....followed by a flat file to bring everything nice and flush.

 

 

 

Except in the aforementioned waist areas, where a half round was the ticket.

 

Wow, really coming along now Mike.

1 minute ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Wow, really coming along now Mike.

Thanks. Hoping to be done around July so I can shoot nitro with time to cure and buff out, and final assembly and set up.

Once that is done I need to level the sides. I will be cutting the binding channels by hand with a gramil and chisels. Said gramil will ride on the sides, so they must be flat, smooth and free of imperfections.

First step in that is to draw hash marks on said sides with pencil.

 

Then comes the dirty work.

 

 

And we are done with this phase.

 

 

Thanks for looking and commenting on my little thread. Much appreciated.

More to come.

Mike, in total how many hours do you spend building one guitar? It's certainly an interesting process (to a non luthier).

3 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Mike, in total how many hours do you spend building one guitar? It's certainly an interesting process (to a non luthier).

Thanks.

I actually need to count that up. Probably a lot more than most, because I work almost exclusively with hand tools and because I am not pressed for time.

But this instrument when it is competed will have taken me about a year. But some of that is taken up by winter, and I'm not actually building during those months.

I don't have a climate controlled shop, and no humidity controls indoors. So during the coldest months when our furnace is hopping the instrument spends it's life in a plastic bag with an improvised humidifier to try and avoid cracking due to extreme low humidity. The back of this one cracked a bit anyway, although you won't ever find the repair.

Finish is another time consumer. I shoot nitrocellulose lacquer on most of my instruments. It off gasses toxic fumes for quite a while. Most makers will wait a few days to a week and sand it out and buff. I wait 6 weeks minimum until it stops putting off gasses. It hangs in the shed until then. I don't want it in the home until I am certain that process is finished.

Also the reason to try to get it done on a schedule that will allow me to do that before winter sets in.

It has been quite a while since I last posted in this Topic. 

Sorry, but I did say they would be irregular. I have had a great deal of excitement and other things having to do with life that I have been dealing with. On top of that there has been an extreme amount of rain, and the Shenandoah rose 2 ft above flood stage. I literally have not had the time or opportunity with everything else going on.

This work was done about two weeks ago, I just now got around to finding the time to put it together and post it up.

The next step in this build was cutting the binding channels on the top and back. I do this by hand with a small tool called a gramil (spl?), along with chisels and a small file.

 

 

I start by setting the tool to the thickness of the binding, and the height of said binding.

Then the first step is to score a line on the sides of the guitar at that height and to the full depth of the binding's thickness. 

 

 

 

 

Next I set the gramil to score a line the thickness of the binding, from the outside edge of the top, in this case. I do the same procedure for the back binding as well.

I then score a line along the top of the guitar.

 

I do not cut the full height of the binding channel, but go a bit at a time, and work it down with a sharp chisel.

 

 

And then back to the gramil.

 

 

And the chisel.

 

 

Back and forth in that manner until the channel is cut.

 

Once the channel is excavated, I use a chisel to kind of slightly shave back the very bottom edge of the channel.

 

 

 

This is important to make certain the bottom of the binding fully seats against the bottom corner of the binding channel.

 

After which I use an 8" single cut file to clean up the bottom and sides of the binding channel even more.

 

 

 

 

 

And some shots of the finished channel for the top.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking at my work!

I will cut the binding channel for the back off camera(already have).

Cutting and inlaying the end graft is next on the list!

Much appreciated.

Thanks for the update!

You're welcome, and for watching my channel, Lew! Much appreciated.

Sorry to hear about the life challenges Mike. Hope that's water under the bridge now. Good to see you back in the "shop." Great progress since your last update. Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks, Gramps!