fact: most guitars are made out of wood.

So before showing you what I did today, I thought I might tell you what kind of guitar I am making... Well it is an OM (Orchestral Model) with gibson style bracing.... what that means is that it is a guitar for fingerstyle playing more than flat picking. The finger board is a little wider for that style. It has a gibson style brace pattern meaning that its scale length is slightly shorter than that of a Martin style (another popular style)... and the braces on the top are placed at a wider angle, making the top looser and thus a warmer tone.... does any of this make sense Mom?
The top of the guitar is made out of engelman spruce. The back and sides is made out of Indian rosewood which is a tropical hardwood with many tonal traits of Brazilian rosewood. For those of you who dont know, Brazilian Rosewood is the golden wood of guitar making... which is why it went on the endangered species list in 1969...soooo we now try to use alternatives that are properly forested. The neckwood is made out of mahogany and the fingerboard is made out of cocobolo (mexican rosewood) which has a striking orange and yellow color... should look neat. Hmmm thats pretty much the interesting stuff there.

Before showing you what I accomplished today I have a story to tell. While while working in the power tool room, I heard a very loud noise behind me.. I saw my good friend Bob Murphy. Bob is a handsome young man of the ripe age of 104. He was standing next to the table saw which had no blade on it. Now for those of you who havent heard about our table saw, I will tell you about the great features that it has so you understand what is going on. This particular saw is brand new. It has this awesome feature on it where the blade is sensitive to electric conductivity. Which means that it can tell when it is touched by human skin.... When this happens the blade will drop down in a fraction of a second, so you keep your 10 digits. So there was Bob, with the table saw and no blade. Bob claims to have no idea what happened... because he hadnt touched anything really so it remains a mystery but at least we know that it works.... although I did want to throw a hot dog in there to check myself....Oh well. I would have included a picture but the blade falls way to fast and Bob's good looks cant be contained on film anyway...

Now back to my day. First I made some cauls to fit inside the the outside mold for my guitar so that I can keep the ribs clamped after shaping them.


Then I went to my top in which was joined together last night and I am happy to say has a great looking, nearly invisbale glue-joint.


I then thickness the top (again) to a frightening 3.5mm. You can really feel the stiffness along the grain now and you can feel an amazing flexibility across the grain.... spruce is cool.

So to test this reaction we setup a jig that will measure the reaction to weight on the top. We strapped in the wood and set a 5 lb weight on top of the wood(eeeek!) to see how much movement if made. Mine moved .070" which was pretty loose compare to the .048' that most of the Sitka spruce tops had. Sitka has the highest strength to weight ratio.... its great for dreadnaught guitars. Leon offered his hand as a lovely vinette to this picture.

After that we went back to the thickness sander to thin the tops again!! I took mine down to around 2.9 mm before it had a nice warm taptone. Perfect. Note Leons middle finger in this pic.

Finally I cut my top to a rough shape and kept the left over pieces which I will use for different braces and grafts later. Now it sits ready for a rosette and soundhole when I come back from break.


Oh thats right... I have spring break next week so I wont have anything new until the following week. So I will see you then.

Let's build a guitar!

Wow. I am almost through my first week and I havent even posted anything... well lets catch up. On monday we started right away, making templates for our instruments out of 1/8" plexi-glass. We made blueprints for our guitars and templates for the body shape, neck, headstock, and the sides. Plexi is difficult to work with and can easily burn on any power sanders... and these things had to be perfect.. no gaps or bumps. Here is a picture of the infamous (CANA)Dave working on his template eh!



Then we began making outside molds. These will be used to shape the ribs (sides) of the guitar after we bend them. They are made by stacking and gluing plywood.



Cutting them to shape.





and routing them flush so the ribs will be perfect.






This looks fast but it took 2 days... hey, glue has to dry.

Meanwhile I also made a work board for my guitar. I am building an OM style guitar but I made my workboard for a jumbo sized so that I can use it again for pretty much any guitar that I will build. It's used for holding the nstrument as I build.


Afterwards I drilled 42 holes in the side, which I will eventually put sheet rock screws into. This will be used for when I glue the sides to the top and back of the guitar... I will wind 40 feet of bungee cord around these to wrap it up tight while the glue dries.... but we'll see more of that when I get there.





I know what you guys are thinking... where is the guitar???? Ok I finally started working on the top today.
First we thicknessed the top.


then we used a jointer plane and a shooting board to trim each piece perfectly straight


we used a light board to check to make sure there were no gaps.... go CanaDave!


then we used this jig to clamp from the top and sides... we used hot hide glue, which is made out of animal proteins Mmmmm! Its the same stuff that the used to seal King Tut's tomb...Cool huh?





and the result... 2 becomes 1.



well. Here I go. Check back in often and I will have more for you.