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Marc:The Wood Whisperer is brought to you by:
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(groovy brass music)
(serene guitar music)
(driving guitar music)
Rick:We're going to focus on the tail here of the
guitar where the two side pieces come together.
We're going to make a decorative wedge which
I've already done. I made this out of some
scrap bubinga that I had laying around.
The kit didn't come with detail here,
they just put a little strip down the back.
I thought it might be fun to put in a little wedge.
That's what they do in the video and
it looks like a fun little challenge.
We're going to cut the wedge shape out of here
and pop this sucker in there, glue it down
and that will be the tail piece, whatever.
(serene guitar music)
The back is the same wood as the sides
which was east Indian rosewood.
We begin by using the drum sander
to reach the desired thickness.
After jointing the two halves I use
a hand plane to fine tune the jointed edge.
This will ensure a tight glue bond.
Now we will cut the braces that will become
the support for the back of the guitar.
The braces are made from Spanish cedar, very aromatic
wood most popular in the lining of cigar boxes.
The word cedar is misleading because the wood is
actually part of the mahogany family so it has
very similar working characteristics of mahogany.
(Spanish-style guitar music)
The sound board begins it life as two
bookmarked halves of engelmann spruce.
I made a jig that will allow me to produce
the slight curve in the sound board.
It's rimmed with cork and has a hole
drilled in the center of the sound hole.
By fastening the strap through the hole I can
pull the sound board down in the center,
creating the slight curve necessary for the sound board.
(jazz guitar music)
(driving guitar music)
(record scratch)
This is really the first major error on a guitar.
Instead of drawing the line binding straight across the neck
joint as seen here I should have angled it to match the
contour where the neck and the sides are joined together.
I didn't realize my error until I started fitting
the bindings and by then it was too late.
This will come back to haunt me when I cut the neck to
final width and I'm not sure yet how I'm going to fix it.
In the meantime, back to the build.
(driving guitar music)
The bridge is east Indian rosewood and will actually be
the last thing that goes on the guitar before the strings.
In order to do the bindings on the back the trim
router, because the back is curved like this,
it's got a radius to it, if you just put the trim router
on the surface and routed the channel the channel wouldn't
be square to the side, and there would be a gap on the side
when you put the binding in and it would be very unsightly.
The recommendation is to get a tilt base for your trim router.
I have a DeWALT 670, I've had it for a couple years.
It's a really nice trim router, I really like it a
lot but they don't make it any more, or if they do
they certainly don't sell it anywhere around here,
and I can't find a tilt base for it any more.
I've tried eBay, Amazon, etc., so I had
to improvise a little bit and make my own.
These are just little shim stock that you
would use for installing windows or doors
when you're roughing a window or door.
I found two that were identical in thickness and
double-sided taped then to the bottom of my trim router.
They just happened to be the perfect angle so that
when I route the channel like so the sides will
be perpendicular to the, or square to the channel.
(driving guitar music)
This is the saw blade that I used to cut the kerfs.
It's six inches in diameter by 23 thousandths thick.
If you recall I had a little issue with the top bindings.
The problem was that I undercut the neck too much,
or rather I undercut the body too much when I did the top
binding so we end up with this little gap here and
coincidentally enough I also had a little bit of
tearout on the neck when I was shaping the neck.
So I've got this very unsightly, ugly looking gap there and
I can't really think of any creatively great ways to fill it.
I could, I guess, just wedge a piece of whatever
in there and hope that nobody notices.
The other idea that I had was to take a piece such as this.
It's just a little wedge shape piece of the binding
that I had left over, and I would attach it like so.
Not the prettiest thing in the world but
I think it will do. It doesn't look bad.
A little more sanding and some blending
and you'll hardly ever notice them.
Except that now I've pointed them out in a video.
For those of you who are luthiers and are watching the
video you probably noticed that I made a little bit
of a mistake, and this mistake is actually pretty huge.
The mistake that I made is I did not taper the fretboard
before I glued it to the neck and body of the guitar.
The fretboard is supposed to start small and
then tapers down the wire to the sound hole.
Now I have a really nice ebony fretboard glued
to a really nice guitar that isn't correct.
There are several options that I came up with.
Some of the things I thought of, is it
possible to pry this off of the neck?
I have myself convinced it's probably the worst idea
because there was a lot of glue and the glue bond between
these two long grain pieces, the neck and the fretboard,
is probably pretty strong and I think I'll risk cracking
the neck more than I would getting the fretboard off.
I'm okay with the fact that I'd have to buy
another fretboard but I'd rather buy another
fretboard than have to build another guitar.
The other option that I thought of and it's the one
that I'm going to try first is to try and shave
the fretboard while it's glued to the guitar.
What I think I'll do is have this very heavy,
precision ground metal here and what I'll do
is I'll actually clamp it to the fretboard.
This fretboard is still very flat because I didn't
bother shaving it before I glued it to the neck.
I'll clamp this to the fretboard and take either a dovetail saw
or my veneer saw and try and saw a groove in the appropriate
place on the fretboard and chisel the material outside.
I'm not quite sure exactly how I'm going to do that.
The good news is everything on the bad side of the saw
line is going to be taken off anyway so if the chisel
slips or goes too deep into the neck it's not a big
deal because that part of the neck is going to be gone.
The problem is of course on the bottom.
I have this glued over the rosetta, what happens, is this
going to start peeling the rosetta? I don't know yet,
and I'm not really looking forward to this.
Marc:Will this be a do over of epic proportions?
What will our hero do? Tune in next week for the
exciting conclusion of the birth of a guitar.
(happy guitar music)