Belated Updates

I've been a bit slack updating the blog of late. Summer was busy with non-luthier stuff and life just gets in the way sometimes. I have however not been completely ignoring luthier work however. I've actually got a fair bit done over the last few months considering all the others things going on in life..

First off someone in the small orchestra Julie plays in had a cello in need of repair/restoration. Turned out to be an Englehardt Cello, a pretty cheap student model but apparently pretty common in school music programs. The cello was the victim of and attempt at refinishing that was at best misguided.. It was also missing most of the parts like a bridge, tuning pegs, tailpiece and sound post. Anyway this got those parts replaces and a new finish put on it.. It is going back to a local music program, It was interesting to do as I am really not a repair person.

The only "before" I did, after I removed the rest of the finish

Ready to be played again

Also the next builds are well underway, those are an Irish Bouzouki and a Octave Mandolin, both built as flat top guitar bodied instruments. The Bouzouki will be Rosewood and Spruce and the OM Honduran Mahogany and Cedar. I started by making the bindings for these, I've been meaning to try my hand and making my own bindings with purfling for some  time so it was good to try that and it worked out great.

The Setup for cutting thin binding strips with a slitting blade on a small table saw

The end result

I've also got the sides bent and glued up to the end blocks for both instruments and the tops and backs well on the way to being done.. Just starting to brace up the tops today..

Here I'm doing the rosettes..

And here are one of the backs and top bracing underway.

Bindings

The bindings are done on the two parlour guitars, just a bit more scraping and sanding to do.. Came out pretty good, quite simple bindings, I think they look good on smaller guitars..

A good binding cutting setup makes all the difference

Completed channel

Glueup

and done

Closeups

Some More Progress....

Ahhh the humidity is finally in a good range for building!!!

So the top and back are on the Tenor Uke and to binding channels are routed.. Always a bit stressful to start taking a router to a more or less OK looking instrument body. Luckily the new binding router set up works well and takes away some of the stress..

Also the mounting holes for the bolt on neck are done..

Looking forward to lots of progress in the next few weeks..

Starting to look like something

Binding channels

And more binding channels

Ready for the neck - well not really yet

Making Fretboards

Not many process pictures but I just finished the two fretboards for the tenor and parlour guitars.. 

One for the Parlour in Wenge with Paua shell bar fret markers and bound with the same binding as the guitar.

One for the tenor in Ebony with gold Mother of Pearl fret dots, also bound in maple like the guitar..

They still need to have the frets put in but I might wait for a bit on that as I am sort of into cutting pearl not I might cut the gold MOP celtic knot inlay for the tenor's headstock.

My little rig for cutting the slots for the bar fret markers

Yes I missed by about 1/32" the slots are 1/16"

Bound and ready for frets

Different angle

Completed Tenor Fretboard

And again the artistic Angle

The two together

Busy Weekend

OK done, the Parlour is now caught up to the Tenor, so I can put away all the body jigs & moulds and get on with making necks..

This weekend I  carve to top braces and finished voicing the top, glued on the back & top, cut the binding channels and the channel for the top Abalone purfling and got all the bindings & purfling installed.. I was a bit concerned how the Wenge would route as it seem brittle but it was fine..

Still lots of finish sanding to do on both bodies but that can wait until later...

All in all a productive weekend and I'm officially in love with my new binding router jig.. works so darn well..

I'm also really happy with how the binding came out on the Parlour the Abalone looks great and not too gaudy..

Very happy with this look

No Abalone on the back

End wedge

Top view

Both now waiting for necks

Binding Channels

Undoubtedly one of the more stressful parts of building a guitar taking a 10,000 RPM router to a guitar body, quite a bit can go wrong.. If you've followed this blog you've seen a couple of ways I've cut binding channels in the past.. All worked with varying degrees of stress and some variance in accuracy.. Most of the jigs I used were chosen to accommodate having a very small space for a shop. I just don't have room for a large parallel arm fleishman/williams-style jig.. I've been looking at the LMI or the Stewmac jig for some time and when LMI updated their design I did some thinking and decided that looked the best..

It is still a compact jig that I can store away in a cupboard when not in use and it works like a charm..

Setup is easy, adjustment straight forward and it works, despite screwing up the install of the top bindings and having to cut them off (with the jig) and even that when well..

Just pay attention to the getting the guitar level in the carrier.

I am far less stressed about cutting binding channels now that I have this jig.

The only change I had to make was a slightly different assembly of the carrier since I am doing a small bodied guitar..

Carrier assembled in a "non-standard" way

The results

Mounted to my work table

Closed the Box on Rick's Tenor

So now it looks like a guitar, or at least 1/2 a guitar...

Has a light seal coat of shellac and ready for the binding channels to be cut.. typically described as a high pucker factor task..

I'll be using a new stationary binding jig from LMI that seems like a good and relatively safe way to do this..

The Weekend's Progress

So things are moving along, the back braces are carved on the tenor and the back is not glued on the sides. All the top braces are glued on and ready to finish voicing the top.

The bindings are bent and since I had the side bender set up the parlour guitar's sides and bindings are bent as well...

Using a go-bar deck to clamp some of the
top bracing

Back now on the sides

Top and back together

The parlour's sides resting in the form

Some Work on Both Guitars

So I cut the sound hole  & bound it on Rick's tenor and finished bringing all the body parts to thickness.. I also cut he sides to rough depth on both the tenor and the parlour.

Then cut out the body shape in the top and back of both. Now ready to bend sides and brace the top and back..

Completed rosette and sound hole binding

Two tops and back

Arm Bevel Time

So after a break while I was out of the country, it's back to finishing this MandoCello..

I carved out the arm bevel today, actually looks pretty good in the contrasting woods but it will eventually be covered in Rosewood to match the binding scheme. The carving of it actually went pretty quickly and easily. Hopefully the binding of the bevel does as well :-)

The Bindings

Routing the binding channels in a guitar body has to be one of the more stressful steps in building a guitar. You have a nice closed box and now you are going to start routing out pieces of it.. A mistake can be darn near unfixable if  you mess up big time.. Besides the channels need to be precisely sized and consistent for the bindings to look good once installed..

I've tried several methods to do this all with varying degrees of success.. I am partly limited by a small work space so some of the bigger parallel arm jigs for this are out of the question size wise.. My current jig is a variation on a Charles Fox design and ones I've seen in some production guitar factory videos.. The key to all binding jigs is that they reference off the sides of the guitar NOT the top which is arched, only a small part of the to top or back is in contact with the jig so the arch does not effect the accuracy of the routed channel..

This new jig worked very well and this was by far the least stress I have had routing binding channels so that coupled with the relatively small size of this jig makes it a keeper.. I'm sure some of the bigger jigs are even easier to use (from what I've seen) but they just are not an option for me due to space.

The jig, the side of the guitar references on
the guide that sticks out, depth is set by moving
the guide up and down and  by adjusting the
router bit's depth, the only place the top or back contacts
the jig is the small piece of wood with two screws in it.

Completed channels, nice smooth and even

Another view

Bindings installed and taped in place while the glue dries.
I use fish glue for this as it allows time to get the bindings set in correctly

And from the top

The completed bindings

From the back

and from the side, I'm happy with how the ebony looks with the Koa wood.