Wintergrass concludes today.  Four days in the Spruce Room (Instrument Makers) where the Seattle Luthier’s Group set up a display flanked by mandolin makers, banjo makers, violin and bow makers.

We seemed to have crashed the bluegrass party as most of our guitars were decidedly not within the paradigm of bluegrass appropriate (i.e., dreadnoughts).  Regardless, we did get a lot of interested pickers.  Our little bet amongst ourselves has not yet been resolved:  “First sale buys the beers”.

Just finished application of the sixth coat of lacquer for both guitars.  Minimum of 6 more coats before setting aside to cure for 7 to 14 days.

Waited a few hours then went back into spray booth to apply second coat of sanding sealer.

Ventured into the new spray booth today for the first time.  Got both guitars sanded down and masked and applied first sanding sealer coat of lacquer.  After it dries I’ll give a quick scuff of scotch-brite before applying the pore filler.  I should be able to do a first coat of pore filler this afternoon.  I’m going to apply several coats of pore filler as previous experience showed one was not enough to get a glass-like surface for the hardwoods.

Two views of Guitar 905, the Walnut OM:

Now 906, the Koa Parlor:

Doubling up on two guitars is working well, as the tasks I perform on one are repeated on the other and the muscle memory benefits both.  After installing the neck bolts I moved on to further shaping of the necks and fine tuning the joint between the neck and the body.  Getting both down to fine flush joints was fortunately easy and the result was more than acceptable.  I bound each fretboard, radius sanded and flattened the back of each fretboard.  I bolted each neck onto the appropriate guitar (careful not to Frankenstein them), and rechecked the neck angle, making sure the neck and body were aligned and that there was a 2mm gap between a straight edge laid on the fretboard and the body at the bridge location.  I then checked, with the fretboards resting on the neck, that the gap was 7 to 8mm.  If not, I would either have to adjust the neck angle or thin the fretboards to get this gap.  Well, my friends, experience is paying off.  The gap was there, was right, on both guitars, and I needed no further adjustment.

I unbolted the necks from the body and attached the fretboard.  Here’s what 905 looks like after gluing and wrapping with a long elastic (excellent as it applies lots of pressure, and self centers).

This will dry overnight before I remove the band and begin to scrape and shape the neck further.

Earlier today I did the same for 906, and the neck/fretboard came out of the band about an hour ago.  Nice result, and you can see the fretboard bound with curly maple.

Both necks are still Stephen thick.  I’ve had the tendency to keep my necks thicker than they should eventually become.  Thicker from fretboard through back of the neck.  It stems from fear of taking too much off.  But….I really know how thick these necks should be, and there’s nothing amiss from further shaving after the fretboard has been installed, which is exactly what’s next on the agenda.

Neck shaving, final sanding, then these guys go into the spray booth.  I’m going to defer the fret install until after the finish spray.  New approach, as I always installed frets then sprayed.  I like this as I can easily mask the fretboard without frets.  With frets, it’s a tedious masking process, and I’m lazy.  The only thing I can think that would make this a bad decision is that there might be some potential finish cracking when pounding in the frets.  But that problem exists for all refret work, so hell, think of it as a refret.

Essentially, these boys are guitars.

Moving on to the necks, the first step is to install the neck inserts.  I use bolt on necks vs. dovetail joints as they are infinitely more adaptable to future repairs/resets.

The rough shaping was done a while ago, so after the neck mortise was defined and the inserts installed, the necks are shaped essentially to the final dimensions.  I use a rasp to draw down to the final dimensions, including the heel and end cap.  Fine sanding will be done after the fretboards are installed.

I certainly will have 905 and 906 ready for exhibition at Wintergrass in February, but I’m thinking through what might be the appropriate guitars for exhibit.  I can borrow back Larry’s Green OM, Beth’s Koa OM, and Carol’s Parlor.  I also have the Zebrawood resonator.  That’s 6 guitars.  I think I have a 2′ x 8′ panel to display, and maybe I can even use a floor stand, so 5 guitars on the wall, one on the floor.

Zebrez:

Larry’s Green OM:

Beth’s Koa OM:

Carol’s Parlor:

I don’t like to fair and square, but I do like the end result.  The fair and square step is to bring the box down to its final shape/dimension after the binding has been installed and before the neck angle is determined.  The binding and top, sides and back need to be flush, free from any gaps and squared up.  Most important is the upper bout area of the top.  Between the soundhole and neck joint, you need to establish absolute flatness.  This assures a clean transition between neck and guitar to avoid a 14th fret hump (or worse, dip).

Both guitars had a shellac coating on the tops to protect and reduce grain pullout from the binding tape.  It’s a pain in the ass to sand back down through the shellac, and I’m rethinking the use of shellac in future construction.  That means I will have to rethink using binding tape for securing the binding during installation.  Some luthiers use a fabric wrap or rope wrap while installing binding, which I’m going to look into for the next guitar.

I’m ready to measure the neck angles and use my tenon jig to route out the tenon on each neck, in advance of final neck shaping, fretboard installation and hammering in the frets.  There’s very little left before diving into the new spray booth and spritzing away.  It’s been raining constantly for the past week, and the garage is swimming in drips.

Here’s 905, ready for cutting out the neck tenon:

And 906 in a similar state: