Neck Construction

I've just put the next instalment of the parlour guitar videos on YouTube. This one talks you through the preparation of the neck blank. To be honest, I get a bit fed up with certain guitar magazines- you read reviews of instruments and they criticise necks that haven’t been constructed from a single piece of wood. Quite frankly this displays the lack of guitar construction knowledge of the reviewer!

I buy my neck blanks cut to approximately 1000 x 80 x 25mm; use a stacked heel and a spliced head and in my opinion this is the most sensible and superior way. Why?

Firstly, you get much better quality wood if you buy smaller selected pieces; my supplier knows me and gives me perfectly quartered, straight grain blanks.

Secondly, it’s far less wasteful and with good quality wood becoming harder to get we must use it thoughtfully.

Thirdly, it gives me the option of inserting extra laminations in the neck itself which enhances the neck both structurally and aesthetically.

And last, and certainly not least, you have a spliced head/neck joint, which is far superior as you do not end up with short grain across the angle of the head. I’ve touched on these topics before on the blog, if you’re interested;

Head stock repair

and

Head Joint

Anyway here’s the video with me explaining my thoughts on neck design.......

Jacques Stotzem and Phil Hare

On Friday, we saw two excellent guitar players at a gig in March town hall; Phil Hare and Jacques Stotzem. Jacques plays heavy rock songs on an acoustic guitar- quite something!! Here are links to them on YouTube. If ever they are playing near you, make the effort to see them!

St.Wendreda

Whilst on the subject of the town of March- there’s a wonderful church there- St.Wendreda. The church has the most spectacular carved wooden roof made in the 1520’s with 120 wooden angels and 2,700 fleur-de-lis. So if, like me, you wonder how medieval craftsmen achieved what they did, this is a place to see. You have to get the key, to get into the church, from the local pub- and of course, it would be rude not have a swift pint at the same time! Cheers!

Two heads are better than one?

The Red Mandolin is now being French polished and I’ll post some more pictures when it’s shiny! The other two instruments, the nylon string guitar and baritone ukulele, that I have working on are now well under way. They are going to be two of the most exotic instruments that I have ever made: sinker Redwood tops, Pink ivory rosettes and bindings and African Blackwood back and sides!

An interesting aspect of this project is that the clients have supplied the wood. Last year I had a call from Morgan Nicholls, he had just come back from a world tour with the band Muse. Whilst on tour he and the guitarist Matt Bellamy had collected some really beautiful wood, which to cut a long story short I’m turning into instruments for them. Morgan is having the uke’ and Matt the nylon string guitar. Matt was recently described by Alan Yentob in BBC’s “Story of the Guitar” as “the first guitar god of the 21st century.”

Since getting the commission I’ve been listening to Muse in the workshop and must say they remind me of my youth, when rock bands were actually populated by guys who could really play!!

Morgan has been overseeing the project and it’s a pleasure chatting with him: he’s a knowledgeable guy, having made a guitar himself and fortunately, we seem to be on the same wavelength design wise.

You’ll remember the design sketches for the head shape, well shape C was chosen so I though that I’d show you how these drawings were realised.

Firstly the neck blanks with scarf joints for the heads are prepared. The necks have been cut down the middle and laminated with some African Blackwood, as both decoration and for additional stability.

A slot is then routed for carbon-fibre reinforcements. Once the carbon-fibre has set in place and has been cleaned-up, the head overlays are glued on.

The head overlays are made up from 5 pieces of wood: two pieces of Blackwood with a pink ivory strip down the middle and backed with white and black sycamore veneers to give some fine lines around the edge of the head. As the overlays have a definite centre line they have to be glued on in exactly the right place; small wooden pegs aid this.

With head overlays in place, next is some very careful marking out. The marking out is done on masking tape so that I can see where I’m going!

The sides of the head are planed down to the final size and then the holes for the tuners are drilled. As these are classical tuners, they have three rollers fixed to a plate and the roller extends almost to the centre of the head, therefore the holes have to spot-on else they will bind whilst tuning.

Once the holes for the rollers have been drilled, the next step is to cut the slots through the head. Large holes are drilled and the bulk of waste removed with a good old-fashioned coping saw.

I then use a router and a special jig that I’ve made to clean-up the slots.

With the slots cut-out, the head shape is roughed out on the band saw and then follows some careful shaping by hand to get the final out-line.

The last stage is to file the ramps where the strings run from the tuners to the nut.

And there we have it two finished headstocks!

Bit of a delay

I’ve been out of action for a bit due to an operation on my sinuses. The recovery has taken longer than I had anticipated and one problem that I’m having is that I can’t wear a dusk mark or respirator at the moment. This is particular nuisance as I should be sanding down and spraying Andy D’s cutaway. There are couple of shots below, the snakewood and paua is quite something.

I won’t be able to make the delivery date and can only apologise profusely. You can see that it’s going to be a beauty and, hopefully Andy will agree, well worth the wait.

Head designs

Whilst I can’t get into the workshop, I’ve been doing some design work. In the previous post you would have seen the pink ivory rosettes; I’ve been designing the heads for these two instruments (a nylon string guitar and baritone ukulele) and have sent the designs off for approval. The challenge is getting a shape that will work aesthetically with both instruments and mechanically i.e. mounting good quality tuners, string clearance etc. Also Morgan, who is overseeing the project, has quite defined ideas about what is wanted: fortunately we seem to be on the same wavelength!

Once I’m back in the workshop and these two get underway properly I’ll post some fuller details.

Also, you may remember the Red mandolin: this has been on the back burner for a while, but I’ve now had an offer for it from Alan and he has the opportunity for some input into its design. He would prefer a slimmer head design, so below is the modified shape.

Mandocello

Jill (future mandolin) asked a while ago about the mandocello: well there’s a nice little review of it on the Acoustic guitar magazine forum.

Many thanks for that Andrew and Jane, I’m delighted that you’re still happy with it!
Whilst on the subject of the Mandocello, you might have seen my demo video on YouTube; I can’t believe that it’s had almost a 1000 viewings!
That’s enough for now: my nose is starting to bleed again!!