laklak wrote:Damn, I got all nervous looking at that router. I've had a few router disasters in my time.

+1.

It's like getting to the just about the finish line in a race, collapsing and vomiting on yourself.

felltoearth wrote:

laklak wrote:Damn, I got all nervous looking at that router. I've had a few router disasters in my time.

+1.

It's like getting to the just about the finish line in a race, collapsing and vomiting on yourself.

And speaking of collapsing, there's a step coming up that was also pretty scary the first few times I did it. And the router will be back!

Bending the binding.

Now for the bindings. Sort out which way you want them to go and make sure you position them in matching pairs so you get two lefts and two rights and locate the position of the waist. Matching the bindings is especially important in this guitar because of wood choices.





The binding in the press.



The binding is as thick as guitar sides so the Ranger rope helps keep pressure on the caul during the bend.





A spray of water on the lower bout.



Bending.



And it's down.



Let it cool and it's done - sort of.



Check the fit, especially around the waist.



And touch up with the bending iron if need be. I had a flat spot that I had to take out.

Making the tail piece end graft

The end graft is a decorative piece that goes at the lower seam of the sides. Besides being decorative I guess it allows the seam to be made less than perfectly. It's traditional. Here's a very fancy Martin version.



A wedge shape like that is pretty traditional. I'll be doing something much more simple. Something along the lines of what I did on this guitar.



Except that I'm going to go for a mitered look. A little more along the lines of this guitar that I made.



A wedge shaped piece is pretty traditional and has the advantage of giving a more adjustable fit. I prefer the look of a straight tail piece. An extra piece of binding with some added stripes on the other side works well- which is what I'll use

Here's where the tail piece is going to go.



Cutting a length of left over binding.



I super glued some veneer strips to the other end and planed and scraped it flush. And here's what
it looks like.




Next I'll inlay it in place.

I definitely prefer yours over the Martin.

felltoearth wrote:I definitely prefer yours over the Martin.

Thanks.

Martin does like to use a lot of plastic. I'm told that when they started using plastic/synthetic binding it was a rare and exotic material viewed as something special.

Inlaying the tail piece

The next step is to inlay the tail piece. I like to put a mark on the sides to show the top and back seam. The tail piece should be centered between the marks and perpendicular to the sides. If something is off a bit you may need to adjust it a bit here and there to get it as close as possible.

I managed to get things lined up pretty well so I'm good to go.



I put some double side sticky tape on the tail piece and put it in place. Check the centering from all angles.





This is another place where some bring out the router but I'll using other methods.

Then I use double sided tape to stick some blocks on the sides which will help guide my saw and also help keep me from doing any damage to the sides.



Remove the tail piece and cut away.



Then chisel out the slot. I like to keep the blocks on for added protection until I'm nearly done.



A small chisel turned around is handy too for this job.



Check the fit. It looks good.



I like to cut the tail piece for the top miter joint now and wait until the tail piece is glued in place for the bottom miter. I make a test binding piece by striping off some of the veneer and cutting a miter into the veneer. Now the tail piece protrudes into the binding channel by the width of the veneer. I use the test binding piece to measure this. Then cut a matching miter into the tail piece with a chisel.





A bit of glue.



And a bit of persuasion and it's in.

Continuing along, this is a good time to miter the bottom of the tail piece.

I use my test binding piece as a guide of how much tail piece needs to protrude into the binding channel. The tail piece should go to the top of the veneer line.



Mark with a chisel.



Cut with a small saw.



This is how the tail piece protrudes into the binding channel. Also, you can't really tell from the picture but at this point it extends a bit beyond the sides and will be later scraped flush with them.



Miter the purfling with a chisel and test the fit.

Installing the top purfling


We're ready to install the top purfling. The method I use depends on the purfling style that I'm doing. I'm using a style that works well with thick pieces of purfling because they are stiff enough to help evenly distribute pressure, but if I was using fine lines made out of thin veneer I would either glue the lines together in a mold before putting them on the guitar and/or use pins to “clamp” them in place on the guitar. Here's an example of how the pins work.





This is a good time to recheck your channels and make sure that they are deep and wide enough everywhere. Then I do a dry fit and cut the purfling a little larger than I'll need to reach the center seam.



I'll be using hot hide glue for this. Hide glue is much better for this job than titebond because I can take my time, re-glue if necessary and I don't have to worry about scraping it away when I add the binding.

I prepare by cutting some tape that will hold the purfling in place.



Then I start by putting hide glue on the purfling ledge for the half of the guitar I'm working with.



I start at the waist. Add some fresh glue to the ledge and between the pieces. Wipe with some paper towel and tape tightly in place.



Continue up the upper bout.



And then the lower bout.



For the top, I don't have to worry about a good seam where the neck goes because I'll be cutting a dove tail there but at the tail I use a chisel to cut both purfling lines to meet at the center seam. I don't do this until the purfling lines are just about to meet.





And it's done.

Next the back purfling



It's done the same as the top except that you need a good center seam at both the tail and heel.

And it's done.



It's a good idea to check from the side and make sure that the purfling went all the way down to the ledge and didn't creep up a bit, like it did here.



If that happens, I put a bit of hot hide glue on the area to reactivate the glue.



And press it down.



Re-tape and let all the glue dry.

When taking the tape off, it helps to pull at an angle.



Now the purfling is on.

That reminds me: could you say something about 'hot hide glue'? I am unfamiliar with the term/product. I take it that it is a natural product and is heated to activate it?

Onyx8 wrote:That reminds me: could you say something about 'hot hide glue'? I am unfamiliar with the term/product. I take it that it is a natural product and is heated to activate it?

Yes, hide glue is a natural product, the one I'm using is made from cow hides. You can get rabbit glue too but I've read that's not as good for guitar building - and there's also fish glue.

It comes in a container as a grains. You mix it with a 50/50 ratio of water and let it sit for a couple of hours so that the grains absorb the water. At that point it's a jelly. Then you heat it in a double boiler to about 145 degrees F.. You can use it for days, apparently it's better after the first day. Being cow it smells a bit and will eventually spoil. You can read all about it here from one of the worlds top instrument repair men.

I like it mainly because of its ability to reconstitute. You can reglue an area by just adding more hot hide glue to it and waiting a bit. Yellow glue doesn't really stick to dried Yellow glue so you need to scrape the old stuff away. If I were using yellow glue for the purfling and binding I would have to do them both at the same time, which can be done (it's the way I was taught to do it) but I prefer being able to go slow and fitting things in place one at a time- hot hide glue is great for that.

Here's a photo of my double boiler setup.



Here's a video that explains how to use hot hide glue.



There are lots who claim hide glue is also better acoustically because it dries harder than other glues. They are certain they can hear the difference. Gibson has even returned to using it on very expensive high end Les Pauls- I'm pretty sure that's just good marketing.

Over the years I've become pretty skeptical of luthier woo, but on the other hand, some of these folks are impressive people. I once did a little experiment on a forum, a bit tongue in cheek, a bit serious, to test this. I didn't expect to be able to notice the difference and I couldn't hear any on the small pieces of wood I was using but I did seem to be able to measure a difference and it went in the direction they claimed it should- so maybe they're right. Many more experiments would have to be done and I'm not that interested in doing them. I use hot hide glue because I like its' other properties in the places that I use it: it reactivates and it cleans up nicely. Ummm. you can read about my little hide glue experiment here.

Installing the binding


Next, the binding. Start with a dry fit of one side. I cut the binding at the heel now because it doesn't have to be an exact fit on the top, this is where the dovetail will go. I leave the binding a bit long at the tail.



Next a bit of glue all around the binding channel.



More glue on the binding itself and secure very tightly in place with “Ranger rope”, which is a long rubber rope cut out of an old inner tube.



I keep going around the upper bout, adding fresh glue as I go.



I stop before I get to the heel and start around the lower bout.



As I round the corner I stop so that I can cut the binding to length and make the miter. Mark with a chisel. Actually I leave it a hair long at this point and come back after it's dry and chisel the binding exactly to the center.



Cut on the line. It's a good idea to put some scrap wood under the binding.



Mark where the purfling needs to be removed to meet the tail piece miter.





Remove the purfling with a chisel.



Cut the miter.



Add glue to this piece of binding and the piece on the heel that still needs to be glued and wrap in place.



This step also tests how well the tantelones are holding on the top because the crushing pressure of the rubber rope is impressive. Each wrap isn't so bad but they add up. I remember the first time I did it thinking that this guitar is going to implode!

Cheers.

In our last episode the body was left bound tightly while the hide glue dried.



The next morning it looks a bit rough, but it's on.





I go back with a chisel and bring the binding exactly to the center seam. It hard to do that exactly earlier because as the rubber rope tugs on the binding it shifts a bit here and there and all the gaps are pulled out.



Then, the other binding pieces go on the same way. And we're almost done with the body!

Leveling the purfling and binding to the body


Next I plane the top and back binding and purfling till it's almost flush with the top. It's better to stop sooner than later with this step, it's easy to nick the plates.

I use a block plane.



And a small violin plane.


Then I scrape the top and back binding flush with the plates.

Next I work on the sides. I only uses scrapers for this.











Finally. I scrape the sides looking down from the top and back and even out the binding thickness.





And we're done. I resist cleaning up the whole top now, I'll wait until I'm ready to start putting finish on it.

Looking really good!

Intermission - some tool talk.

This seems like a good time to talk a about some tools.

A number 4 (3 1/2 will do) plane is basic for planning plates and just about everything else. A number 4 plane and a small block plane is all you need for hand planes to build a guitar. And a used Stanley #4's and 60 1/2 low angle block plane tuned up a bit are great choices. If you want you can swap in a thicker blade that won't chatter- but that's not necessary.

I've been using this #4 Smooth plane Lee Nielsen. It's nice but an old Stanley can be tuned up to work just as well.



I also use a Lee Nielsen block plane. I like that it's a bit smaller than a standard size block plane and I find it a bit easier to hold.



I've collected an assortment of "violin" planes over the years that are really useful for arching plates but they're also great for any carving job. I use them on brace carving for steel string guitars and flushing up the binding. But they are not needed to build a steel string guitar.



A good square and a good straight is though. The straight edge on a decent 24 " rule is good enough. A basic engineering square is fine. Here are some of my squares.



An 1/8", 1/4", and 1/2" chisel set would be good to have on hand. Any chisel should work just fine - it's all in the edge that you put on it. Western chisels are not as hard as Japanese chisels. I think that makes Western chisels easier to sharpen and that's what I would recommend. Here are some of my chisels.



There is a fancy Japaneese one in the mix. It has a nice folded and twisted steel blade and it's hollow ground on the back.



A close up of the steel.



A decent knife comes in handy. Here are a couple of "violin" knives that I made handles for and a small chisel that I cut down from a bigger one.



And my favorite handmade tool- my guitar form.



And a holder I made for my tools.

That Japanese chisel patterning looks something like the patterning from the process used in making a Samurai sword.

And a fine array of tools...

Yes forge-welded steel.

I have a collection of Sorby timber framing chisels, lovely steel.