Getting Braces

It's a rainy day here in Virginia, a perfect day to get some time in on this project. After a major snafu getting the brace blanks etc. delivered to my house, today I've drafted out the bracing and gotten the Sitka Spruce brace blanks marked for sawing. I basically ordered an extra blank and a half of bracing since this is my first time, and want to have enough in case of errors. Here is the bracing drawn out on the blanks:



Then I thought I could use a backsaw to cut the braces out, only to discover that's not going to work very well. After using a straight-edge and a knife to score the line for the saw to ride in, then using a framing nail to again score the trench I began carefully sawing. After working on it for quite a while I had only sawn less than 1/4" depth, so I'm going to have to find something else. At this pace I would be spending the next three weeks sawing these.



I found a cheap Ryobi table saw used on craigslist that I'm hoping to get, it will come in handy later on too. The stand will also double as a stand to clamp my template to. In the meantime I'm going to cut out the plates and finish constructing my template. I'll post another update later today

Plates Joined

Finished joining the plates, not the best seam ever but I think it will work. Here's the top after joining, and the back being glued (as I type in fact). As you can see this is not the most professional set-up, but it works fairly well

First Shavings

The plane came in the mail this week, and of course I was excited to get to work. Far too excited as it turned out, when I quickly began working on the Redwood top. The sole was fairly true but I soon realized that the side was not, and getting a good joint was impossible.





I decided to use the back side of my MDF shooting board/workboard/sanding board to true the sole and side:



I felt like I had Popeye arms by the time I was done, it took a long time by hand. Although blurry, this photo gives an idea of how much the side was out of whack:



After adjusting the plane I got the top ready to glue, now I'm working on the back. I'm not having as much luck with the hardwood, I'm going to sharpen the blade and see if that helps att all. If not I may have to get a regular jointing plane, the lack of adjustability with this old wooden jointer makes using it difficult.



Next up, sharpen the jointer blade and get the back ready to glue. Then glue the top and back,cut out the plywood template and finish its construction, and begin planing the top and back down to the correct thickness

Shooting Board

Just put together my shooting board to join the top and back plates (never noticed until now, but why do we call it that instead of "front and back" or "top and bottom"? Just another oddity to love). I'm a little concerned about the length, but if it doesn't work I'll switch the stops. Per Steve Summerford's blog, I also chose to use a big enough sheet of MDF to double as a workboard for gluing the plates and anything else that may come up. I ended up getting this old wooden jointer plane off of ebay for cheap (I won't list the price, but lets just say it was a single digit). I have a feeling I'll need to true the sole and make a few other adjustments, but that's a small price to pay for using a unique tool. Unfortunately that's one of the sale photos with the shop in the background.....too bad that didn't come with the auction...

Another

Just for fun, experimenting with the rosette, learned that too much looks like too much. I think i will use this fingerboard though

Rough Outline

Here is the rough outline for the guitar, bridge placement is correct however the soundhole location was just eyeballed for perspective, i'll probably move it back towards the bridge a bit. Next up is laying out the bracing scheme, then I'll get the materials to make my template, and this thing may start taking shape. I've been really busy with other things lately and haven't had much time to mess with this project. Oh also I'm going to scrap the baritone idea, and make this a 14 fret, 25.5" scale. Also I'm considering getting a pre-made neck from Hanalei Moon to save alot time, and ensure a good fit. Besides, they have some awesome options.

The body design for this is inspired by two designs: most prominently, Simon Fay's "Modern OM" style, which although I've never had the opportunity to get my hands on one, they are beautiful guitars. The second is Taylor's GS series, which are dynamic, great sounding guitars. The main difference here is that the body is extended, and slightly widened. I haven't decided on the depth for this guitar yet, but here are the dimensions visible below:

Upper Bout: 11-7/8"
Waist: 10-3/16"
Lower Bout: 16-1/4"

New Parts

I received the back and sides today in the mail. Hibdon Hardwoods kindly threw in a complementary matching Cocobolo bridge blank and headstock overlay set!!! Talk about good service, I'll definitely buy from them on future builds. Here are the two pieces, as well as a drawing for the bridge. The light in my apartment is really bad, and my flash is giving me problems so it is hard to make out the design. Unfortunately the bridge blank isn't large enough to do a one-piece with this design, however I have a couple ideas for working with this. Like I was told as a kid, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." As a side note, I'm hoping to get a borrow a couple of my Grandpa's old hand planes to use on the build. They probably need a little polishing up, but should hopefully work well.

Specs

Here are my initial specs, subject of course to change. I'm still debating scale length (700 vs. 750 mm), trapeze vs. standard bridge etc., but here is a start:

Baritone Guitar Specs

Top: Curly Redwood
B&S: Cocobolo Rosewood
Body: Jumbo (w/ deeper body than standard)
Binding: Curly Koa
Neck: Honduran Mahogany
Neck Width: 1 7/8"
Fingerboard: Ebony (Alt. Ziricote)

Misc.: BWB Purfling, abalone heastock inlay, Ziplflex blue paua body binding, no fret inlays, gold frets, gold waverly tuners w/ ebony buttons, flamed koa end wedge and back graft, ebony headstock overlay, African blackwood and abalone rosette, ebony bridge, ebony pins w/abalone dots, bone nut and saddle, scalloped x-braced top, ladder braced back, oval shoulder soundport

Here are a couple photos, first a concept drawing for the headstock (the "M" inlay has been scrapped, still working on something for that) and the second is of my drafting gear

Step One

Official first post! This is my first build, and will probably take some time to complete. I now have the top and back and sides, but pretty much nothing else. Over the next couple months I'm going to collect the rest of the necessary supplies and tools. I'm going to be building this in my apartment, with no access to a wood shop (unless something changes in the intervening time). A couple of resources I will be using are http://acousticguitarbuild.blogspot.com, as well as William Cumpiano's guitar building bible (also see his site, http://www.cumpiano.com). Both sets of wood I purchased after surfing several sites for a while, and when I saw these sets come available I knew I had to snatch them up, as I had a gut feeling I wouldn't see the same beautiful sets again for a while.

Here is the top, Curly Redwood which I got from RC Tonewoods & Sons



Here are the back and sides, amazing "cloud figure" Cocobolo Rosewood I got from Hibdon Hardwood



Well enough for now, I'll post again once I've started to collect some more tools and parts.