A favourite design

One of my favourite rosette designs uses the pearl dot and diamond motif; this design goes way back. You can see it on the famous Stradivari “Hellier” violin, and also the 19th century English guitar maker Louis Panormo (amongst others) was quite fond of it.

 Firstly, the brittle pearl has to be glued on to some veneer for extra support. 

Then it’s cut into narrow strips. There are a few mandolins in the order book that will use this rosette design so I thought that whilst I was in the zone, I’d cut a few extra strips! This rosette is for David’s walnut and cedar Standard Plus.

A simple mitre-box style jig is used to cut the individual diamonds.

The recess for the rosette is routed into the soundboard and the two outer rings of purfling carefully fitted. 

Once the glue has dried, the purfling is taken down flush with the surface and the dots and diamonds are carefully positioned.

Then comes the messy part…………

……..after 24 hours drying time and about two hours of gentle sanding the ugly duckling is transformed!

And finally the sound hole is cut out.

Big Clean-up

This week has seen Ian’s neck carved and the guitar get its big clean-up prior to French polishing.

You can see my favourite tools for neck carving below.

I like to carve my necks last of all. At this point the fingerboard is on and fretted and you can get a really good feel for what the finished instrument will be like to play.

And here we are ready for grain filling………….

Nava Archive

I’ve added a few more instruments to my archive blog, so please take a look if you’re interested. And if you have one of my old guitars (pre-digital cameras era!) I’d be delighted to see a photo of you and the instrument so that I can include it.

Bindings

It surprises me that there is a bit of a trend to leave some instruments unbound. The bindings serve the very real function of protecting the delicate edges of the soundboard and back, and to me, leaving them out is inconceivable. Obviously, it’s a stage which takes a fair bit of time, care and skill to carry out, but is essential to the longevity of the instrument. Even my “Standard” mandolin is fully bound.

You can see here, on Alan's mandolin, how the rebates are routed into the edge to take the binding. 

I like to use solid wood which has to be bent using the bending iron. There’s nothing wrong with plastic materials, it’s simply that wood is currently my preference.

Cloth tape is the method that I like to use to hold the bindings in place whilst the glue dries. You can get a great deal of pressure with the tape and ensure a good bond. The only drawback is the 10 to 15 minutes that it takes Amanda and me to get it all untangled, once the glue is dry!

There’s a fair bit of cleaning up to do as all the binding is over-sized; it has to be scraped down flush with the rest of the instrument.

And here we are all bound up!

Longevity…..

What a great weekend we had visiting Luke, Louise and Jacob; and Amanda and I celebrated our 34^th wedding anniversary.

Glad to report that Jacob has taken to the guitar although at the moment his style can best be described as percussive (watch-out Andy McKee!).

There’s something quite wonderful about playing a guitar that you made (in 1979) before you were married and before your son was born, to your grandson! As I said longevity!

You can read some more about this guitar in my archive.

 Meanwhile, back on the bench...

Once the fingerboard has been glued on, the playing surface needs to be generated. Firstly, it’s sanded flat and then chambered across the width; these days I do this entirely by sanding. You can plane the ebony but sanding completely eliminates the possibility of the grain tearing out. Keeping the spruce soundboard clean whilst sanding ebony can be a dirty business, so it’s wise to protect the top.
Ian is having slotted abalone diamonds as position markers. Before I glued the fingerboard on, I drilled pilot holes for the centre of the diamond. 

The shape is carefully marked out and then I used a dremel to remove the bulk of the recess; in order to get the sharp corners, the final fitting has to be done with a chisel. 

The diamonds are then epoxied in.......

 and after 24 hours cleaned-up to reveal.....

Next we carve the neck!

And here again is the progress on Alan’s bubinga mandolin. The next stage will be the bindings

Coming Togther

Ian’s model 2 guitar is now coming together. As with all my guitars, the neck is joined to the body with a tapered dovetail joint; the female section in the body is routed using a jig, whilst the male section is cut and fitted entirely by hand. 

The alignment of the neck is, of course, critical and on a cutaway even more so, as one edge of the fingerboard has to line-up perfectly with the edge of the cutaway.

Once the neck has been glued in place (no clamps, just a good joint and gravity!), I continue the slot for the carbon-fibre rods into the body to make the joint even more rigid.

I often have a bit of a debate with myself about the end shape of the fingerboard; here it seemed natural to echo the curve of the sound hole. 

And after some more careful alignment, the fingerboard goes on.

 Don’t forget the two-way truss rod! Here you can see it installed before the ‘board is glued on; I like to protect it with PTFE tape.

 And then we glue it on……………

Inlays tomorrow!

In the meantime, Alan’s bubinga mandolin is coming together nicely too! You can see that the rim is complete, with my double thickness solid linings and the back has just been fitted to it.