Its Been Awhile

Well it has been sometime since I last posted.. I have been busy however working around the house, holidays & guitar building, plus I have been doing a bit of work for another luthier.. Of course now with Covid 19 thing have quieted down.. A good time to get this guitar I've been working on done..

It's a nylon string 13 fret to the body raised fretboard guitar. Back & sides Mexican Cypress, top Western Red Cedar with Ebony trim and a couple of simple bevels for comfort..

Just the ne k left to carvec& a bridge Thu o make & it will be ready for finish.. 

Repairing a 1970's Ovation

I don't really like doing repairs, too much stress working on someone else's instrument. However when I got asked about this one I thought it would be a good challenge. That and well I really could not make it any worse....

The serial number says this is about a 1973 Ovation Classical and as you can see it had a hard knock and some VERY bad repair attempts (multiple).. The deal was the owner simply wanted a playable instrument, cosmetics were less important as the guitar overall is pretty beat up..

Step one was get rid of the wood screws!!!!!!!! Then clean up as much of the old glue as possible and try and get the parts to fit back together. This was the hardest part of this and I was worried I would not get the pieces back in any form that would be stable enough for the next steps.. Eventually got there and the two pieces were joined with medium CA glue..

Next route out as much of the damage back into good wood as possible and add in new Mahogany splines..

Then these shims could be carved to match the neck. White is an epoxy putty used to fill some gaps where things were solid  and I did not want to route out larger pieces of the neck, it goes on dark but unfortunately dries almost white.. errr..

Then trying to add some colour to match the original and add some finish. Ovations finish is THICK so it was a bit challenging to get a good "seam" between the repair and the original but by using some UV Cure finish I got an OK result.

 Because of the condition of the guitar and time/cost considerations I did not do things like try and maintain the full neck center stripe. I prioritized playability over cosmetics..

Here is the finished result with a new truss rod cover (old one was broken/missing) and all strung up back in one piece again..

I should also give credit to where I got the idea for this repair method..

It came from a Canadian Luthier Ted Woodford He's got a pretty good youtube channel and I really like his repair thought process..

https://sites.google.com/a/woodfordinstruments.com/woodfordinstruments/

https://www.youtube.com/user/twoodfrd/featured

Summers End

Well summer is done so all the home summer projects are either done or postponed until next year..

Before I did take a break I did finish the two Parlour guitars so they are now up for sale.. The long scale Tenor guitar is almost ready for final polish and buff. and I'm preping for the next builds.

Coming up will be a nylon sting crossover model in Mexican Cypress and Western Red Cedar.

After that one is started I think I'll be working on a new Ukulele design similar to those of Jay Lichty, https://lichtyguitars.com/ukuleles/ Jay has been kind enough to publish his basic design for a larger bodied long scale Ukulele. So I think I'll give a slightly modified version of that a try.

There will also be another L-0 bodied guitar coming as I think that is a great size that fits between the Parlour and OM sizes.

I've also been designing some changes to the basic way I build guitars. For several years now I've done a completely bolt on neck where the fingerboard extension is not glued down to the body and that works but the next logical extension of the is the raised fretboard guitar which will allow future changes to increase the vibrating area of the top> So I'll be doing that on upcoming guitars.

Also I've been looking at arm bevels and scooped cutaways and looking for a way to do them on most of not all guitars with out over complicating things. So to that end I'm going to try some modeled after a version used by Ontario luthier Ted Woodford http://www.woodfordinstruments.com/home.

So That should keep me busy for awhile..

Here are some photos of the completed Parlours

Multi Scale
Rosewood & Spruce 

Claro Walnut &
Torrified Red
(Adirondack) Spruce

 

Work Continues on the Parlours and More

Still working on the two Parlour Guitars and things are going good, necks are done and bodies are all closed up and ready for finish.

In addition to those two I been working on what was originally planned as a Bouzouki but decided it would make an interesting long scale Tenor Guitar so that is what it will be. Neck is also done on it and the body is ready for finish..

I'm doing a bit of finish experimenting and will be hopefully using a new UV cured finish from Solarez which looks pretty good on the bodies and French Polish on the tops of the two Parlour Guitars and may try CrystaLac Brite-Tone instrument finish on the Tenor.. We will see how it goes..

Bodies, necks & fretboards prior to finishing the necks

Completed Necks

A Pair of Parlours

Working on a pair of Parlour Guitars, One "standard" with Torrified Red (Adirondack) Spruce and Claro Walnut and one fan fret Indian Rosewood and Sitka.

Braced Torrified Top

Cutting Fan Fret Slots

Completed Fret Slots

Ziricote Guitar Completed

The Ziricote and Sitka OM guitar is done and off with it's new owner, this was a commissioned work. Very happy how it turned out.

Ziricote Guitar

The Ziricote OM size guitar is coming along nicely. Some pore fill and sanding and it will be ready for finish.

While that is curing I've got an Octave Mandolin to finish and a couple of Parlours to work on.