Andyjr1515

Any more pics, Bastav?

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1458405466' post='3007387'] May we have the 'back story' concerning the choice and conception of those swifts, please..? Very fetching, let it be said in passing. [/quote] The back story is simply that the house we have lived in for the past 30 odd years has swifts nesting in the eaves (almost) every year. They are absolutely my favourite bird and they - to me - herald summer. They are the last to arrive of the migrating birds and the first to leave again. The sound of their screams as the flock whistles around the various house's roofs and chimneys at suicidal speed and proximity is the sound of summer. Worryingly, four breeding pairs have dwindled down to two over those years and last year we are pretty sure there were no fledglings from the two remaining (is it just me who thinks we are actually well into the globe's next great extinction period?) Anyway, sticking with birds and egg-related matters - egg white as a grain-filler has my vote . After the easiest and most convenient grain filling I can remember, this is 'the reflection test' after one very thin coat of wiped-on varnish (and before you ask - this isn't still wet, it is after it is touch dry) : I maybe being overly optimistic, but I reckon a couple of days and the body will be fully varnished....

Away from egg puns and back to progress - I like getting to the inlays stage because it tells me the end is in sight! Yes - eggsactly Normal process, starting with tracing round the inlay: Dremel out the chamber: Gluing with epoxy mixed with sawdust: ...and finally sand. The extra one is for the heel cap:

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1458330947' post='3006798'] You could have used shellac. [/quote] Anyway, regardless, pleased with the result - I think I've cracked it....

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1458330947' post='3006798'] You could have used shellac. [/quote]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1458328606' post='3006759'] Eggsactly. [/quote] That's a good yolk

In summary, I'm very pleased indeed with the egg white. And it's tough! Not impossibly tough-to-the-point-you-wish-you-hadn't-bothered epoxy-kind-of-tough, but tough enough that when you sand even the soft spruce, for a long while you are pretty much polishing the sealed surface rather than cutting through straight down to the wood. I've done what is probably the last coat of egg white before the first coats of varnish so, while that is drying, I've been cutting my moniker swifts. Like many others, I use a jewellers saw and very simple slotted mdf board to cut them out: ...and here they are - three for the headstock and one for the heel block:

[quote name='allighatt0r' timestamp='1458312370' post='3006514'] Flippin luvverly [/quote] Thanks, Bryan

The first stages of the finishing are started Following what I believe is an old classical guitar technique I am going to try out egg white as the clear sealer / filler again. I've used it on a couple of solid bodies but I'm interested how it fares with the spruce top. I suspect it will be OK as a sealer, but no better than, say, Birchwood Casey Clear Sealer & Filler, for filling much more than the grain pores (ie not very good at all!). First impressions: Easy to apply Quick drying Cheap Pretty much odourless Easy to clean brushes / cloths / pots Dries to a fragile and thin, but - on first impressions - fully set, finish. This might mean that, if it is capable of filling anything except the grain, it doesn't do the long-term continued sinking that the polymerised oils or similar suffer from. This was it after a couple of coats: While it was drying, I shaped the headstock and drilled the tuner holes:

Rothko and Frost are very good suppliers...

That's looking very good

We're still here, waiting patiently

Took maximum advantage of the fact that it ISN'T RAINING and profiled the fretboard: Note the pencil line which is my 'I've reached where I need to be' reference. I started on 80 grit then progressively down to 600. Then - as it STILL hadn't clouded over - added the frets. On an acoustic I find it a lot easier to get the fretboard pretty much sorted and then glue it on once the neck has been glued to the body. I buy coiled fretwire, allowing me to do the 'bead of titebond; position fret; whack one side; whack the other side; whack the middle' technique. I do three frets at a time and while I'm cutting the next three, I clamp the radius block over the three I've just done for good measure: Then laid that to one side for the glue to dry while I started the rough carve of the heelblock: Finally, wrapped the trussrod in clingfilm and clamped a piece of the walnut inner splice as a truss-rod cap while the glue dries. Here I've rough-trimmed the fretboard too: But by now I was worried about getting sunstroke in the 6 degree heat so went back indoors into the comforting gloom...

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1457888746' post='3002682'] Looking top-notch as always Andy [/quote] Thanks!

In between some unavoidable outdoor jobs I've tried to continue small bits of progress. The main one was to get the dovetail absolutely spot on. I used [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YJh9OT4mw"]Glenn LaSalle's excellent Blues Creek videos[/url] as a guide and gently, gently eased everything so that the fretboard was absolutely square to the body, that the neck angle was correct, that there was no movement top or bottom in the dovetail joint itself and that the sides were flossed to an even tight fit to the body. At the end of all of that, with each adjustment taking a tiny bit of wood off the joint, the resulting joint was smack on, but now a mm or so low. I had machined the neck slightly oversize, but not quite enough. No probs, though - I've just glued a strip of hardwood veneer onto one side of the neck joint which has also corrected a small offset in the neck position itself. It's worked a treat and I'll know next time to allow for a touch more 'wiggle room'. I'm pleased with the joint. It's rock solid, and it's in the correct position on all planes: The joint has been 'flossed' with 240 grit and, when the joint has its final glues whack, will be firm against the sides all round: The end of the fretboard will have the small magnetic pickup that is one half of the Shadow Sonic Doubleplay system. The other thing I am going to try, is to make the pickguard from an offcut of the side lacewood: The domestic decorating / garden rearranging chores are mainly done for the time being, so I'm hoping for a spurt of progress in the coming couple of weeks

Hi. I've done the same searches that you probably have. The Boss uses 5v as you say and those, where you can get hold of them, are mightily expensive. Although there are xd to smartmedia adopters, I suspect those are also configured to the 3.3v standard and therefore not useable. Couldn't find any other options...maybe cast out a wtb ad and hope someone's got one in a dusty corner?

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1457606191' post='3000017'] That's logical, but it seems to me like buying a diamond anniversary present at the very first date..! 'Twould come in handy and save time later, too..! [/quote]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1457568019' post='2999824'] I admire the optimism shown by sticking the label inside the guitar before it's finished..! Added incentive, maybe, to take it easy and make no slip-ups, eh..? [/quote] Partly....but mainly because it's a lot easier to glue it accurately onto the back before you glue the back on

Now that's quite, quite weird, gelfin On with the build. The neck routing jig I mentioned earlier is a few ideas stolen from LMII and Robert O'Brien (whose 'Luthier Tips du Jour' videos are great) and a bit of lateral thinking relating to converting an old Black and Decker Workmate into a neck and body routing jig. Here it is in the body slot routing configuration: The jaws of the workmate, lined with cork, grip the heel end of the body. The rig will take mortice and tenon templates or dovetail templates. With a 5 minute changeover, I have an adjustable angle jig for routing the neck: Tonight I tried my first dovetail on some scrap. First attempt was a scrapper because I made a basic error with the dovetail slot. But second trial came out like this: While I could still remember how I did it, I did my very first 'real' neck dovetail: ...followed 1/2 hour later by my first real dovetail body slot: To my utter surprise, it fit! ...nice and tightly: ...and at the correct angle: ...and correctly aligned! ...all in all that's pretty much as good as it gets! Well, well chuffed

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1457275687' post='2996927'] Amazing! Guitar building truly is an art and a complete mystery to me. [/quote] Well, I thought that about acoustic builds until I was inspired by a build thread on another forum. When you get down to it, it's just a progression of acquired skills rather anything magical. It's a very well-trodden and you-tubed progress path too (thank goodness )

I'm not sure what you mean. The SD-2 Dual Overdrive doesn't take or need a card. There is the option to be able to use an optional foot pedal to switch between crunch and overdrive rather than bending down to turn the knob setting but I think that's about it. The PDF of the owners manual can be downloaded from Boss's Support page here http://www.bossus.com/support/manual_archive/

Spent the morning checking measurements and preparing everything for the "Very Scary Bit" - routing the neck tenon and body mortice slot! This one really will be a case of check, double check, triple check, quadruple check before anything is cut. Obviously, the neck will be 30mm shorter once the neck is slotted in, but it's beginning to look like a guitar....

Not trimmed yet, but all four bindings are now safely on: While the dining room paint was drying, I managed also to get out with my cheapo-cheapo band saw to cut the rough outline of the neck: I'll be using one of the offcuts on the left to stick on to extend the heel to its full depth. But that's it for today. Got some serious digging to do next...sadly, not the foundations for a workshop

Well done for spotting that one, Paul. I suspect - particularly it being a Yamaha - that it's absolutely lovely It certainly looks great - and no, never seen one of these before. Andy

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1456485991' post='2989469'] Wow, this is still inspiring, awe-inspiring and frightening, and I love it. I'll have to go to Wiktionary now, and find out about "purfling", "routing", "binding" and "guitar". Thanks again for keeping us updated. [/quote] Thanks, BassTractor! Now onto the back binding routing and the associated challenges For anyone who hasn't done an acoustic binding, let me explain. [list] [*]The back is dished much more than the top [*]The angle at the edge of the back isn't, however, equal all around the perimeter - think tangents...where the waist pinches in, you are closer to the centre of the dish and therefore the tangential angle is smaller than at the upper bout and that is smaller than at the angle at the lower bout. Basically it's all over the place... [*]So, if you have a relatively large router base , the rise of the back at this angle means that the router rises (the router has to be kept vertical to keep the bearing-guided cut even in width and straight-sided. [*]Because the angle varies round the perimeter, the router therefore rises different amounts and the cut depth of the binding also varies, that is the bottom of the cut becomes a wavy line, not a straight one. [*]But the bottom of the binding must be straight for aesthetics and because it wont bend in that plane...you would just get gaps [/list] The short version of the above is "Just trust me. It ain't gonna work!" I don't make enough acoustics to invest in the clever (but very cumbersome) Stewmac / LMI rigs. The precision base with the binding roller fitment won't work for the above reasons. So I thought I'd try out this from Stewmac: It's like a mini roller-guided Dremel precision base. It is better than the big one because the base is much smaller, therefore the angle of the back at the perimeter affects it less. It still affects it, but at a manageable level. In terms of the gadget, I'll give it 7 1/2 out of 10:[list] [*]It's a fiddle to set the right height [*]Keeping the router vertical while cutting has to be done purely by eye - not easy [*]You still get variation in cut depth, but it is a smoother transition [*]It did a MUCH better job than my precision base (which is what I used on my OM build) [/list] I also managed to bend the back binding strips. I use a bending iron and then clamp them into the mould, give them a last spray of water, then leave them overnight: Next job, in between decorating the dining room (I know - ridiculous - it was only done twenty three years ago!), is sticking them on.