A Luthier's Blog

Koa Rosette

2012-02-01T17:31:00.004+01:00

I’ve just completed the rosette for John’s guitar; this one uses koa (to match the back and sides) with rope purfling rings.

I’ve described the process a number of times, so here are just a few pictures of the sequence of events.

Hope you like it;)

Baritone Uke Videos

2012-01-27T16:38:00.002+01:00

I get a lot of questions asked about my baritone ukes, so I thought that I’d make (with the assistance of Amanda) a few videos of the current build and point out some features that I think, make my baritones special.

Hope you find first of the series interesting.

New Tricks

2012-01-24T17:59:00.003+01:00

If you goggle “bending curly koa” you’ll find quite a number of horror stories about sides snapping on the curls. Great! The koa for John’s guitar is the most expensive back and side set that I’ve bought and it’s prone to snapping when you bend it! The general advice is to have the sides a little thinner than normal and bend them dry, just moisten with a spray.

Now, I have always soaked my sides, so I thought that I’d have a practice of dry bending. This is where the baritone uke comes in- If I’m going to bend a set of sides, I just as well have something to show for it. So, I bent a set of maple sides for the uke dry and was remarkably surprised at how easy they bent. One thing leads to another and I find myself building a uke!

Here are the sides, end blocks in and linings being glued in place.

I’m using a marquetry strip down the centre of the back.

And a cocobolo rosette (no prizes for guessing where the wood came from).

Oh, the koa- 2mm thick, bent dry, a few sprays of water for a bit of moisture- no problems!

So you can teach an old dog new tricks!

So what I have been up to so far this year?

2012-01-21T18:25:00.006+01:00

So what I have been up to so far this year? I finished polishing Brendan’s twin-point mandolin this week and now it needs a good two weeks to harden off before it goes back together and is shipped off to Ireland. I know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the shellac really brings out the beauty of the wood like no other finish!!

Standard III is having its finish applied too; this one has my open pour satin shellac finish which, is quicker to apply and harden. Working on the two mandolins at the same time brought home to me how much quicker it is to build my Standard mandolin (compared to the twin-point) which is of course, why I can keep the cost down. It should be completed and up for sale within the next few weeks.

I love the look of this 3 piece back with the laminated neck!

Batching?

Although each of my instruments is custom built, it makes some sense to do common tasks at the same time. So for example, with my next three instruments, I’ve prepared all the wood for the bracing in one go.

Also I prepared 3 neck blanks, which although very different, will all have carbon- fibre reinforcements, so whilst setting-up the router for one, you just as well do 3.

John’s guitar neck is made from really nice Brazilian mahogany and will have two carbon-fibre strips and an adjustable rod. This quality of mahogany is getting harder to find, it has a lovely rich colour which will complement the Koa body nicely.

Alan’s mandolin neck is made from some beautiful flamed maple with black and red laminations. When I have to plane highly figured wood like this, I remember why I paid a small fortune for my low-angle Veritas plane; it doesn’t get a lot of use but when you need it, you’re glad of it!

Another little used but very useful tool is the Wagner Safe-T-Planer; it’s a bit like a fly cutter. You see that I’ve used it to thickness Alan’s neck from the back- it can’t be planed because of the heel. When you first use it, it frightens the life out of you- feeding wood into this spinning block of sharpness with your hands- but you soon get used to it and it works remarkably well without grabbing.

Alan gets two lengths of carbon fibre.

The third neck is a “Spanish” cedar one for a baritone ukulele that I’m building. This will be available for sale, via my website, in a few months time. This gets just one length of CF. To be honest, on a relatively short, four nylon string neck you don’t need anything to reinforce it but I know that customers feel more confident with a neck rod. I chose cedar for the neck for its light weight- on a small bodied instrument you can’t have too much mass in the neck, else it will be neck heavy.

Happy New Year to you all!

2012-01-05T17:13:00.009+01:00

First thing’s first- Happy New Year to you all! I’m back in the workshop and firing on all cylinders- let’s get some instruments built!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part IX

Brendan’s mandolin has gone through the set-up process, prior to being French polished. You can see the tailpiece that I’ve made for it below. I’m really pleased with this design for my tailpieces- I feel that it’s the last piece in the jigsaw as far as my twin-points go.

The under-saddle transducer has just been fitted. There’s always a nerve wracking moment with each instrument and for this one, it was drilling the hole through the soundboard- making sure that I’m in the middle of the reinforcement patch and missing the cross-bracing.

The pick-up is a passive Headway unit, which works really well; you need an external preamp, but that’s much more preferable to having a 9V battery inside the mandolin. The wire is routed through the bridge, so the only outward sign of a pick-up is the jack socket.

Standard mandolin III

Standard mandolin III is almost complete and ready to be set-up “in the white”. Hopefully it should be up for sale in about 3 weeks.

Next batch!

And in between all of this I’m preparing the tonewood for the next batch of instruments- John’s koa steel string, Alan’s cocobolo twin-point and a maple baritone uke! That should keep me out of trouble for a while!

Happy Christmas

2011-12-17T15:22:00.001+01:00

Amanda and I would like to wish all of our friends, clients, blog followers, YouTube subscribers and all of those who have offered encouragement and support over the past year, a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2012! Cheers!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part VIII

2011-12-16T10:15:00.005+01:00

The last piece of woodwork that I do is to shape the neck. I like leaving the neck square until the end as it makes fretting easier- the flat back of the neck blank can supported to stop it bouncing and the instrument can be held in a vice to work on the frets. Also with the fingerboard finished, you can get a better feel of what the neck will be like.

Spokeshaves and rasps are the tools that I prefer for this.

Whilst the mandolin can be held in the vice, I rough shape the heel and nut area, and then I work on the middle section.

On my more recent necks I tend to keep the depth of the neck constant from the nut towards the heel and take more material away from the heel area. To my mind this gives easier access to the higher frets. Compare my finished heel with this plan for a Gibson style mandolin.

I think that many luthiers feel that by removing too much wood in the heel area the neck will be weakened. However, consider the length of a bolt on electric guitar neck and how thin, long and strong they are. This is one the reason I’ve enjoyed making a variety of fretted instruments over the years- everything feeds back into your pool of experience.

As the neck is the last phase of construction I keep working on it until it’s ready for polishing and then clean-up and prepare the rest of the instrument.

When you’re using a cork sanding block this size and 500 silicon carbide paper you know that you’re nearing the end....

Brendan’s Mandolin Part VII

2011-12-14T17:52:00.006+01:00

After it's been glued on, the fingerboard has to be levelled and once it’s perfectly flat, I put a camber on it. Most of this work is done by sanding as you can’t afford to tear the grain of the fingerboard.

Once the surface of the fingerboard has been prepared, the inlays go in.Drilling holes within the inlayed area makes the initial stages of chiselling out the recess much easier as the chisel has some where to go.

The inlays are glued in, cleaned up and we’re ready to fret.

You can buy specialist tools for fret work but I use a ball-pein hammer for inserting the fret, as you can see the face has been polished so that the frets don’t get damaged or marked. Also I use these cutters for the fret wire: this is one of my favourite tools, made by Starrett in 1889! The double lever action means that you can cut through any fret wire with the minimum of effort.

At Brendan’s request I’m using wide gold evo wire here. One secret of successfully hammering frets in is to make sure that the neck is supported and can’t bounce.

Before I level the frets, I go over them with a red crayon. Once you start levelling them any red spots mean that the fret is low in that area. For all my fingerboard/fret levelling I use a piece of high-quality square section aluminium tube, with a different grade of abrasive paper on each surface.

Then comes a good couple of hours of dressing and polishing the frets...........

Brendan’s Mandolin Part VI

2011-12-10T16:41:00.006+01:00

Once the body is complete it can, at last, be united with its neck. Into the body I route a large socket to take the neck- as you’ve seen before I use a large tenon to join the neck to the body. This type of joint gives masses of surface area for the glue to bond.

The neck’s tenon is then roughly cut on the band-saw and then comes the fine work of fitting the neck. My rule is don’t touch the body- just work on the neck. The neck has to be aligned lengthways and tilt backwards at the correct angle and just to complicate things further; you want a clean line between the heel and the body.

Once that’s achieved- glue it on, no shims, no clamps! Gravity and friction!

Because the neck leans backwards a wedge has to go under the fingerboard. Wooden pins help with the alignment and I shape the underside of the wedge to make it look less bulky.

Once the wedge has been glued on and cleaned up the fingerboard goes on. At this stage I remembered that I didn’t take any pictures for you, of the fingerboard being prepared, doh!

Standard mandolin III is also coming along nicely. I’m really pleased with the three piece back and the way that it lines up with the neck.

Chris’s Hare

2011-12-03T12:45:00.003+01:00

You can see that I’ve finally completed Chris’s Hare steel-string and he came over today it collect it. An exciting moment for both of us! Since we moved up to the Norfolk Fens I’ve had more commissions from relatively local musicians, which is great as it’s always good to finally meet the client face to face rather than just giving up the instrument to a courier!

The next steel string on the bench will be John’s Koa wood guitar. That will be started as soon as the first coat of polish goes on to Brendan’s mandolin.

Mandolins!

Here’s a great picture that Alan (Red Mandolin) sent me of himself and his son Kevin (Koa Standard II). Two Nava mandolins together- would have liked to have been a fly on the wall to hear them.

Brendan’s Mandolin Part V

2011-12-01T18:17:00.008+01:00

With the body together, the next stage is the purflings and bindings. Rebates have to be routed around the edge of the mandolin to take them.

The purfling is decorative, which is why I can leave them off my “Standard” mandolins but the bindings are essential to protect the edge of the instrument (and therefore the joint between the sides and either the soundboard or back) from any accidental damage.

The purflings are held in place with tape whilst the glue dries- it’s a good idea to put a thin coat of shellac on the soundboard, that way the tape doesn’t pull up the grain as you take it off.

One of the trickiest bits of this process is cutting the mitres at the points, there is no room for mistakes; you can spend a ridiculous amount of time working on these and if you get it wrong................

Once the purfling is in place the bindings go on. I’m using ebony here (nearly always do). If you use good quality ebony it is quite remarkable how tight you can bend it and how easy it is to bend- these bindings are just over 2.5mm thick.

With all the purfling and binding done around the front, we flip her over and start again on the back! In total there are 31 separate pieces to be fitted; takes a time! The last job is to use the trusty cabinet scraper to clean everything up.

As you can appreciate the complexity of Brendan’s took a fair bit of time and in between gluing on various pieces of purfling, I got on with “Standard III”. Only 4 pieces of binding used here- you can see how the time is saved and the cost kept down.

Bush Installation Tip

2011-11-22T17:57:00.003+01:00

I’m just on the finishing stages of Chris’s Hare. The bridge went on yesterday without a hitch- not that there ever is! It’s just so final, no room for error etc.

After 24 hours for the glue to dry thoroughly, the last few bits and bobs go on, the tuners, end and strap pins, truss-rod cover and pick-guard etc.

I just thought I’d pass on this tip for fitting push-fit tuner bushes like these Grover ones.

I’ve tried various ways of installing this type of bush- rubber mallet, g-clamp, brute force etc but you always run the risk of the bush going in cock-eyed and once in, they shouldn’t come out! StewMac do a fancy tool for this task costing £30. However my solution is much cheaper and extremely effect- I use a machine screw and a wing nut.

Use washers to protect the back of the head and the plating on the bush. Tighten up the wing-nut and Bob’s you uncle!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part IV

2011-11-14T15:30:00.009+01:00

The Rim

I tend to refer to the whole assembly of the sides, linings and end blocks as the rim of my instrument.

So the first job is to mark out the sides, looking at the grain and making sure that any grain that looks problematic is in area that doesn’t have to be bent too tightly. The sides for my twin-pointer have to be cut into 2 pieces where the point will be- a measurement that I check about 12 times before cutting!

The bending, as always, is done on my “iron”. This cocobolo was a real pain to bend just where the curve gets really tight at the points. Although the wood itself bends OK, the resin seems to boil and retain the heat, so that the wood keeps wanting to spring back. I had to call for reinforcements! I held the curve in place whilst Amanda sprayed water on it, to quench it!

Once bent, the sides are clamped to my mould to dry out.

Next, cedar blocks are shaped and glued into the points to hold them together. Then the two end blocks go in which gives us our final mandolin shape.

The linings are next; mine are solid, as this makes the rim of the instrument more rigid and less likely to absorb energy from the soundboard. As you can’t bend 5mm thick wood, two thinner strips have to be bent and glued together; which adds to the time taken.

With the general construction of the rim complete; the pretty bits go on. The end trim- here I’m using some sap wood and ebony.

Then ebony points-

Which after some careful shaping .......

Look like this

Before the soundboard and back can be glued on, small housing joints have to be cut into the linings to take the ends of the various braces- 13 of these!

The soundboard and back are glued on......

And finally the body!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part III

2011-11-04T18:13:00.011+01:00

The Back

Below you can see the beautiful cocobolo that I’ve got for the back of Brendan’s twin-pointer; he’s opted to go with the sapwood showing (good choice!). You won’t see better wood than this and as you can see there is enough here for two backs (the next one could be yours!).

The back is joined the same way as the soundboard, however to get the book matching just right, on such pronounced grain, you have to be really careful when you thickness it.

Next, is the joint’s reinforcement strip, I always have the grain running along the length of the back rather than at 90 degrees as many do. Why? Well- when the moisture content of wood changes, the wood will shrink or expand across the grain and not along its length. Also, the majority of moisture is lost from the end grain and cross banding is nearly all end grain! So, hopefully you can see that a back reinforcement strip with the grain running lengthways, should be much more stable and less likely to distort the back with changes of humidity. The strip is glued on in a curved jig.

Next is the X-bracing. I feel that the surface of the back should be part of the surface of a large sphere and as the mandolin’s shape is almost circular, an X-brace works incredibly well to the give the desired curve. I’ve always felt that the back should be a reflector of sound and by using braces to induce a curve, you put the back under tension so that it doesn’t flap or absorb sound energy. The rim of the mandolin will have to be shaped to fit the back.

The Soundboard

Before deciding on the final dimension for the soundboard, I decided to do a few experiments to gauge the stiffness of the red spruce. I find the easiest comparative test for me to carry out is to measure the deflection of the soundboard when a mass is placed on it.

I also did something similar for the bracing. Conclusion? The red spruce is stiff! Therefore I can make the bracing light.

One other concern is that I’ll have to drill a hole through the soundboard to take a wire for the pick-up. To reduce the chance of the ‘board ever splitting at that hole, it’s sensible to have a patch where the hole will be with its grain running at 90 degrees. How thick should the patch be? Thinner than you’d think! I glued some 0.6mm sycamore veneer to a piece of scrap red spruce and tried to break it. You can see the results below!

Well, with my experiments carried out I can confidently work on the soundboard and its bracing.......in private!

Parlour guitar now sold

2011-11-02T18:20:00.001+01:00

Wow! That was quick, less than a week- the parlour guitar is now sold, boxed-up and waiting to be shipped to its new home.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- this is a great little guitar and I’m sure that its new owner is going to enjoy playing her.

Parlour guitar for sale on eBay

2011-10-31T18:16:00.002+01:00

Regular followers will recognise this parlour guitar which I made last year. It is up for sale on eBay at the moment. It has been played by a number of guitarists, all of whom have commissioned from me. As it’s picked a few marks I’m selling it as a used instrument.

I haven’t sold one of my instruments on eBay for years; the previous two, an ex-demo steel-string and an early mandolin not only sold but brought in 3 commissions! Although no one likes paying eBay fees, it does open your work up to a new audience and as PayPal is linked to a buyer’s credit card it offers credit facilities that I can’t.

And of course Phil Hare playing it-

What else is on the bench?

2011-10-21T16:56:00.005+01:00

Chris’s Hare

Now of course, Brendan’s mandolin isn’t the only project on the go, so I thought that I would update you on what else is on the bench.

Chris’s Hare is going through the polishing process.

Also I’ve made the bridge and it has been fitted to the curve of the soundboard. It’s always best to do as much as possible on the guitar before the Finish is finished!

Standard mandolin III

Standard mandolin III is on the back-burner at the moment, as I’m trying to concentrate on catching-up with my commissions. As I said in a previous blog, I’ve not been firing on all cylinders lately and next week I’ll miss a chunk of time as my Mum is going into hospital for a knee replacement. Being a one-man operation puts a fair bit of pressure on you to get things done and not disappoint. You often see stories about guys like Wayne Henderson who are years behind with their work and their clients seem to grin and bear it- all part of the experience! Personally speaking, the client has made a commitment to me and me to them; I don’t want to let anyone down.

Anyway, I know that there are a few players interested in Standard III, so here’s the progress so far.

1996 Vintage "Navacaster"

One guitar that I had to sort out was this electric that I built for my son in 1996. It had developed one of those annoying sitar whining buzzes on the first string; the nut and frets were all ok and I tracked the problem down to the string wearing into the chrome plating on the saddle!

Joe Hicks

I’ve added a link to Joe Hicks’ website on the side bar. He is a great young professional guitarist who teaches and does session work. He bought one of my classical guitars a few years ago and I just stumbled across his site. Joe is an RGT registered tutor and currently teaches guitar lessons in Newbury, Reading, and the surrounding areas. So if you are after a teacher, he could be your man.

Brendan’s Mandolin Part II: Rosette

2011-10-15T17:11:00.008+01:00

Above, you can see the two book-matched halves of Brendan’s Red Spruce soundboard being glued together. There are many fancy systems for this task but I prefer good old sash clamps- you can adjust the pressure to exactly where you want it to be.

Once the ‘board is glued, it’s flattened and taken down to around 4mm prior to inserting the rosette.

This is the first time that I‘ve used Red Spruce and I’m very impressed by its stiffness and glass-like tap-tone. The stiffness is especially important on this mandolin, as Brendan uses quite heavy strings and according to my calculations the extra down force exerted on the soundboard would be the equivalent to another 2.5kg pushing down on the bridge, compared to the load applied by the gauge of strings that I normally use.

Anyway- with the soundboard cleaned-up, it goes into my jig which allows me to route oval sound holes and channels for rosettes.

Once the channel is routed (and after a wee bit of fettling) rings of fine purfling go in. The outer ring is easy- you cut the purfling exactly to length and it’s squeezed into the channel and it forces itself against the edge, requiring no additional pressure. The inner ring is a bit trickier, so I use small pieces of spring bronze to hold the purfling in place whilst the glue dries.

After the purfling is taken down level with the soundboard, comes the fun part; cutting tiny diamond shapes out of turquoise! I had a few attempts at cutting the turquoise but it became clear that it was too thick, so I reduced the thickness from 3 to 1.5mm. A real waste, as the turquoise is sold by weight!

The turquoise is glued onto plywood, to support it and cut into 3.5mm strips. The diamond shapes are then cut off (easier said than done). Once the diamonds are cut they are then soaked in water, to dissolve the hide glue attaching the turquoise to the ply. As you can see I cut far too many; this allows me to select the best ones and also I suspect that Brendan may want a few of these in the fingerboard.

The dots and diamonds are positioned in the rosette’s slot (now that took awhile!) and glued in place with CA.

The next step is to fill in the gaps with “mastic”. Mastic used to be a mixture of ebony dust and hide glue which was commonly used to fill gaps around inlays. My mastic is a mixture of epoxy resin and cocobolo dust. This means that the rosette will match the back and sides and the burnt sienna colour will work much better with the turquoise than black. Of course, all of this is to Brendan’s specification and is the result of many emails and test-pieces; stuff like this doesn’t just happen!

The epoxy takes 24 hours to set and after some very careful cleaning-up,.....

Now is that pretty or what?

Alan’s Model 1

2011-10-09T09:44:00.006+01:00

Well, I’ve finally completed Alan’s Model 1 and very nice it is too! I had trouble photographing it, as it is so shiny!

You’ll remember how I wanted to make the wooden rosette with the grain running in a radial direction? Well here it is with matching purfling, I’ll definitely do this again.

And the whole guitar

I haven’t had time to make a video as Alan was very eager to pick his new guitar up! It’s great when someone actually picks up their instrument, in person, and you can hear them play it. As those who have seen my videos know, I’m no musician, but Alan is, and to hear him make the guitar come to life was quite something!

Brendan’s Mandolin (& guitar update!)

2011-09-30T16:20:00.018+01:00

I’m aware that my blog seems to have gained quite a few followers; so many thanks to all those who are interested in what goes on here. I’m also aware that I haven’t chronicled an instrument from start to finish, in detail, for awhile, so here goes!

Brendan’s Mandolin Part I

You saw the Alessi tuners for Brendan’s twin-pointer a few months back, they are F-style so, I’ve designed a new head shape to suit them. It’s not quite as straightforward as you might think; on F-style tuners, each button is on a different length shaft and you have to get the curve of the head just right so that it works aesthetically and on a practical level the buttons have got to rotate!

Rather then trying to draw the curve- I shaped a piece of hardboard with the tuners mounted on and gradually sanded the 'board away until the shape worked.

With the edges worked out, I started looking at the design for the top of the head. So after some time sketching, this is what I came up with and Brendan is happy with it. So let’s make it!

The neck is made from Cuban mahogany; this is the real thing, beautiful rich brown, recycled from the lid of a 19^th century grand piano. It’s laminated from 3 sections with the grain of the middle section going in the opposite direction to the outer two; this aids stability.

The head is glued on with a scarf joint; I’m amazed that most mandolin necks are just cut from one piece giving short grain in the head.

The neck is stiffened with two carbon-fibre strips which I run through into the head for even more added strength! I guess what I like to do is build a very strong, but light instrument- the strength coming from design and attention to detail rather bulk.

You can see (below) that I cut out my pearl N logo by hand- yes I actually make them myself. The pearl is very brittle so it’s glued to some thin ply for support.

The N is then inlaid into the ebony head overlay. I do this before I glue the head overlay on, so that I can cut right through the overlay (with a piercing saw).

The head overlay is glued on- tiny wooden pins ensure that the inlay is in the centre of the head.

I use a StewMac jig to ensure that the holes are aligned, with 4 tuners on a plate, you can’t afford to be inaccurate. I’ve done this task successfully without a jig, but the measuring out is a pain as the tuners’ dimensions are imperial and trying to mark out 29/32” spacing when you’re used to metric.......

With the tuners fitting, the head is cut out and carefully shaped.

And eventually- the finished head! The ebony head overlay coupled with the ebony buttons is pure class, even if I say so myself.

And I haven’t forgotten the guitars! I’ve just made the bridge for Alan’s model 1 which should be glued on next week.

and Chris’s Hare has had a coat of sealer prior to grain filling. What’s really cool about Chris’s is that the rosewood sides have really dark stripes and in places the ebony bindings seem to blend in and disappear!

Standard Mandolin II

2011-09-24T16:36:00.004+01:00

Standard Mandolin II is now completed and very nice it is too!

Sitka spruce soundboard, koa back and sides bound with rosewood, maple neck with a koa head overlay, rosewood fingerboard, rosewood bridge and of course that tailpiece.

I love this back!!

One thing that I’ve changed on this mandolin is the finish. Most of you who follow my blog, know that I’m a great advocate of Tru-oil, however on this (and subsequent mandolins) I’ve used an open pour satin shellac finish. It still has the wonderful smooth feel and natural appearance of the oil, but being shellac based I think that it looks even better.

So what is this “open pour satin shellac finish” then? Well, I’ve started French polishing with a modified shellac polish- that’s a polish that contains Ethyl Cellulose. It’s still applied in the traditional way, but is a generally more resilient polish. Whilst I was French polishing with it, it became clear to me that if I could apply this material in a similar way to the Tru-oil I should get a similar finish.

What are the advantages? Well, I’ve always believed that shellac diffracts the light in a certain way which greatly enhances the appearance of the wood.

The Ethyl Cellulose gives a resilient finish.

I generally prefer spirit based rather than oil finishes as they are not absorbed into the wood.

Also I have found that Tru-oil can take a very long time to dry on resinous woods such as rosewood.

Once the finish has hardened the satin appearance is created with micro-mesh abrasive and 0000 steel wool and then a couple of coats of museum quality, microcrystalline wax polish are applied. Hey presto a very pretty mandolin!

It will soon be on its way to Kevin. I’ve never been one for customer endorsements, you know, “Mrs B of Cleethorpes loves our double glazing.” But Kevin’s Dad has one of my twin-point mandolins, so that’s endorsement enough for me!

Guitars!

2011-09-22T16:45:00.002+01:00

I’ve just noticed that Phil Hare has uploaded a couple of new videos. As always, his playing is brilliant, but what I like from the “Nava” perspective is how the guitar sounds. What the videos demonstrate is how well my guitars are balanced across and up and down the fingerboard and also that there is still a decent sound even with the 6^th string tuned down to C! Cheers Phil!

Talking of the Phil Hare guitar- I’ve finally got the neck and fingerboard on Chris’s Hare and have started to carve the neck. I’ve been a bit under the weather lately and haven’t been quite as productive as normal; I’m grateful that all of my client’s are patient with me.

Oh, and Alan’s Model 1- waiting for the French polish to fully harden before the bridge goes on.

Red Spruce (Adirondack?)

2011-09-10T17:19:00.002+01:00

I’m quite excited, I’ve just received a batch of ten Red Spruce mandolin soundboards from the US. Buying tonewoods unseen is always a bit risky but who dares wins! They were described as “master grade” and they certainly are- some of the best I’ve seen for a long while.

Red spruce was used by Martin and Gibson on many of their best pre WWII guitars and mandolins. It seems to be re-gaining its popularity even though it’s quite pricey. The terms red spruce and Adirondack seem to be interchangeable, but as far as I can tell Adirondack is red spruce but from that particular area of the States.

These boards are very stiff and have a great resonant tap tone. The stiffness of red spruce makes it ideal for mandolins as the soundboard is subjected to downward forces.

Looking forward to using these! Brendan’s twin-pointer will be the first, watch this space.......

Mandolin Tailpiece

2011-09-08T17:18:00.007+01:00

For quite awhile, I’ve wanted to design and make my own mandolin tailpieces. I won’t dwell on the merits of current designs; let’s cut to the chase!

I wanted a design that’s predominantly wood so that:

One, I can match it to the tonewoods used.

Two, I can vary the shape to complement the head design.

I feel that the tailpiece needs to be anchored to the mandolin firmly rather than use the violin style “gut” fastener that is sometimes used with wooden tailpieces.

So, I’ve gone for a design that has a brass base/fixing which is “housed” in hardwood.

Here's the base plate before bending-

Hopefully, the aesthetics speak for themselves; so here's the function part!

The brass pegs are made from machine screws, which means that they are threaded along their length. I decided to use these rather than plain brass rod, so that the thread grips the loop end of the strings and stops them from riding up the pins.

The strings pass through holes in the wooden body- this has the effect of dampening them, so that they don’t vibrate and buzz like they can on some metal designs.

The idea of the raised sides is simply to protect the player from the pegs, although I’ve left the end of the tailpiece open, this means that you slide the strings easily through the hole as you don’t have to bend them.

One unintended advantage is that the strings seem to stay in place before they are tensioned because they are held in alignment by the hole and griped by the thread. Jolly successful if I say so myself!

This tailpiece is going on to Standard II hence being made from rosewood and koa and the sloping end to match the headstock, however, this won’t be a regular component on the Standard as it’s a good days work to make. It will be used on the more expensive twin-point.

Ebony bindings

2011-08-24T17:23:00.004+01:00

That was hard work! I’ve just finished the ebony bindings on Chris’s Hare. I use 50m of cloth tape to hold on the bindings whilst the glue dries and I glue on one binding at a time; so it takes awhile. Once the guitar is unravelled from its cocoon; it’s clean-up time!

Without doubt, the best tool to use for this sort of task, is a cabinet scraper- if you’re unfamiliar with them, its that rectangular piece of hardened steel, in the photo below.

The other tool is a burnisher, which is used to sharpen the scraper by putting a burr on its edge. That burr, if you get right, will take a shaving off the wood without tearing up the grain. If you’re serious about woodwork, you must master the scraper! It’s flexed between your thumbs thus....

At this stage I try to get the body really clean and get any tiny imperfections sorted out. For example, any tiny hairline gaps between the bindings and the sides need to be filled, especially if you French polish as the finish will accentuate them. Hence wearing a head magnifier whilst cleaning up.

Three hours later.....

The scraper is also used one the front- if you use just abrasives, you increase the possibility of grinding dust from the bindings into the relatively soft soundboard.

As I said, this Hare Signature is for Chris and I’ve added a link at the side for Chris’s Ceilidh Band, Whirligig.

Standard Mandolin II

I’ve been spending a bit of time on t’interweb looking at other luthiers’ sites. Mainly at looking mandolins- one thing that strikes me, is the puny looking dovetail joint for the neck. Clearly they work else there’d be thousands of angry bluegrass players about, with their mandolins in two pieces. I’ve just glued the neck on Standard mandolin II and thought that I’d show my joint.

As you can see, I use a fairly hefty mortise and tenor joint. There is a mass of surface area for gluing and I’m confident that this baby is built to last!

You can see the Koa back, bound in Indian rosewood, nice eh?

Grain Filing amongst other things

2011-08-14T17:14:00.006+01:00

Grain Filing!

I’m just recovering from spending far too long filing the grain on Alan’s rosewood model 1! Well, I say far too long but it is one of those jobs that you just keep going at until it’s done and in reality time spent filing the grain, is time saved when polishing. The trouble is, that it isn’t a very interesting or challenging task and physically you can only do a few hours a day otherwise you risk RSI by constantly applying downward pressure and moving your hand with a circular motion. Ibuprofen cream is an essential part of any French polishers kit! I have tried other types of filler but the traditional pumice method still, for me, produces the best results. You can see the before and after shot above.

Alan’s guitar is now starting to look shiny!

Hare Signature II

You can see that Chris’s Hare is coming together; the body has now been assembled and next week sees the binding and purfling go on.

Standard mandolin II

Also Standard mandolin II is progressing. Those who follow my blog will know that I’m a great advocate of solid linings. I generally bend two strips of Spanish cedar which are then glued together, however, what I’ve done this time is a kind of stepped lining- still two pieces glued together but the inner strip isn’t as tall- why? I still get the surface area for gluing and the stiffness to the rim that I want, but save a little weight. Big deal, you say- but I like to progress in small degrees.

Standard II’s body also went together this week and you can also see the neck blank- I’m going for a maple neck on this one with a Koa head overlay- should look pretty! Under those mahogany fillets is carbon-fibre.

I had intended making this mandolin with a Douglas Fir soundboard- I’ve had one knocking around for years, it’s incredibly stiff so I though that it would be great for a mando. However, having thicknessed it, cut the soundhole etc resin started to come to the surface rendering the soundboard useless! I’m only too glad that I hadn’t inlaid some fancy pearl rosette! You live and learn.

Alessi tuners

2011-07-30T16:19:00.004+01:00

From Campagnolo equipped bikes to a Moto Guzzi cafe racer and far too many Fiats to recall, I’ve always been a sucker for Italian engineering! So I was delighted when Brendan said that he wanted to go for Alessi tuners for his mandolin. And here they are! These are so nice, you could look at them all day.

Eagle eyed readers will notice that these are “F” style, we wanted something a bit different for the head, so with the tuners in front of me, I can now start designing a new shape headstock for Brendan’s twin-pointer. Cocobolo back and sides...... Alessi tuners....... this is going to quite a stunner!

As promised, the construction of Alan’s Model 1 is now complete and next week sees the polishing start.

Since moving to our new house, the amount of birds on the garden has been a constant source of delight. Anyway, I don’t know if this is a rare sight, but the other morning we had three green woodpeckers, an adult with two young ones, feeding on our lawn!

More stuff (I'm running out of imaginative titles!)

2011-07-23T12:35:00.007+01:00

I was asked awhile ago, how I was getting on with my cabinet makers vice. Well, it’s fair to say that it has transformed the way that I work; why? Quite simply you can do this!

I got mine from Rutland Tools- they often have a 15% off sale- keep an eye open!

You can see that Alan’s model 1 is now fretted and hopefully all the woodwork should be completed next week. Chris’s Hare is coming along nicely in the background and I’ve just started bracing the soundboard.

As you can see I’m not a go-bar man! At the moment, I prefer to use clamps to apply pressure. The Klemmsia clamps that I use, with their cork lined jaws and lever action, apply just the right amount of pressure, without any damage to the wood. I think that go-bars must be great if you apply a lot of braces in one go, but I prefer to do a couple at a time; shape them carefully and go on to the next ones. It might take me 4 days to fully brace a soundboard, but I’m not in a hurry!

John came up during the week to look at his Koa and discuss the guitar that I’m going to build for him at the beginning of next year. I’ve added a link to John’s YouTube channel on the side bar; he does some very entertaining comic songs. It occurred to me that I’ve not used Koa before and as it’s so expensive.............

The first of my “Standard” mandolins sold last weekend and it now lives in Scotland, with its new owner Brian, who sent me a delightful email about how pleased he is with his new mandolin. So “Standard” No. 2 is underway, and this one will have Koa back and sides!

Interesting stuff Koa it has a similar texture to teak but is much lighter. My main concern was bending the sides, but it proved to be reassuringly easy- you only have to show the Koa the bending iron and it practically bends itself!

Putting the Koa through the sander, I kept wondering why the saw marks wouldn’t go, but then realised it was the figuring. I think that once there is some finish on the wood it will look quite beautiful. I hope to complete this one during the autumn and will be offering this one for sale too.

So What's On The Bench?

2011-07-14T18:23:00.007+01:00

Thought that I’d give you a brief run down of what’s happening in the workshop.

First, we have Alan’s rosewood and cedar Model 1 steel-string- it’s now fully bound and purfled (is that a word?) The neck went on yesterday and I’ve just glued the carbon-fibre reinforcement rods in place. You can see that I take the carbon-fibre right through the dovetail and into the end block- can’t help thinking that this must make the neck joint incredibly rigid, which enhances sustain and volume as energy isn’t being absorbed by the neck joint.

The carbon fibre is glued in with epoxy and on top of the CF, I glue a strip of hardwood for the fingerboard to be glued to. The strips of hardwood stop a little bit short of the end of the carbon fibre. The idea is to allow somewhere for excess epoxy to ooze out.

As you probably know, you can’t compress a liquid (basic hydraulics) and the danger is that you clamp the CF in place and if the epoxy can’t go anywhere, the pressure builds up and you can split the neck! And you don’t want to that!

Secondly, we have Chris’s “Hare Signature”- Chris ordered a guitar from me awhile ago, but having seen the Hare video he has now chosen to go for one of these. I’ve been slowly putting together a “kit” of parts whilst constructing Alan’s. So once I start polishing Alan’s, Chris’s should go together quite quickly.

Cocobolo

I’ve just got in some truly wonderful cocobolo for Brendan’s twin-pointer.......more to follow.

And in case you’ve not seen it, here is the video of the “Standard” mandolin which at the time of writing is still for sale.

Mandolin for sale.

2011-06-28T17:36:00.003+01:00

Well here it is! The Nava “Standard” Mandolin is now complete and on sale. As I said at the outset, my aim was to build an instrument that was more affordable to those musicians without deep pockets and not to compromise the quality of my work. By stripping back any unnecessary adornments, I feel that I’ve managed to build a beautifully sounding, playable hand made mandolin that can be sold at a very reasonable cost to the player

This mandolin has a western red cedar soundboard, maple back and sides and a mahogany and maple neck. I’ve also used cocobolo for the fingerboard, bridge, bindings and other detail; this beautiful, exotic wood really makes the instrument look special.

I’m very pleased with the outcome- this is the first time that I’ve used a cedar top on a mandolin and I’m extremely pleased with the sound of it, its has great sustain and volume and good tonal separation. Someone somewhere is going to be very happy with this mandolin!

Anyway, it’s up for sale on my website for 750 GBP including a Hiscox case. Shipping within the UK mainland is an additional 25 GBP.

So what’s next on the mandolin front? Well once this one has sold, I’ll start building Standard No. 2 and there’s also this matter of the e-mando!

Various Stuff!

2011-06-25T17:48:00.005+01:00

Back reinforcement

I thought that you might like to see this clamp/jig that I made up for gluing the reinforcement strip down the centre of the back. It’s made from some U section steel with nuts captive within it. The clamp is clamped down at either end of the reinforcement strip and the machine screws can then be tightened up to apply pressure along its length. Hope you find it useful!

You’ll notice that I have the grain running along the length of the back rather than at 90 degrees, hence the books call it cross banding and I, a reenforcement strip. However, I prefer to do it this way. Why? Well- when the moisture content of wood changes, the wood will shrink or expand across the grain and not along its length. Also, the majority of moisture is lost from the end grain and really cross banding is nearly all grain! So, hopefully you can see that the back reinforcement strip with the grain running length-ways should be much more stable and lees likely to distort the back with changes of humidity.

Electric Mandolins!!!

I’ve had this piece of figured ash in the workshop for quite a number of years and the other day I picked up on a thread on the Mandolin Cafe forum (one of the more intelligent forums!) about building electric mandolins and ker-ching! Not knowing too much about e-mandos I posed a few questions and got back some very good responses, so watch this space..................

The Standard Mandolin (part II)

2011-06-11T16:33:00.005+01:00

The Standard mandolin’s construction is now complete and this week I’ve had her strung up, in-the-white, prior to being finished. This is the first time that I’ve used a Western Red Cedar soundboard on a mandolin and I’m impressed with the sound so far. As with all of my mandolins, it has plenty of volume and sustain and the cedar seems to give extremely good tonal separation; chords really seem to come alive.

Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite. The cocobolo looks quite stunning so I’ve kept to it for the bridge and tailpiece cover.

As I said at the outset of this project, “time is the most expensive component of any hand made instrument” and having got this far with the mandolin, I now know the price that I’m going to have to sell it for. And that price is 750 GBP with a Hiscox case and I very much doubt if you’ll find a better deal than that for an entirely hand made, luthier built instrument of this quality!

Alan’s Model 1

On the guitar front (pardon the pun), I’m working on a new model 1 steel-string for Alan. You may remember that Alan is the guy who did that great demo of Sweet Georgia Brown on the hybrid archtop for me. This guitar is Indian rosewood with a cedar soundboard. I’ve just put together the rosette- a wooden one, but this time with the grain radial (inspired by my Aussie guitar making friend Pete!). It’s a bit trickier to make but I like the result and somehow it has a European look to it (well I thinks so!).

Koa

I’ve just got a commission for a Koa guitar- and managed to get this set of Koa direct from Hawaii. The photos don’t do it justice; the back has a really tight curl and once polished, it should look truly wonderful. I hope so anyway, as without doubt this was the most expensive back and sides that I have ever bought!!

At last Geoff’s OO steel-string is finished and ready to go!

2011-06-05T17:55:00.003+01:00

At last Geoff’s OO steel-string is finished and ready to go!

As some of you may have gathered, I don’t like the idea of a UK luthier making slavish copies of American guitars; that said, I do like the OO shape! It works extremely well for a small-bodied 14 fret neck guitar, so in spite of myself, I was happy to build a guitar, for Geoff, to that shape. As you can see the only thing OOish is the shape of the body; I’ve kept to my headstock design and followers of the blog will know my thoughts on the Martin shape already!

This guitar has a 635mm scale length and although I may extol the virtues of 650mm scale, the shorter scale is easier to play and produces a warmer tone. Geoff wanted a guitar that not only was easy to physically play but gave up its sound without a fight and I think he’s got it here.

I try to do everything myself (with much support from Amanda); so apart from building instrument, there’s the website to maintain, the blog and videos. I’m finding photographing the instrument a bit of a challenge and one that I haven’t mastered yet. One of the trickiest aspects is photographing shiny surfaces without getting unwanted reflections. Here are some more photos of the OO; best I can do! That Honduras rosewood really is quite wonderful!

Geoff's OO nears completion

2011-05-27T17:09:00.011+01:00

The bridge (the design of which was discussed in a previous post) was glued on to Geoff’s OO this week. As I’ve said before and make no apologies for saying again- this stage is the most nerve wracking of them all. There are so many opportunities for completely wrecking all of that hard work; what if you drop something on that polished soundboard, what if you glue the bridge in the wrong place!!!!

Assuming the bridge fits the contour of the soundboard, the first task is to mark out where the bridge goes- if, like me, you cut your saddle slot before gluing the bridge on, you have to take into consideration the compensation needed for correct intonation. The marking out is achieved with masking tape, a soft pencil, various rulers and straight edges. One quality that you need to be a good luthier is spatial awareness; you don’t have any straight edges to take as datum- everything is measure from an imaginary centre line that floats about 7mm above the soundboard.

Once I’m happy with the position, I cut around the bridge with a scalpel; through the masking tape and polish and not into the wood.

The next step is to scrape the polish away from the exposed area so that you get a good glue joint. Notice that I’m wearing cotton inspection gloves; I always wear these once the guitar has bee polished to protect its surface from accidental scuffs and fingernail marks.

With all signs of polish removed, the bridge can be glued on- I like to use Titebond for this and have never had any problems with it. The tape stops the bridge moving until the glue grabs. A top-tip is to fold back the end of the masking tape on itself- that way you have something to easily get hold of when removing the tape. The tape comes off before the glue hardens so any glue that’s oozed out should come off on the tape.

Next step- get it playing!

The Standard Mandolin

The Standard mandolin is coming along nicely too. The flamed maple body has been bound with cocobolo which makes a stunning combination.

Cocobolo is also going to be used for the fingerboard and bridge so it should be quite a striking looking instrument when it’s complete. The simplicity of the mandolin is really growing on me and that coupled with the light colours of the tonewoods used, seems to give the look of an early stringed musical instrument.

Guitar and Mandolin Making Tuition

2011-05-15T18:01:00.000+01:00

Guitar and Mandolin Making Tuition

I’m often contacted by enthusiasts who either wish to become luthiers or are having problems with a particular aspect of their guitar building. I guess that my openness in this blog and my YouTube videos encourages this kind of contact. I’ve often toyed with the idea of running guitar/mandolin making courses but I don’t think that with my current workload it would be possible to run a course where someone builds a complete guitar. However, what I would like to offer prospective luthiers is some individual tuition in certain aspects of lutherie; maybe someone is having difficulties with bending sides or fitting backs or French polishing etc. So if you are having issues with your guitar/mandolin making and wish for some specialised tuition please contact me (contact details can be found on my website) and hopefully I can arrange a tutorial to suit your needs. The rate for such tuition is £25 per hour.

Day in the life (well Friday afternoon!)

2011-05-09T16:53:00.000+01:00

Something a bit different; a glimpse into my workshop !

The Standard Mandolin (part I)

2011-05-04T17:43:00.002+01:00

Recently, I mentioned that I’m putting together a new mandolin; The Standard.

As I said before, time is the most expensive component of any hand made instrument, so I’m hoping to keep the construction straight forward- cut down on the time- hence keep the price down. BUT still build to a high quality and use the construction techniques which I believe make for a better instrument.

Well, here are a couple of pictures of the progress so far. For the head shape I’ve resurrected a style that I used on some steel-string guitars many years ago.

The beauty of this shape is: one, it’s fully functional. Mandolin or guitar tuners should (unless you’re using a slotted head) always converge, I can’t understand the Martin style headstock where the tuners diverge- this means that 3^rd and 4^th strings can snag on the tuners of the 1^st and 6^th strings.

Secondly, as all the edges are straight, the head can be planed to shape. I estimate that this shape probably saves around 1 hour compared to my curved head shape that I use on the twin-point mandolin. Also no inlay- saves two hours!

Talking of the twin-point, the Standard shape is based on the twin-point minus the points which gives the traditional tear-drop design!

The vibrating area of the soundboard is virtually same as the twin-point, as is the internal volume, so the lack of points will not have any affect on the sound. But again there is a saving of time. When I make the twin-point, the sides are more complicated to bend, supporting blocks have to be fitted to hold the sides together, the linings are more complicated to bend and fit too. Once the body is made there is also a lot of time taken up with the bindings and in particular cutting mitres in the purflings. So not having points probably saves around seven hours work.

You can see that I’m still using solid linings and an X-braced back, the same proven construction as my twin-point.

So far that’s a ten hour saving- whatever your hourly rate is, you can see the lack of embellishments will have a favourable result on the price without build quality being compromised.

Bridge Design

2011-04-27T08:48:00.002+01:00

I’ve been making the bridge for Geoff’s guitar so I thought that take this opportunity to mention an often overlooked element; bridge design. Now you may ask, if I’m so interested in bridge design, why mine looks fairly “traditional” and not shaped like an asymmetrical dog bone with a spilt saddle?

Firstly, the function of bridge is to transfer as much of strings’ kinetic energy into driving the soundboard as possible. Therefore you want to have a light bridge so that the strings’ energy isn’t taken up overcoming the inertia of the bridge (remember Alan’s mandolin bridge). That said, any design solution is always the best compromise; the solution that best fits all the conflicting specification points. Read on......

So, although I want a light bridge there are other considerations. You’ll notice, like some other luthiers, that I’m using a fairly wide saddle. The reason for this is to have more room for the adjustment of the strings’ intonation (there’s a good article on intonation on the Luthiers Mercantile International website). Some luthiers go for a split saddle but this just seems wrong to me; I feel that all the strings should be on the same saddle so that their vibrations can interact with each other, giving rich overtones. Also if the player ever wants to retro fit a transducer under the saddle, their options for a pick-up aren’t limited. The saddle slot is also cut deep for number of reasons; mainly so that the saddle is held firmly and doesn’t tend to lean forward (this would sharpen all the notes). Again, thinking of the future it’s deep enough to fit a transducer without having to route the slot any more, also if the action needs to be raised there is plenty of depth to fit shims under the saddle. With all the forces acting on the strings, there has to be a fair amount of wood in front of the saddle to support it.

Unlike many guitars, my bridge pin holes are parallel to the saddle; this gives a similar break-angle to each string- this break angle does affect the “feel” of the guitar and therefore should be close to equal on all strings. Also the pins are not evenly spaced. I use proportional spacing- the distance, centre to centre, between the 6^th and 5^th strings is slightly greater compared to 5^th and 4^th and so on. With evenly spaced pins, the gap between the 6^th and 5^th string is less than the gap between the 1^st and 2^nd, due to their comparative diameters. The use of pins to hold the strings makes a hardwearing wood such as ebony a suitable material- you could use lighter woods but I would be concerned that after a number of string changes the pin holes would wear.

I also like to cut 45 degree ramps for the strings so that they can break cleanly at a good angle over the saddle which helps to eliminate the risk of any odd buzzes.

The wings of the bridge are thinned to reduce some mass and all edges are rounded off so that there are no sharp edges for those players who like to rest the hands on the bridge. The curved belly at the rear of the bridge increase the surface area for gluing in a place where bridge can eventually pull up.

Quite a lot there eh? So that’s why you buy a hand made guitar!

Phil Hare update

2011-04-23T17:32:00.001+01:00

Phil has been out and about with the new guitar, and there is a very nice comment on the Acoustic forum by Fliss, who saw him at the Raven Folk Club, “Oh, and yes he had the Gary Nava guitar - it looks and sounds stunning! I love the shape of it, the newness of the top which is still creamy white, and the aesthetic details such as the shape of the headstock (echoed in the fretboard end) and although I'm not a fan of bling, that rosette is very pretty!” Thanks Fliss!!

If you’re interested, here are a couple more videos that Phil made.......

Mandolins, Mandolins, Mandolins!

2011-04-14T14:33:00.005+01:00

I’ve been getting on with French polishing Geoff’s OO- this is the first time that I’ve used Honduras rosewood and it’s really starting to look spectacular under a layer of polish.

Paul’s mandolin

Mandolins seem to be temporarily taking over! I got Paul’s mandolin playing last week; one thing that I enjoy about mandolin building is that, due to the floating bridge and tailpiece, you can set the instrument up prior to applying any finish.

Once it’s playing perfectly, it can then be stripped back down and the finish applied- Tru-oil in this case. The mandolin has a K&K pick-up installed. The K&K is fixed directly to the underside of the soundboard with an adhesive film and as the soundhole is far too small to allow me in insert my hand into the finished mandolin, I decided to fix it in place during the construction stage. This way, it can be fixed exactly where I want it and the soundboard’s surface can be prepared so that the film adheres correctly.

If I know that some accessory has to be stuck to the inside of an instrument, I will coat the surface with several layers of CA to seal the surface so that any adhesive film sticks really well.

“Red Mandolin”

You may remember the “Red Mandolin” from a couple of years ago.

Its owner, Alan, wanted me to make a new bridge for it with a removable bone saddle. He also wanted to me to make it as light a possible. Alan is a retired professor of engineering and has also made a few violins, so I respect his views and was happy to oblige. You can see the old and new bridges below.

Alan was delighted with the outcome and reports a noticeable increase in the instrument’s volume.

Richard’s Mandolin

You may also remember Richard’s English walnut mandolin, unfortunately he allowed a friend to play it and it picked up a few finger nail marks on the soundboard.

Richard can’t live with the marks, so I’m re-polishing the soundboard for him. Fortunately, the nail marks haven’t torn the grain, so they sanded out quite easily. I was surprised, however, at how resilient the polish was to sanding.

The case against using French polish is it perceived fragility. However, the polish is applied thinly and what ever medium you use, it is sitting on a very soft surface. With fingernail marks, it isn’t the finish that is scratched as such, but the wood that is underneath the finish is dented.

The “Standard”

I’m also designing a new mandolin that I’m going to call the “Standard”. In these times of austerity, not every musician can afford to own a bespoke, hand-made instrument. So in bid to build a mandolin that is more affordable, and that competes with the like of Moon and Fylde on price, I’m designing a no-frills instrument. Time is the most expensive component of any hand made instrument and building one-off instruments to a clients specific needs is extremely time consuming. With the Standard, I shall concentrate on the features that influence the sound and playability and strip back any unnecessary adornments. This will be a real exercise in "form following function." The result will be a beautifully sounding, playable hand-made mandolin at a reasonable cost to the player.

Watch this space for more information.........

2011-03-27T18:46:00.009+01:00

Geoff's OO

As always, I’m playing catch-up! It’s so easy to under estimate the time that it will take you to complete a particular task. At the moment I’m filling the grain on Geoff’s OO in preparation for French polishing and it’s taking much longer than anticipated. You can see the grain on the guitar’s back before and after filling in the pictures below.

The Honduras rosewood has really deep pores to fill and this is proving to be a very time consuming process. That said, the better the grain is filled, the easier the polishing goes; an extra hour grain filling could save at least that when polishing. Although you could probably fill all the grain in one go, I tend to work over three or four days; the solvents have time to dry-off, you don’t get bored (grain filling is a tedious job!) and you come back to the guitar after a break with a fresh pair of eyes. Also, it reduces the chance of RSI- your shoulders really ache after a full day of grain filling, the continuous circular motion and the downward pressure that you have to put on the pad, gets to you after a few hours. Next step, fill the sides!! You can see Geoff’s guitar in the white,below.

Here’s another top-tip! I’m not sure where I picked-up this idea for levelling frets (these are Geoff's frets) but it works. Once all the frets are in, mask the fingerboard and soundboard.

Use some kind of crayon to cover the top surface of each fret with colour.

Once you start levelling the frets, you can easily see the low ones by the colour left on top of them.

Paul's Mandolin

Also on the bench is Paul’s walnut mandolin which you can see is coming along quite nicely.

Website Updated

I’ve just been updating my website, as I was in danger of having too many different instruments on the same page. There are now three sections,

guitars

mandolins

custom instruments

I now offer four different models of guitars; model 1, Phil Hare Signature, parlour guitar and classical. On the mandolin page you’ll find the twin-point, model 2 instruments and another mandolin, “The Standard” which I’m currently designing. And then there’s the custom pagefor all of those unique instruments that I get commissions for.

Titebond CA...yuk!

Many luthiers regularly use CA glues and I’ve been happily using ZAP CA for a number of years, Axminster tools have now gone over to Titebond CA. Although the glue is good, it’s a lousy bottle- you can’t control the application as carefully and much ends up on the floor or worse still on you hands. I’ll be looking for a new source of ZAP soon!

Phil Hare Signature guitar; finally completed!

2011-03-19T16:43:00.000+01:00

The Phil Hare Signature guitar has finally been completed. Phil picked it up earlier in the week and his reaction could not have been any better; I think that we are both very pleased with the outcome.

Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words; not quite sure how many a video is worth? Without further ado; here is Phil, the all-purpose guitar hero, with his all-purpose guitar!

Hope you like it!

Over the next few days, I’ll be updating my website with some more details about this guitar, its price etc.

Vintage Nava!

2011-03-10T18:54:00.003+01:00

You may have noticed that this guitar is currently up for sale on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110658885170&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_585wt_932

I made it in 1979, not long after leaving the London College of Furniture, whilst working at the London Guitar Gallery. It’s being sold by the grandson of the original owner who commissioned it from me. It looks like it’s been very well looked after and it’s great to know that your work has stood the test of time!

Its jumbo shape is based on a Gibson J200 and it has a nicely figured maple back and sides and a German spruce soundboard. It still looks clean and modern- could be your chance to grab a bit of Nava history!

Another one of my vices!

I had been wanting, to get hold of one of these vices for a long time- StewMac sell them as a guitar repair vice. I found that the cost of shipping from the US was almost as much as the vice itself. Thanks to Geordie, who pointed me in the direction of Rutland tools who sell them as a “cabinet makers vice”. I bolted it on to the bench for the first time this week and could tell straight away it was one of those things that you question how you ever got on without it- thoroughly recommended! In the background you can see the neck being fitted to Geoff’s guitar.

Ebony bindings

2011-02-24T19:33:00.007+01:00

Ebony is currently the material that I favour for bindings. The main function of the bindings on a guitar is to protect the edges from any damage so, of course, a very hard wood such as ebony does the job admirably. Also, from an aesthetic point of view, it clearly defines the shape of the guitar and for want of a better term, looks very classy.

I had been using a supply of ebony off-cuts that I was given but I knew that I would run out of them, so a while ago I bought a fair bit of ebony from my supplier in India.

Geoff’s OO is the first instrument that I have had to use it on. When I got the ebony out of stock it seemed such a shame to cut these beautiful pieces of jet black wood up “just for bindings.”

It took quite awhile to prepare the strips to the correct dimensions, unfortunately the supplier in India didn’t have the facilities to machine them to my required finished size.

Once to size, you have to bend them. Ebony does bend on a hot iron remarkably well and it’s at this stage you start to appreciate using good quality, straight grained, crack free ebony! You can also see that I use the traditional method of clamping the bindings in place with a fabric tape.

Looks good eh?

Wood with Strings

If your reading this blog, then you’re clearly interested in guitar construction- have a look at Peter Brown’s blog; Wood with Strings (there’s a link on my side bar). Peter refers to himself as a hobby builder, but you’ll have to agree he does some very nice work, all of which is meticulously written up. Also all credit to him for being honest and calling himself a hobby builder. I’m not too keen on guys, who build instruments as a hobby, calling themselves luthiers. If lutherie is your source income or you were trained in the art- fine call yourself a luthier, other than that you’re miss-leading potential customers and devaluing the work of “full-time” luthiers. When I had motor-bikes I used to maintain them myself, but wouldn’t have called myself a mechanic.

Koa

I’ve just got in this Koa wood. It’s meant to be a six piece set for a ukulele, but I think that I should be able to squeeze out two mandolins. This will be in the future though; I want to keep the wood until I’m sure that it’s dry stable enough to work with. I always seal the end-grain of any new wood with wax and now I also run some thin CA over the surface, towards the end of the board, so any hair-line cracks are sealed and don’t spread.

On TV

Have you seen that advert for O2 mobile phones with the guy playing what looks like an original Panormo guitar? Wierd!

What's on the bench?

2011-02-16T18:17:00.002+01:00

Phil Hare guitar

I thought that I’d give you a bit of an update on the various projects that are currently on the go. I’ve had a few enquires about the progress of the Phil Hare guitar. Well, the body has been French polished and the neck is being Tru-oiled, so essentially I’m just waiting for the finish to harden-off before the bridge can be glued on and the guitar completed.

Geoff’s OO

Then we have Geoff’s OO- this going to be a lovely little guitar! You can see that the body is together and the next stage will be the bindings and purflings. The back and sides are Honduras rosewood- it looks great, but what a swine to bend! It was just physically hard work- the sides were taken down to 2mm thickness but they really put up a fight. I would estimate that they took me 5 times longer to bend compared to a set of Indian.

The rosette is very nice- two rosettes in one- I’ve made a wooden rosette from the off cuts of the back and then inlaid a ring of abalone.

Talking of abalone, a slight worry here, I’ve noticed that StewMac can no-longer ship abalone and pearl products outside of the US, I hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come- supplies are hard enough (and expensive enough) to find.

Paul’s mandolin

And a few steps behind the OO is Paul’s mandolin. This one is going to be an English walnut twin-pointer with a mother-of pearl rosette. Paul wants a pick-up in this one, so we are going to try one from K&K: it doesn't need a battery which is an advantage for a small instrument.

Here is the video of Phil’s ergonomic guitar....

Ergonomic Electric Guitar

2011-01-31T18:09:00.003+01:00

Phil’s ergonomic guitar is now completed: the second ergo electric that I’ve built. The shape is based on the Steve Klein design, but when you look at his guitars (and most other ergos) you’ll notice that they are headless. Obviously Klein had his reasons for going down the headless route, but I can’t see the need for this. The head and tuners do add some weight to the instrument but it’s counterbalanced by leaving the body solid in the area behind the bridge. Take a look at the Klein below and you’ll see what I mean.

I can see more advantages of using a head compared to a headless design. Using a head you get a considerably wider choice of hardware. Phil suffers with back pain and when discussing the design of his guitar, it was clear that he would benefit from the neck leaning backwards in relationship to the body. Using this type of badass bridge you can have the strings about 20mm above the body’s surface which in turn kicks the neck backwards.

A headless design also limits your choice of strings to double-ball end strings which are a bit pricier and obviously not offered by as many string manufacturers.

I also feel that the head of a guitar (acoustic, classical, eclectic whatever) contributes to the sustain of the instrument.

There are a few subtle changes that this ergonomic guitar has over its 7 string predecessor; the body is more heavily contoured to improve comfort further. I’ve had a few enquiries about chambered and semi-acoustic bodied ergos, but if the upper portion of the body is hollow, you are drastically limiting how much you can contour it before breaking through into the hollow sections which compromise the ergonomic rationale. Also, being hollow, the body becomes lighter and I’m not 100% sure if this would upset the balance. I’ve also moved the jack-socket on to the front of the body from the edge. This guitar is primarily used sitting down, if the jack plug sticks out of a side mounted socket you limit the playing positions straight away.

I’ve kept to the straight through neck design, I’m convinced that this construction enhances the tone and sustain of the instrument (so are Alembic!).

I’ve never been impressed with passive tone controls on electric guitars so on this guitar we have three different types of pick-up each wired to a DPDT (centre off switch). The switches allow each pick-up to be turned on or off, the humbuckers can be used either in series or parallel mode and the single coil (middle) pick-up can be switched in or out of phase with the other two: this set-up gives 19 different combinations and hence a great range of tones.

The crowning glory is the spalted maple top, which the oil finish really brings to life. If play your electric guitar sitting down, you really need to try one of these odd looking guitar- you’ll be sold!

Making the mould

2011-01-22T18:42:00.004+01:00

I’ve started work on Geoff’s OO shape guitar. One thing that I’ve had to do, is make a new mould for this shape. The mould is used to construct the rim of the instrument- the assembly of the sides, linings, end blocks. I don’t like making moulds (chipboard kills your tools!) and I’ve got far too many, but I do like the OO shape, it’s a lovely little 14 fret guitar. Fortunately, I did some repair work on a Martin OO a few years ago and at the time a made some drawings of it.

The first step in making a mould is gluing up some sheets of chipboard to make up a thickness of about 45 to 50mm.

Once this lump has been made, the shape of the guitar is cut out on the bandsaw. As you can see, I’ve got a fairly small bandsaw, which is good for most of my needs, but 50mm of chipboard pushes it to the limit.

Once the shape has been cut out, I glue a plywood plate on to each end to join the two halves together.

I then use a sanding drum on my pillar drill to get rid of the saw marks.

Once the inside shape is smooth and accurate to the shape, I give the mould a coat of sealer: it needs to be water proof as the damp guitar sides (after bending) are clamped in to place and also when doing any gluing up, you reduce the chance of gluing your sides to the mould!

The mould is then cut into two again and another two plywood plates are used to join the two halves using screws so the mould can taken apart and re-assembled as required.

Next step, bend the sides!

Distressed instruments

2011-01-15T19:10:00.002+01:00

In the previous post, you’ll have seen how I have decided to reduce the price of my parlour guitar due to some finger nail marks on the soundboard. Well, I’ve been having a look on t’interweb and I’m shocked by the trend of distressed instruments. Quite simply, brand new instruments that have been artificially aged to look like they have been played (and in many cases abused) for years and years. The only advantage that I can see, is that if you’ve got an instrument that looks beat-up, you won’t be overly upset when you mark it yourself!

There’s a couple of interesting threads on the Mandolin Cafe forum that you might be interested in:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...Distressing-It

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...500#post878500

Of course this trend isn’t confined to mandolins- loads of guitars are available distressed too. It seems that there is a premium to pay for a distressed instrument due to the amount of time and skill needed to successfully carry out this weird task! I’m sure that it’s more involved than thrashing your guitar with an old bike chain! BUT WHY??!! What’s wrong with buying a guitar, playing and enjoying it and letting it pick-up its own patina of age? It’s a bit like looking in the mirror and seeing your own wrinkles and scars- they tell the story of your life.

Now, I don’t mind seeing a guitar that has been honestly worn. Sure, it maybe marked, but it was built to be used, all artefacts will show signs of ware and tear. But as a luthier, how could I spend hours, trying to make the most beautiful guitar, and then ware away polish to simulate years of playing, damage surfaces, capo marks on the neck etc. ? It goes against the grain (pardon the pun).

Maybe it’s like when you were at school and you got a new pair of shoes, you’d scuff the toes so that no one would notice. Anyway, I don’t understand it!

By the way, if you’d like to buy a brand new, distressed parlour guitar drop me a line.

New Year Sale?

2010-12-30T18:29:00.003+01:00

I’m sure that you’ll remember my parlour guitar. It’s been working as a demonstration model and unfortunately has picked up a few marks on the soundboard from being played. I can’t be too upset, as it’s secured me a few new commissions! Anyway, I’ve reduced the price as I can no longer sell it as a brand new instrument. If you’re interested you can get full details on my website (see link below). A chance to grab a bargain without going to those New Year Sales!

http://www.navaguitars.co.uk/forsale.html

The two Phils progress....

2010-11-10T16:34:00.005+01:00

You can see that the Phil Hare Signature model and Phil A’s ergonomic electric guitar are progressing nicely. Both have now been fretted and had the necks shaped.

You can see how I’ve contoured the body of the ergo guitar and also that by using a “Gibson” style bridge you can tilt the neck back slightly. This is in an effort to make the instrument more comfortable for Phil to play.

He came over last night for a second fitting and it became clear that I’m going to have to take more material away from the sloping section- this is to try to stop Phil’s right shoulder being stressed.

I love this photo of the end of the guitar with different sections of wood showing.

Production is going to slow up over the next couple of weeks, as I’m about to move into a new workshop! Once that’s up and running the two Phil’s will start to have their finish applied and the next guitar (Geoff’s Honduras rosewood and Engelmann 00.....sounds good eh?) will be underway.
Ciao!

It’s been one of those weeks

2010-10-30T16:50:00.002+01:00

It’s been one of those weeks- I finally had to buy a new vice for my bench.

I had been using one these quick release Axminster vices: quite a clever little mechanism- to tighten the vice you turn the handle clockwise and to open it you just pull the handle back and the jaws slide apart without having to turn the handle.

Out with the old.....

However, after a couple of years the mechanism seems to have worn and now the vice pops open at the most inopportune times! So it’s now been replaced with a simple Varitas vice- no gizmos! I had a couple of off-cuts of maple and ash to make some fancy jaws for it. Very pleasing to use!

.....in with the new

Also my two vacuum cleaners/extractors decided to die within a few days of each other. So, I bought this Axminster power tool extractor- it’s so much quieter, I can now actually hear the band saw running! You can also plug a power tool, such as the router, into the extractor, so that when you turn the router on, the extractor automatically comes on too! Ah the joys of modern day living!

Two Phils!

2010-10-23T15:44:00.006+01:00

Ergonomic electric guitar

Just to confuse things, I’m currently making guitars for two Phils. Phil A came over the over evening to have a fitting for his ergonomic electric guitar. I’m not sure how many players use ergonomic guitars because they actually have a physical need to or because they are just plain weird! However, on saying that, I think that once you’ve played an ergonomic electric guitar you can see/feel the advantages straight away.

Phil A does have back problems and although it may sound a bit pompous, it’s good to feel that making a guitar for someone could have real benefits for them. The result of Phil’s visit was interesting-

Firstly, no dots on the fingerboard- if you’re looking at the front surface of the f-board your posture must wrong!

We looked at how the body needs to be contoured to stop Phil’s right shoulder coming too far forward.

The position of the volume control, so that it can be turned whilst his hand is resting on the bridge.

The position of the jack-socket so that he can sit down and play without a jack plug protruding and limiting how the guitar can be held.

Once the guitar nears completion, Phil will come over for a second fitting and we’ll decide if any more modifications can be made.

Phil Hare Signature Model

The other Phil’s (Phil Hare) guitar is also coming along nicely the binding and purfling are on, the neck has been fitted and the fingerboard glued on. Phil isn’t keen on adjustable truss-rods, so we’re just going for two strips of carbon fibre running down the neck and into the body. I’ve no doubt that this is more than sufficient and, to be honest, I’ve never been convinced of the need of an adjustable truss-rod on a well-made acoustic guitar!

Jonathan’s cutaway completed

2010-10-18T17:11:00.003+01:00

Jonathan’s cutaway steel-string is now finished and you can see the result below. I’m certainly pleased with it and have enjoyed having a play on it. The 12 fret, cutaway format works extremely well- one immediately apparent advantage is that the nut is closer to the waist so your left arm does not have to stretch as far whilst playing.

Hand made guitars always take a period of time to “play in” and “open-up”; I think that’s particularly true of Sitka tops (like this one) and I’ll be interested to hear this guitar in a few months time. However, some of you may have noticed a new gizmo called a ToneRite which plays the guitar in for you?? Now, I haven’t tried one, so I’m in no position to comment but.....one thing that I do notice is how the tone of a guitar improves considerably over the first week or so, just by being strung up and subjected to the tension of strings. Well, mine do anyway! And when I played Jonathan’s this morning it had clearly improved, just by sitting, strung up, in a case.

What’s interesting, is that more guitar players come to me now with a very clear idea of what they want. Usually they have taken part in forums and generally picked up a lot of information on-line. Jonathan’s guitar is very much a product of this process- choice of tonewoods. 12 fret neck, cutaway, long scale etc. Fortunately, in this case, Jonathan’s ideas were pretty much in-line with mine and I feel that the result is a real thoroughbred rather than a camel! When I look back over the past 30 or so instruments (that’s about as far as I can remember!) no two are the same and looking forward (on my waiting list) that trend continues.

La Sagrada Familia

2010-10-11T17:30:00.004+01:00

We’ve just had a week’s break in Spain: finally some sunshine!! One of the highlights was a visit to La Sagrada Familia, the cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi in 1883 and still being constructed. It is a most remarkable place; the level of detail and craftsmanship are second to none. There cannot be many opportunities in this day and age to walk around a cathedral whilst it’s still being built.

A couple of thoughts that struck me- our local cathedral, Ely, was built in the 11^th century and took around 100 years to construct. During that time, building techniques and tastes probably didn’t change much. But today’s world is a very different place to Gaudi’s and there must be so many advancements in building technology that Gaudi could not have ever contemplated, never mind the questions of aesthetics.

Notice the different styles in these carvings from the two opposite ends of the cathedral.

In the crypt you can see much of the original design work including, 1:10 scale models of various parts of the cathedral beautifully constructed from plaster; nowadays they would just be images on a computer screen generated from a CAD drawing. If you read my blog then you must be interested in making stuff; go and stand inside one of the biggest craftsman made things that you’ll ever see being made!!

No CAD here!

We also had a good night listening to blues by the Reverend Richard John - maybe not traditional Spanish fare, but a jolly good night. Richard is based in Granada, so when you’re on your hols look out for him!

Holiday reading?

Well, I re-read “Stradivarius” by Toby Faber, it tells the story of a number of Strads, their players etc. It’s remarkable how all of his instruments have been so heavily modified over the years; the neck angle changed, bass bars replaced to withstand the extra tension of today’s higher tunings etc. Of course the construction of a violin allows it to be readily disassembled. To take the top off you only need to slide a hot knife between the top plate and the sides; a guitar is a different kettle of fish! You’d have to remove the portion of fingerboard which is glued to the soundboard, remove the bindings and then get the end of the braces out of the linings (12 joints to tackle in the case of one of my steel-strings!).

One last thought for you- there are six hundred instruments knocking about, known to be made by Stradivarius therefore an instrument made by Gary Nava is rarer than one made by Stradivarius!

Ergonomic electric guitar

2010-09-21T16:32:00.002+01:00

So, Jonathan’s cutaway has been French polished and the last coat of Tru-Oil went on the neck today. The bindings are being glued on to Phil H’s guitar- as I use ebony bindings (opposed to plastic- yuck!) this process takes a number days. So, I thought that I’d crack on with another Phil’s (Phil A) guitar.

It was about this time last year that I completed a 7-string ergonomic electric guitar for Latin Jazz guitarist Stefano Kalonaris. Phil A’s guitar is going to be another ergo; 6 strings this time!

Phil really suffers with back pain and we’re hoping that this guitar will help to allow him to spend more time playing, without too much pain. It will have a “Badass” style bridge- this means that the neck will tilt backwards relative to the body and this should reduce some of left arm stretching that Phil finds uncomfortable. As you can see, I’m going for a neck thru’ construction again and the body is capped with some very nice spalted maple. You’ll notice that one thing that I like to do before gluing the body together is to roughly chop-out the pick-up recesses, this saves on routing later.

Phil Hare Signature Model

2010-09-18T15:16:00.004+01:00

Whilst Jonathan’s cutaway is being French polished, the next guitar is well under way: the Phil Hare Signature Model. You may have already noticed the links on the side bar to Phil’s website and if you haven’t had a look- you should! Phil Hare is widely regarded as one of the finest and most distinctive acoustic guitarists working on the current folk music circuit.

Phil approached me with the idea of designing a guitar specifically for him, which we could then produce in limited numbers for other guitarist who wanted a similar instrument. This is a really exciting project; working closely with such a good player as Phil, will undoubtedly enhance the evolution of my guitars. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will know that I’m always trying to tweak and improve my instruments by slow-degrees.

After much discussion, the design has been arrived at and I’m underway with the first guitar which, of course is for Phil.

I’ve designed a new shape which has exactly the same overall dimensions as the ever-popular OM but is more curvaceous.

It will have a 650mm scale which will produce the clear, bell-like tone that Phil wants; also the extra string tension will help the quality of the tone when the guitar is tuned down.

We decided on Indian rosewood back and sides; we both like the tone that this wood produces and also it’s one of the few woods that I can get a consistently good supply of (especially as I now have a supplier in India). It’s going to have an Engelmann spruce soundboard which will suit Phil’s finger style of playing. As far as ornamentation is concerned, the highlight will be an abalone rosette with the rest being rather understated.

There are of course going to be constructional details which will help to produce the type of sound that Phil is looking for................but that’s for me to know!

Phil popped over the other afternoon to check on the progress of the guitar and whilst he was here, I couldn’t resist getting him to play the parlour guitar. He really made her sing; cheers Phil!!

Parlour Guitar Demonstration by Phil Hare

Andy’s hybrid archtop is completed!

2010-08-25T17:47:00.003+01:00

Remember, quod nos non necat fortiores facit, well Andy’s archtop didn’t kill me and yes, I feel a better luthier for having built this instrument. It’s quite something to look at and I’m very pleased with the completed guitar. The idea of an archtop with a “flat” back isn’t a new one and frankly after building this guitar I would question why you would want to have a carved back other than for aesthetical reasons. The work/time involved in carving a maple back coupled with the cost of high quality materials makes “traditional” hand made archtop guitars incredibly expensive. This hybrid construction seems to make the archtop sound more affordable for the guitarist.

The archtop sound...well that’s an interesting one. I think to get the best out of an archtop, you’ve got to know how to play one. Just like a classical guitar- unless you’ve got the correct technique and decent finger nails you’re not going to get the best out of it. Flat-top steel-stings are far more forgiving of a player’s technique. The sound produced by the archtop is completely different to the flat-top (I don’t suppose that they’d be any point in building one if it wasn’t!) The sound is more percussive and there are less overtones; this allows for fast rhythm playing using lots of chords that sing out cleanly.

Now if, you’ve seen my demo videos, you’ll know that I’m not the person to bring out the best in an instrument. Fortunately, a local guitar player, Alan came over to put the archtop through its paces, playing a couple of jazz standards for me. The guitar really came alive and you can see (hear) for yourself in the video. Hope you like it....

Having built this hybrid archtop, I’m tempted to build another, this time with “f” holes. I’m trying to build one instrument for fun each year- last year was the “Red Mandolin” this year the parlour, so next year maybe another archtop.................now where’s that set of quilted maple?

Cutaway Heels Rant!!

2010-08-14T13:48:00.006+01:00

I hope that you’ve read my posting about “custom made” guitars. Below is an illustration of point that I was trying to make- this is a cutaway by a well-known American company and is an example of how the heel on a cutaway guitar shouldn’t be done! It’s clear what happens- here a standard neck is fitted to a non-standard body.

However, if you’re building a real one-off, this it what it should look like!
This is the cutaway for Jonathan’s steel-string you can see the smooth transition from neck to body and how the cutaway has to match the taper of the fingerboard (dimensions according to each client’s spec.). Also the heel is tapered so the side has a compound bend in it. Now that’s custom building!

Bridge pins for sale
I was having a bit of a stock take and I seem to have an abundance of un-slotted bridge pins. These are high quality StewMac pins- to you £6 per set plus postage. You can email me via my website. I’ve got 2 sets of ebony and 1 ivoroid. Buy all 3 sets for free postage!! Remember, un-slotted.

Custom Made?

2010-08-01T11:28:00.002+01:00

You may have noticed that I’ve put a link to “CustomMade.com” on the side bar. It’s an American site promoting a wide range of products that are custom made. They approached me to write a guest blog for them, which of course I duly did. It’s on the topic of custom made guitars. If you’ve been following my blog hopefully you will appreciate the lengths that I go to provide my customers with a custom instrument.
Anyway click here to see the article.

Grateful Dead

2010-07-31T14:14:00.003+01:00

I had a bit of a binge playing Grateful Dead CDs in the workshop yesterday and then had a look at the Dead website last night. I didn’t realise that it’s the 40th anniversary of the release of one of my favourite records of all time: Workingman’s Dead.

Apart from their music I’ve always been admirer of the Dead’s graphics and a few years ago, I did this inlay (into the body of a bass guitar) based on their “Steal Your Face” logo. It’s made from rosewood and nickel silver. I etched the detail with Ferric Chloride.

Now I’m going to play my vinyl copy!

Jonathan’s 12 fret steel-string

2010-07-28T16:41:00.001+01:00

Here is a little bit about Jonathan’s steel-string; one of the projects that I’m currently working on. This is very much a subtle custom build. Although the guitar is based on my Model 1 shape, Jonathan wanted a 12 fret neck.

As I’m sure many of you know, it has long been the common view that 12 fret necks “sound better” than 14 fret necks as the bridge is positioned more towards the centre of the soundboard. It’s certainly true on this guitar that the bridge is closer to the centre. But if you look at how many classic American guitars have evolved, I don’t think the same can be claimed. Look at early Martin 12 fret dreadnoughts and compare them to the 14 fret neck version, you’ll see that rather than the bridge position moving south, the shoulders are squared off giving a smaller upper bout. The same is true of the 000 and other models. Some may argue that the larger upper bout increases the physical volume of air inside the guitar and that enhances the tone. However, I do think that it is the position of bridge, moved towards the centre of the soundboard, that will really make an audible difference (as of course, does Jonathan!)

So, having decided upon a 12 fret neck, Jonathan also asked for a cutaway to enhance access to the upper frets. I’ve made quite a few 12 fret cutaways in the past and feel that this is an excellent arrangement.

You have to continually evaluate and improve your guitars and something that I had wanted to do for a while was to extend the carbon fibre neck stiffener into the body and Jonathan’s is the first one that I’ve incorporated this idea into. (I’d been trying to figure out how to route the slots!) The CF is glued into the neck block and the neck itself and runs across the neck/body joint. This must increase the rigidity of the joint and to my mind improve the guitar’s performance as vibrations can’t be absorbed. Also, it should eliminate the possibility of distortion of the fingerboard over the body joint that can happen over a prolonged period of time.

Adhesives

2010-07-17T16:21:00.005+01:00

I’ve been asked a couple of times whether or not I use hot hide glue on my instruments and the simple answer is, no.

When I was at college, Herbie (tutor) tried to get all of his students to use hot hide glue and there are sound reasons for using it, but I simply do not like the idea of subjecting my wood to unnecessary heat and moisture when there are excellent alternatives available. One of the arguments for using hot hide glue is that you can take the joint apart easy; great if you are repairing 200 year old violins, but do I want to take my guitars apart? Do I want my guitars to come apart!

I mainly use Titebond Original, this glue has been used by most luthiers and manufactures for decades and its performance is proven. My early guitars were put together with it and after 30+ years the glue joints haven’t failed. Apart from its strength, it dries very crisp and therefore, I feel, won’t dampen vibrations. I’ve also been using Titebond dark occasionally; the main thing about this version of Titebond is that it’s waterproof. I’ve used it to glue purfling lines to bindings before bending them; they can then be soaked prior to bending. It can, however, make glue lines visible on lighter woods (even mahogany) and doesn’t dry as crisp as “Original”. I also use Titebond hide glue for temporary joints, like you saw in my wooden rosette post. Hide glue for temporary joints...see what I mean!

I use epoxy resins for gluing dissimilar materials i.e. carbon fibre to wood. Slow setting Araldite is my favourite; I find that the Rapid version never really goes completely hard and therefore I tend not to use it. I’ll use Araldite when I’m gluing components together that will be subjected to some kind of stress. If I want a fast setting epoxy, I like to use Z-poxy; this is good for inlays.

I also use epoxy where I have to glue to end-grain (the neck block in cutaway guitars is a good example). As all woodworkers know, you shouldn’t glue onto end-grain, this is because the glue is taken away from the joint by the exposed tracheids in the end grain. Epoxy uses these features of the grain as a key to increase grip.

Cyanoacrylate or super glue is also extremely useful. I think that most luthiers tend to use it now for securing frets. Some CAs are so thin that you can place little drop on the end of a fret and capillary action will pull it along the whole length. This phenomenon also makes it useful for repair work when gluing cracks together. On some burr veneers which naturally have small holes, I coat the veneer’s surface with CA and sand whilst the adhesive is still wet, thus any holes are filled with matching dust. Take care- if you use lot there can be an exothermic reaction and you can burn yourself. Oh and be careful not to glue yourself to the guitar, it’s just plain embarrassing!

Parlour guitar for sale

2010-07-12T16:53:00.004+01:00

Well the parlour guitar is now complete and I’m currently looking for a new home for her. I’m extremely pleased by the way she’s turned out. My intention was to build a guitar that looked like it was built in 19^th century, but also satisfies the needs of the 21^st century player. Tonally, the guitar is very well balanced and the relatively short scale (625mm) makes it easy to play. I’m sure who ever buys her will delight in the subtle details such as the tiny “N” inlaid in the ebony heel-cap.

Anyway, you can judge for yourself in the video.

Many thanks to all those who have watched, and judging from the feedback that I’ve had, enjoyed the series.

I’ve greatly enjoyed building this instrument and would like to build another (maple?) at some point. But fortunately, in spite of the economy, commissions continue to come in and I won’t have time for another speculative build like this for a year or so.

If you are interested in purchasing the parlour guitar, it comes with a fitted hard case and is priced at 2000GBP.
You can contact me via my website.

Gluing on a bridge

2010-07-01T15:42:00.009+01:00

I’ve just glued the bridge onto the parlour guitar. This time, I didn’t video the process because I find this very final stage the most nerve-wracking of them all. You’re working with a variety of sharp tools on the freshly finished soundboard and need to concentrate 100%; months of hard work could be written off in the blink of an eye!

However, I know that there is a lot of interest, out there, in this particular stage, so I thought that I’d explain the process for you.

The first step is to cover the general area, where the bridge will go, with masking tape. I use a low tack tape designed for delicate surfaces; it is possible, if using very strong tape, to pull the finish (particularly water-based lacquers) clean off of the guitar! Don’t ask me how I know!

Next, some very careful marking out; I use a soft 7B pencil so that you don’t have to press too hard to make a mark. As I was marking out I counted that I needed 4 different types of ruler to measure with!

Once I’ve checked 27 times that the bridge is in the correct position, I scribe the outline with a scalpel (brand new blade!). You have to cut through the tape and lightly score the surface of the finish; once through the tape you can feel (under the blade) the different densities of winter and summer growth on the soundboard. A small piece of double sided tape locates the bridge nicely.

Remove the tape from the area under the bridge and scrape the finish away; you’ve got to get back down to the bare wood so that the glue bonds.

I use a chisel for this; I run a burnisher over the edge to form a burr so the chisel can then be used as a scraper.

With the surface of the soundboard clear of finish, the bridge can be glued on. I find that the tape is enough to stop the bridge sliding around and once the glue has grabbed, I gently remove the tape; this helps to remove excess glue that may have oozed out.

Once the glue has dried the holes for the pins are drilled into the soundboard and the bridge pins fitted. You must a get a tapered reamer for this.

Hopefully you can see why you need 100% concentration!

A number of readers have asked why a give my secrets away? Put it this way, I’ve watched my Stefan Grossman “Fingerpicking Country Blues Guitar” DVD many times and can I play like Stefan? You’ve seen my YouTube demos!

How to make a wood rosette

2010-06-23T13:59:00.005+01:00

Over the past few years, I’ve made quite a few instruments with “wood rosettes”; they seem to be a popular alternative to abalone or plain lines. The grain of the wood ensures that each rosette that you make is quite unique and it’s relatively easy to get hold of small billets of exotic woods that can be used to make up stunning rosettes. Anyway, I thought I’d show you how I make mine.
I’ve been making burr walnut rosette for Jonathan’s 12 fret steel-string cutaway.
Firstly, I cut thin book-matched slices from a solid billet of burr walnut; commercially made, knife cut veneers are only 0.6mm thick which, I feel, doesn’t give you enough thickness to play with. Another alternative is to use the off-cuts from the back or sides and I’ve done this on rosewood guitars to good effect.

The thin slices are stuck together (edge to edge) with a waterproof glue and then temporarily fixed down to a work board with hide glue (water soluble- see where I’m going with this?).

I use the router, with my compass attachment that I made for it, to cut the recess that the rosette will be inlaid in to. Jonathan has requested a Sitka spruce soundboard and this board is a very nice one with lots of medullary rays- these are what give the soundboard that silky looking effect that some players drool over.

With the recess cut, lines of purfling and veneers are glued in place for the inner and outer rings. Once the lines have been glued in, I carefully measure the gap in between them and then use the router again to cut out the walnut circle. Next comes the fun part; using a hot knife and water to lift the ring off of its backing board without breaking it!

Once the ring is off, it can be glued in place and then cleaned-up; you have to be careful not to grind dark wood dust into the light soundboard.

Here we have one burr walnut rosette! On with the bracing........

Andy's Bridge

2010-06-15T16:50:00.009+01:00

Firstly, I’m amazed at how many people are now following my blog- many thanks for showing interest in my work!

I’ve made the bridge for Andy’s guitar; it’s really a large version of my mandolin bridge. I feel that the height adjustment screws, which you see on most archtop guitar bridges, must impair the tone and I take my design ideas from the ‘cello in this case i.e. two feet instead of total surface contact. The bridge had to be carefully fitted to the curved soundboard and you can see the process below.

The white pencil lines act as a guide to see where the bridge is making contact and where it isn’t. Of course, the irony of this process is that the wood you have to remove is the wood that is already making contact! Riffler files are great for this type of work; you can accurately remove small areas of wood.

With the bridge roughly made, the guitar was set up- action, intonation etc. I’m very pleased with it so far; it sounds quite different from a flat-top and the pick-up gives a remarkably faithful reproduction of the pure acoustic sound. You’ll be able to see how it sounds for yourself; I’ll do a video when it’s 100% complete.Anyway it’s now been stripped down again and the finishing process is underway. The bridge and tailpiece needed a bit of tweaking and the finished items are below.

Here’s episode XVI of the parlour guitar series; hope you like it!

Andy's Tailpiece

2010-06-08T17:10:00.002+01:00

The parlour guitar had had it’s last session of French polishing and is now just hanging up waiting for the polish to fully harden, before the bridge is glued on.

The construction of Andy’s hybrid is now complete and I must say it’s a very cool looking guitar! I’ve been working on a tailpiece for it: my original thought was to make a “Benedetto” style tailpiece until Amanda pointed out how much they look like wooden kitchen spatulas, which put me right off! Anyway in a bid to make an aesthetically lighter looking tailpiece, I decided to opt for one made from brass and rosewood. The brass element has been cut out entirely by hand. Brass has a number of advantages-

Its strength; areas can be cut out to give a lighter appearance.

It’s a conductor so by fixing the jack plug to it, string grounding for the pick-up is catered for.

And also, brass takes on a beautiful patina with age.

The end of the tailpiece is finished off with a piece of rosewood the same shape as the headstock.

The guitar is going to have an oil-finish, Andy has the first mandolin that I a made, this also has an oil finish so there will be a kind family resemblance there. I’ve just given it one coat which has popped the grain making the figured maple bindings really stand out. As the instrument has a floating bridge (like a mandolin) I’m going to get it playing and then take it apart and finish it properly.

quod nos non necat fortiores facit

2010-05-29T17:16:00.003+01:00

Andy’s hybrid guitar

As you may have gathered, Andy’s hybrid guitar has been something of a challenge. The last tricky part of its construction was making up the fingerboard extension and you can see below, a sequence of photos showing the process. One thing that I’m trying to do is to keep the soundboard free of other components being fixed to it; hence the finger board floating above the soundboard. You might like to note that the floating portion has been stiffened with a carbon fibre bar.

Once the fingerboard was glued on and Amanda and I were having our evening meal- I said to her, “this guitar of Andy’s reminds me of that saying, that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I thought it might be cool to write this on the label- but in a less obvious way- so I got my Classics teacher friend, James, to translate the phrase into Latin for me! quod nos non necat fortiores facit

With the fingerboard on it’s all plain sailing from here!

There’s also a bit more here about French polishing for you......

French polish- some thoughts

2010-05-17T14:55:00.003+01:00

I’m now underway with French polishing the parlour guitar and some of the first stages can be seen in the new video. There is loads of information on t’interweb (Bob and Orville Milburn’s is probably one of the best) about this black art, so I’m just offering a brief description so you can get a flavour of what French polishing is all about.

I’ve been French polishing my classical guitars and, indeed, most classical players demand this type of finish. I had been a bit unsure about French polishing steel string guitars, thinking that maybe most steel string players would prefer a lacquered finished. However, during my musing, I came to the conclusion that a steel-string player, paying a four-figure sum for a bespoke luthier guitar would show as much care for their instrument as a classical player and would probably be an enlightened, well-informed sort of person anyway. As it happens I was right- the next three acoustic instruments (there’s Phil’s custom ergonomic electric coming up soon!) on my list are all steel-strings and all of the clients have been more than happy to go with French polish.

It’s interesting to see how many luthiers are now French polishing and even some of the US “boutique” manufacturers offer shellac finished soundboards.

Let me re-cap my reasons-

Primarily, you are putting on the instrument- (the one that you carefully choose the best tonewood for, thicknessed to the nearest 0.1mm, carefully braced and tapped tuned) a thin finish that will not dampen the instrument's tone. I think that I use 75% less material when French polishing compared to using lacquer! The beauty of the wood is enhanced by the optical quality of the shellac and the “feel” particularly of the neck is silky smooth.

Secondary reasons are- In this day and age of sustainability and various environmental issues, French polishing is probably as green as it gets. You are using shellac which is a secretion from an insect and harvested from the bark of the trees where it deposits it to provide a sticky hold on the trunk. Alcohol as a solvent, pumice powder (from volcanoes) as a filler and its all applied by a pad made up from cotton wool and old well washed white T-shirts. To stop the pad sticking olive oil is used as a lubricant. Also, to spray safely you must have a purpose built spray booth, good extraction, spark proof electrical equipment etc.

Enough of that- here’s the video!

Things have been quite busy lately!

2010-05-09T17:54:00.006+01:00

I’m sorry that I’ve not been keeping the blog up-to-date; things have been quite busy lately. When we lived in London, hardly any clients called by- most of my business was conducted via emails. However, since moving to the wilds of Norfolk we have had many more visitors, resulting in quite a few new and interesting commissions, all involving much design work. I must admit it’s been great to meet so many new clients in person and hear them play their guitars and discuss their needs.

Andy’s hybrid archtop

I’ve finally completed the purfling and bindings on Andy’s hybrid archtop- I still can’t believe that it took me so long. However, I was grateful that my old tutor, Herbert Schwarz, made me cut all of rebates, on my early guitars, by hand and that I had that skill to fall back on. You can see the outcome below and despite the time I’m very happy with the outcome.

The parlour guitar

The parlour guitar is coming along nicely and the new video shows how I tackle the carving of the neck. The shape of the neck is one of the most important elements of the guitar regarding whether or not a player finds a particular guitar comfortable or not.

The next step is to start French Polishing the parlour guitar and there will be another video about that. Here are few picture of the guitar ready for polishing; there are a few details which I really like. I cut a tiny “N” logo out of a recycled Victorian ivory piano key and inlaid it in to the heel cap and I love these new side position markers.

The next instrument

The next instrument on the bench will be an English walnut steel-string guitar for Jonathan. Interesting spec- my model 1 shape but with a 12 fret neck and cutaway- more on this later, but here’s its beautiful back to be getting along with. Walnut can look a bit cold in this state, but when it’s polished you can’t beat it! Also I often leave the sap wood on to give a skunk stripe down the back, but Jonathan would prefer his back without and I’m happy to oblige!

Neck joint

2010-04-17T13:33:00.001+01:00

The next episode of my parlour guitar videos is now up on YouTube. In this one, I demonstrate how I use a tapered dovetail to join the neck to the body. I like the flexibility that the dovetail gives during the construction stage- it allows me to alter the angle of neck in relationship to the body. Some of you may be surprised that the surface of the neck is not just in alignment with the body. On a classical guitar, for example, the neck is set forward to allow high action at the 12^th fret without the bridge being overly high. And of course, once the neck is glued in, the neck and body are as one and should never move.

Andy’s archtop

I’ve also being doing the purfling on Andy’s archtop: it’s taking so long! Not being able to use the router slows the progress considerably, as does not having a flat surface to work from- below is my armoury of tools that I’m using!

Martin’s Baritone ukulele

2010-04-12T17:24:00.004+01:00

Martin’s Baritone ukulele is now complete and awaiting delivery. It’s a lovely little instrument and I’ve really enjoyed having a play on it. I think that the choice of tonewoods combined with my construction methods, gives more of a guitar like sound compared to other ukes. When Martin first approached me about an instrument, he was looking for a cuatro but a baritone uke had been suggested to him as a more viable alternative. I think that this style of uke is an ideal addition to a guitarist’s collection for a number of reasons;

It has a fuller guitar like tone with good bass,

It’s tuned to the top four strings (DGBE) therefore no need to learn new chords, scales etc. It therefore gives a different voice to your music with a minimum the of learning effort

Also its size makes for a great travel instrument....judge for yourself!

Richard’s mandolin update

Did Richard like his mandolin? Here's a thread on the Mandolin Cafe forum for you to read.............

MANDOLIN CAFE

Andy’s hybrid acoustic/electric

2010-04-02T11:16:00.005+01:00

With Richard’s mandolin completed and Martin’s uke’s oil finish hardening off, I thought it time to go back to Andy’s hybrid acoustic/electric. With the guitar having a carved soundboard, I have had to re-think the order in which I do things- the main problem is that its curved shape means my router won’t sit flat on top of the guitar. To allow me to use my dovetail neck jig, I glued the back to the sides and routed the female part of the joint before the soundboard was glued on.

Also it helps to think a number of steps ahead- I’ve made up these mahogany brackets which not only reinforce the sides but also allow me to run the pick-up wire around the guitar’s inside. It’s going to have the volume and tone controls (using a concentric pot) on the upper bout and I want to keep the wire out of view en route to the jack-socket.

You’ll also notice that I’ve used kerfed linings, instead of my usual solid ones. The reason that I use solid linings is (in my opinion) to improve sustain, however too much sustain on this instrument might lead to feedback, hence back to the kerf.

Parlour guitar videos

I’ve put a couple more Parlour guitar videos on YouTube: these two explain the how the purfling and binding is done.

If you’re not following the videos-here’s the story so far.

I deliberated for quite awhile about the binding; I wanted a contrast with the walnut and had this been the 19^th century, ivory would have been used. I decide to use some very plain hard rock maple; it’s off-white colour gives the aged quality that I wanted.

I can’t understand why there is a trend for some manufacturers and luthiers to leave off bindings and have to back/side joint exposed. The only reason can be cost. The bindings are not just decorative and have the function of protecting the joint and the edge of the back from accidental damage.

Who needs eBay!

You’ll remember the luthier’s literature post? All the books and one set of plans were sold. I still have the French polishing DVD and the plans for a spider resonator. I’ve also found these SG plans- they’re very detailed (3 sheets) right down to a wiring diagram. I bought them to get an accurate shape for the 12 string below. Yours for £5 plus postage!

Richard’s mandolin

2010-03-23T15:39:00.004+01:00

Richard’s mandolin is now complete and will be shipped off to him later this week. Interesting statistic; 50% of my mandolins go to Scotland!

As you can see she’s turned out very nicely; the English walnut has polished up wonderfully.

I’m also extremely pleased with the bridge; you may remember that I’ve gone over to a new design with a removable saddle and I’m supplying Richard with a choice of bone or ebony saddles.

The removable saddle made the setting up process much easier for me and of course the player can do his own bit of fettling if he so wishes. I’m very pleased with the sustain of the instrument and Richard is going to experiment with the ebony and bone saddles and let me have some feedback. I must admit I preferred the sound of the bone saddle for some unquantifiable reason!

Parlour guitar

There are a couple more Parlour guitar videos on YouTube covering the design of the back and the soundboard.

Now of course many luthiers like to shroud their work in mystery and would never divulge the secrets of their soundboard! However, I’m quite happy to share my knowledge with you. I’ve been fortunate to meet many world-class luthiers and in my experience it is those who are confident in what they do, who are willing to help others and advise. Someone may well copy my design, but I’m a great believer that a guitar is greater than the sum of its parts and the influence of the hands that made it, have as great a part to play as the strutting pattern or choice of tonewood.

I find some of the threads on guitar forums both amusing and irritating; many players and luthiers (who should know better) will debate ad infinitum the merits of Dalbergia Thingamajig versus Dalbergia Thingamabob or whether bone bridge pins produce a better tone than ebony etc. You can’t just take one element of an instrument in isolation and assume it’s that element that makes your guitar superior or assume that because you tried out a wonderful guitar made from 35000 year old Kauri tonewood that all guitars must be made from this. Beware of forums!