sMg Guitars

June 2, 2008

Off goes the old headstcock veneer (generic ebony no frills) and on goes the new SMG logo headstock veneer.  I used the old “put an iron on the guitar” method which I have employed before to remove a fretboard/neck from an old Stella that needed a neck reset.  Iron on a cloth on the headstock, far enough away from the fretboard to avoid it coming loose.  About 35 minutes total heating time on high, and it came off nicely.  Did have some issues with the maple veneer getting annihilated and a small gouge in the mahogany headstock, but not something I can’t fill and hide.  Decided to glue on the new headstock plate without a veneer sandwich piece.  The original was a wee bit thick for the tuning machines, which is resolved without taking any stock off  the mahogany headstock.  Glued it up, clamped it up and it will sit overnight.

June 2, 2008

Finally….Gurian Instruments, after two months, has delivered my custom made inlay and headstock veneer. There was a rush charge on the invoice?????? They took it off. The work is beautiful and I’m ready to rush to the workshop, chisel off the ebony headplate on guitar number 2 and glue on my new stuff!

June 1, 2008

Still haven’t moved on the finish on the OM Rosewood.  I’m too distracted by working on this maple.  I worked a bit on the back brace shaping, then moved to the cutout of the neck pieces from the humongous maple neck block.  The piece was large enough to craft two necks, and I’m glad there was as the first cut ended up with a headstock too thin and out of square.  Second go around of the cutout resulted in a near perfect, and square, neck cutout.  This is just the first part of an adventure I’ve not yet embarked upon.  I’ve got the tools and plenty of advice from the O’Brien DVD, the K. book, and the Cumpiano book, where I should have a modicum of success, if I take my time.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a break from the maple and get on the finish work for the next 3 lacquer coats for the rosewood.

June 1, 2008

Happy June everybody.  Clearly no one is paying careful attention, or you think my way is the right way.  In yesterday’s post, I showed two examples with fret dots set on top of the fretboard to see which looked better:  without the 3rd and with the 3rd.  But nobody called me a bonehead because I showed dots on the 14th and 16th instead of the 15th and 17th.  Mixolodian.

Anyway, fret dot placement exposes my dyslexia.  I’ve installed on the 11th (my Spinal Tap Dot) and offcenter and too deep and akimbo.  Just getting all the wrong possibilities out of the way.

May 31, 2008

Long day in the workshop.  I put the sides back in the mold after I redesigned the mold and installed 3/8″ bolts in the end clamp areas for a sure fit.  The black dots for the fretboard arrived, and I laid them out to see how they looked.  I like both, but will defer to Larry which he wants.

First, with a fret dot on the 3rd fret.

Next without the 3rd fret dot.

Of course, any fret dot config would be fine, just let me know.

May 31, 2008

It’s getting to the point where I can actually think of selling the guitars I am making. Yes, I’m very attached to my first guitar, and I love how it sounds and plays, but maybe, depending on how well number 2 sounds and plays, I’m ready to let it go. Anyone out there interested in a conversation about buying one of my guitars?

May 31, 2008

This weekend, I’ll tear myself away from the OM Maple and apply lacquer finish to the OM Rosewood.  It already has 3 coats on the back, 3 on the top, and I’ll apply the third to the sides and neck.  After the third coat, it’s a progressive sand back to smooth, then 3 more coats.  I’m advised that even though the sanding process is tedious, I should not phone it in, as a good job here pays off down the line.  Yeah yeah yeah.  I just need to get my head around sanding, and do it, and do it right.  I’m really very close to wrapping up the second guitar, and I’m looking forward to how it sounds.

May 30, 2008

Installed the kerfing, radiussed down to the sides, created a rosewood/maple/rosewood tail wedge and rosewood/maple/rosewood side bracing.  Glued and trimmed and I’m ready to move to the top bracing.

May 28, 2008

LMI hasn’t yet filled my order as the Koa back and sides have just come out of the kiln and are curing before being available for tonewood. As I am building a Parlor (very small), there will be a considerable amount of scrap from the back when they profile for the parlor shape. I contacted LMI to ensure that I get that scrap, which hasn’t been the case in the previous two guitars ordered from them. They assured me the scrap would be included in the shipment. I figure the profiled back is about 60% only of the starting bookmatched koa back pieces, so the amount of scrap will be substantial.

May 28, 2008

Larry came by and we experimented with water based color for staining his maple guitar. He wants green. We used Stewart McDonald Colortone water based stains, bright green, amber, tobacco brown and mahogany red in varying concentrations and percentages. Finally, a 75% green with 25% tobacco brown at 65% dilution turned out to be just the color we were looking for.

It’s the one on the big hunk o’ maple farthest to the right, but left of the scrap sitting on top.

The colors aren’t true in these photos, but you can see the variations we came up with using different combinations of the 4 basic colors.  Oddly, the mahogany red tended more toward brown than the tobacco.  With the 65% dilution we were able to retain some of the whiteness of the wood, avoiding the loss of the maple quality.  It’s still going to be green though.