Post by R the F on Jun 3, 2017 9:24:49 GMT
First some sad news. Here's the first guitar I made; some of you may have had a play on it in Halifax last year:
Here is the culprit - feigning an interest in the view down the garden:
A nice clean break, I suppose. (I offered to do the same for Jack but the family held me back.)
Anyway, I've been polishing. If you want to follow my progress, just read through the polishing post (above) about seven times and you'll have an idea. To cut a long story short, the front and sides are done:
I now realised I would have to finalise the bridge before it could be attached so that's what I set about doing. I came up against a problem; though my iron acetate solution had nicely blackened the laburnum used for the fingerboard, it had absolutely no effect on the bridge even though the wood was taken from not only the same tree but even the same part of that tree. I don't have much luck, do I? So I reverted to good old black water stain followed by black spirit stain with a spot of black pigment added. This made it black. Had I already slotted it? I can't remember. But it's slotted now so that the string-ends can find their way into the holes where the ball-ends sit. Here's a picture of it:
Ah yes. It's got those little sub-saddles in place as well. Next I slapped some polish on it:
Now I agree this is not a pretty sight at this early stage but it can only get better as I cut it back with fine grit paper and add more polish to finish things off. Bear wiv. It's not finished yet because I thought I'd give it time to settle down before I got back on to it. So I switched my attentions (once more) this time to the neck.
I left the neck slightly rough and with holes in it where the cross-dowels had been inserted. I began by sanding it down to near a baby's bottom and then looked at the holes:
Now I do quite a lot of hole plugging in my day-job so I have a set of little things which will drill out a perfect plug across the grain to plug a range of hole-size that your screws have gone into. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to drill 10mm holes for these cross-dowels (barrel-nuts) and - you've guessed it - my "little things" are imperial sizes. The nearest was 3/8", which - as you know - is about 9.5mm, which is too small. So I had to cut the plugs by hand with a chisel and some sandpaper. I got there in the end and here's the result:
Admittedly there are some nasty gaps because messing about with the holes has left them "sub-round" but at least they are a tight fit. And, with the addition of a little polish, they begin to disappear altogether:
Well, not "altogether" but I don't want people to think that magic was employed in the making of this guitar so it's good to be able to see the mechanics of it all. A bit of Arts and Crafts philosophy, I suppose. And, while I was beginning to polish one end of the neck, I was also beginning to polish the other end - to this effect:
Yes! It's the return of the batman-devil-owl looking even more garish with a coat of shellac to bring out its worst details. I'm getting to like it now. Thanks for saving it from my timidity, Riverman .
Well, I seem to be leaving everything half-finished again but at least there are some things half-started. To give a sense of completion and the passing of another year, here is a photo of the poppies outside the workshop one year on...
Here is the culprit - feigning an interest in the view down the garden:
A nice clean break, I suppose. (I offered to do the same for Jack but the family held me back.)
Anyway, I've been polishing. If you want to follow my progress, just read through the polishing post (above) about seven times and you'll have an idea. To cut a long story short, the front and sides are done:
I now realised I would have to finalise the bridge before it could be attached so that's what I set about doing. I came up against a problem; though my iron acetate solution had nicely blackened the laburnum used for the fingerboard, it had absolutely no effect on the bridge even though the wood was taken from not only the same tree but even the same part of that tree. I don't have much luck, do I? So I reverted to good old black water stain followed by black spirit stain with a spot of black pigment added. This made it black. Had I already slotted it? I can't remember. But it's slotted now so that the string-ends can find their way into the holes where the ball-ends sit. Here's a picture of it:
Ah yes. It's got those little sub-saddles in place as well. Next I slapped some polish on it:
Now I agree this is not a pretty sight at this early stage but it can only get better as I cut it back with fine grit paper and add more polish to finish things off. Bear wiv. It's not finished yet because I thought I'd give it time to settle down before I got back on to it. So I switched my attentions (once more) this time to the neck.
I left the neck slightly rough and with holes in it where the cross-dowels had been inserted. I began by sanding it down to near a baby's bottom and then looked at the holes:
Now I do quite a lot of hole plugging in my day-job so I have a set of little things which will drill out a perfect plug across the grain to plug a range of hole-size that your screws have gone into. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to drill 10mm holes for these cross-dowels (barrel-nuts) and - you've guessed it - my "little things" are imperial sizes. The nearest was 3/8", which - as you know - is about 9.5mm, which is too small. So I had to cut the plugs by hand with a chisel and some sandpaper. I got there in the end and here's the result:
Admittedly there are some nasty gaps because messing about with the holes has left them "sub-round" but at least they are a tight fit. And, with the addition of a little polish, they begin to disappear altogether:
Well, not "altogether" but I don't want people to think that magic was employed in the making of this guitar so it's good to be able to see the mechanics of it all. A bit of Arts and Crafts philosophy, I suppose. And, while I was beginning to polish one end of the neck, I was also beginning to polish the other end - to this effect:
Yes! It's the return of the batman-devil-owl looking even more garish with a coat of shellac to bring out its worst details. I'm getting to like it now. Thanks for saving it from my timidity, Riverman .
Well, I seem to be leaving everything half-finished again but at least there are some things half-started. To give a sense of completion and the passing of another year, here is a photo of the poppies outside the workshop one year on...
Scraped: 
Stuck: 
Jo whoever he is.
