Greg's Music And Geek Blog

Fri, 28 Jul 2006

Yes, I caught that mistake.

I said in today’s blog that I was sanding the back to fit a 20 foot radius, but in the photo I’m using a 28 foot radius dish.

I did catch my mistake and re-sanded to the correct radius.

Boy, there are an aweful lot of ways to mess up. You really have to keep on your toes.

This story is from the [/music/lutherie] department
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Guitar Work

I’m finding that it’s really hard to get myself to work a full 8 hour day in the shop. For too many years I’ve sat at a computer at a job where I’m alledgedly a “computer programmer”, but they didn’t use my skills. I use to be a darn good programmer, but my last job basically killed off my skill set, my motivation, and my work ethic. Once that’s gone, it’s really hard to get back. So tonight’s task is to write up a list of things that need to get done in the shop and spend a good solid weekend of work.

Of course, the fact that I really need to start making some money is a bit of inspiration as well.

The guitar is coming along nicely. I’ve missed posting some more photos lately because, well, I’ve been trying to get some work done. First of all, I sanded the body to fit the 20 foot radius dish.

At the time of this photo, it wasn’t quite there yet. Almost, almost.

Then I glue in the lining which will give me a surface to glue the back to.

By the way, remember that maple inlay down the center seam of the back? When you plane it flush you get some really cool curls of wood. I love having sharp tools.

So the back is glued on and it’s looking pretty good. The slot in the neck block is to give clearance for the truss rod nut. I’m using a very nice double adjustable trussrod and I’m putting the adjustment nut inside the body so I don’t need a truss rod cover.

Now it’s time for the top. I went through the steps of sanding the body to fit the 28 foot radius board and then glued in the kerfed lining. Then I sanded the whole thing to fit the radius dish again so everything fit perfectly. Here’s the top set on the body before I glued it up. I’m checking the clearance of the braces to the lining.

My goodness, that looks just like a guitar!

OK, so after much dry fitting to make darn sure that all the centerlines line up it’s time to glue and clamp the top.

Tomorrow I have so much to do. Let’s see, I have:
2 dulcimers in progress (3 if I include the one that Sean was building)
A neck routing jig to build.
A fingerboard to slot
I have to build a fingerboard tapering jig.
I then have to bind the fingerboard.
Let’s not forget the 4 Tennesee music boxes that need to have a finish put on them.
And let’s also not forget the mandolin I’m building.
I still need to call a potential client that wants me to build her a cocobolo dulcimer with an ebony fingerboard.
 
Oh, I got my latest order from Stewart MacDonald today and I realized that I forgot to order the 12” radius sanding block that I need to sand the fretboard radius. I have a 14” block but that’s too much of a radius for a guitar.

So I have a lot of work ahead of me. In my spare time I have 2 nice boards of black walnut that I want to resaw into set of guitar backs and sides. And I wouldn’t mind going out to buy a bunch of lacewood to resaw for guitar #3.

Busy, Busy, Busy. Oh well, it keeps me out of trouble. (As if I was prone to get into trouble in the first place).

This story is from the [/music/lutherie] department
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