Fret Work

Not my or many luthiers favourite thing to do, I just don't do it often enough to be that good at it. After watching Charles Fox do it and taking notes I figured I would have a better chance of getting it right.

I decided to try semi-hemispherical fret ends, the result was not the best semi-hemispherical fret end but probably the best I have done for fret work. So I'll take that.

Looking more and more like a guitar...

Looking Like a Guitar

Finish is done.. Whew always a bit of a pain, especially if you sand through while polishing... crap!

Oh well all fixed up now.. Finish is a polished Royal Lac hardened shellac..

Ready to fret and attach the neck.

Starting the Finishing Process

Working on the Archtop, the pore fill is done and now the finish coats can be applied.. Royal Lac hardened shellac. Not sure how many coats I'll apply will stop when it looks good.

The beauty of Royal ac is it is more durable than regular shellac and you can actually wet sand it to level the coats...

Two Parlours

While the weather & the humidity has been good, I got the sides bent for the tow parlour guitars I'm working on and glued the to the blocks.. Now all I have to do it wait for the humidity to go down again so I can get the boxes closed.

I the mean time I'll put some finish on the Archtop :-)

All the parts for the bodies

New Jig I made for holding the sides in shape as the blocks are glued up

Close-up of the T-track to align and hold the neck block

Making Some Progress

I'm making progress with the archtop, I did get the dovetail cut, thanks for the help Meredith. and now the neck is carved and just need final sanding a fitting.

One of my favourite parts of guitar building is carving the neck, always nice to as they say, see everything that does not look like a neck disappear.


Next I have to sort out a tailpiece, maybe a cast one or I might make an ebony one the jury is still out. I also have to make a bridge.

Neck roughed out with the fingerboard extension

The carved neck, just needs some more sanding

Profile view :-)

Archtop and Other Stuff

If you read this regularly you might remember I started and archtop build with the help of a Vancouver Island luthier Joe Egan but getting back to it with him has proved challenging so local luthier Meredith Coloma (http://www.meredithcoloma.com/) agreed to give me a hand with the last real tricky part, cutting the dovetail neck joint. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend.

Since I had to get the neck for the archtop in shape for this I also glued up the necks for the two parlour guitars I'm currently working on.

So i have a fully roughed out 3 piece Spanish Cedar & Walnut neck for the archtop and a 3 piece Spanish Cedar & Walnut neck for one parlour and a 5 piece Narra, Walnut & Maple neck for the Pacific Parlour. In case you're wondering Narra is also called New Guinea Rosewood (Pterocarpus indicus) so it meets the Pacific criterial. Interestingly Narra is the tree that produced the Amboyna Burl, although the regular wood looks nothing like the burl..

I also finished a few more head plates that I will use on the regular parlour guitar and the archtop.

Tenor Archtop neck with it's headplate

Necks for the two parlours...

X-Carve CNC Inlay

OK I've done some tests with the X-Carve for inlay with actual shell and actual parts I'll use on future guitars...

Pretty darn happy, the first one took bit of playing to get the offsets right but after that all pretty quick & easy.