indian Rosewood.



Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A Side Project

A good friend asked me to make a Mountain Dulcimer for her to give to one of her good friends for Christmas, so I thought I better get on with it as it is past mid November.. Hour Glass shape, 25.4 guitar scale length, Walnut top, Narra Back and sides with some cherry accents and maple bindings..

So far so good...

Just needs a fret board some more binding trim bits and  some refining of the scroll  

Binding tape is holding on some of the last trim bits.. My tenor guitar in the background

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Gluing up the Bindings

I'm slow at this but since I use fish glue for the bindings I can afford to be slow.

Using Fish Glue you can even stop to take aphoto


Now just needs to dry, the one disadvantage of Fish Glue is it takes a good 12+ hours to dry

Cutting Fret Slots

For a change I cut the fret slots in the fingerboard the other day. I use the LMI fret slotting jig. I'm thinking of switching to a table saw jig but this method works just fine for now.
The LMI Jig

Does a nice clean job

Finished ready to be tapered & bound


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Trying My New Fox Bender

I had some "issues" bending the Bloodwood bindings for this OM using my bending Iron so luckily I had a brand new Fox style bender I got from Blues Creek Guitars standing buy. After quickly making a bending form for this guitar (all of a 15 minute job).. I gave bending the bindings and perfling a try.

It worked like a charm. There are MANY methods out there for doing this mine was to, tape together then bindings, lightly spray with water and wrap in tinfoil. Then sandwich bottom to top, spring steel slat, bindings in tinfoil, spring steel slat and heating blanket. Heat to 305 degrees (a bit high but Bloodwood is hard to bend) then bend and cool then reheat to 250 degrees for 10 minutes and cool and remove, this seemed to end up with very little spring back..

Note since these bindings have perfling on the bottom they are left and right so you need to take that into consideration then orienting the bindings in the bender otherwise you will end up with all left or all right side bindings..

Can't wait to try this bender on some sides.

I actually bought the from and spring steel from Blues Creek and the controller and blanket from LMI

TADA.. :-)

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Routing Binding Channels

Well today I put the new binding cutter jig I made to the test and it worked quite well, much better than other methods I have tried. I'm very pleased with it :-)

OK Yes I have to add dust collection..

Pretty easy to set up just loosen the two screws for binding thickness adjustment and the built in router depth adjustment for the depth


Looks good