A Luthier's Blog

African Blackwood Guitar and Ukulele

2009-07-15T11:05:00.009+01:00

We made it safely to our new home, a converted Methodist Chapel in the Norfolk countryside. It took 2 trucks, one for the house and the other for the workshop! One of the most stressful parts of the move has been trying to get, without much luck, a telephone line and broadband so I shall only be on-line intermittently until mid-August, thanks to the local internet cafe.
As promised a bit about the two Blackwood instruments: they were completed just before we moved. The soundboards were French polished and the rest of the instruments were finished with Tru-Oil. The combination of the two types of finish worked really well. The oil allowed the natural beauty of the African Blackwood to show through and it also gives a nice feel to the neck, lacquer can feel sticky.

Morgan had very definite ideas on how he wanted the instruments to look and the finish gives them the “aged” look that he was after.
Morgan set me quite a few challenges throughout this build, the final being the bridges. He wanted a curved shape bridge, a tie-block that blended in and was doubled drilled for tying the strings; this involved a fair bit of discussion over their design, but I think that we were both pleased with the results. Probably the best bridges that I’ve made!

Below are a variety of photos of the instruments:

African Blackwood backs, sides, fingerboards head overlays and bridges
Sinker redwood soundboards
Pink ivory (sacred wood of the Zulu) binding and rosettes
20,000 year old fossilised walrus tusk nuts and saddles.
Doesn’t get much more exotic!

How do they sound? Well, I’ve made another one of my videos which I’ll upload once I’m properly back on line; however it does not do them justice. The Matt Bellamy’s classical guitar sounds very promising; already the trebles are sounding out loud and sweet and there are also some nice rich bass tones. It will need to be played in for a few months to reach its full potential, but I think that it’s going to be rather special. Morgan’s baritone ukulele was a revelation! I was pleased that it had a good tone and volume when I played it and that it didn’t sound plinkity plonkity like some ukes do. But when he came over and played it! The volume was outstanding for such a small instrument.

Hopefully Morgan and Matt will be pleased with these instruments: I certainly am. It was a good experience working with Morgan, he pushed the envelope and I feel that I’m a better luthier for it.

The next move!

2009-06-28T18:50:00.001+01:00

I know that there are quite a few regular readers out there who are interested in what I’m up to, so apologies for not updating recently. We are moving house and workshop fairly soon and as you can imagine this process is taking up so much time!! Packing up stuff has allowed me to go through my tonewood stock; there’s so much beautiful wood that I’d forgotten about! All visitors to my current workshop have been surprised by my lack of space, so this has prompted our move from suburban London to a more rural setting.
So what’s happening on the instrument front?

Jill’s mandolin has been set-up, striped back down and is now being French polished and looking rather lovely.
Morgan’s and Matt’s African Blackwood instruments are completed and I’ll share the final details of these once we’re settled in.

Once the new workshop is set-up, the next 7 instruments are already accounted for. The first two on the bench will be rosewood classical, already named “El Corazon” (the reason will be apparent when you see the special rosette that I hope to make) and in parallel to this a 7-string electric based on the Klein ergonomic guitars.

And just in case I forget; I should appear in Issue 33 of Acoustic Magazine on sale 28th August!!

Should be back on-line by late July,
Take care Gary.

Post Script to last post!

2009-06-02T17:22:00.000+01:00

Fine work done! Looks better, doesn’t she?

Jill's Mandolin VII

2009-05-31T17:08:00.005+01:00

Well, the back of Jill’s mandolin has been bound and the neck fitted: you can see the sequence below.
A relatively large mortise is routed into the body of the mandolin using a router with a template follower. A matching tenon is cut on the neck: it takes a good few hours of fettling to get the neck perfectly aligned. Once the neck is in place a wedge, which supports the end of the fingerboard is fitted.

Next on is the fingerboard that you saw prepared in the previous entry. I like to plane the fingerboard to its final thickness and profile once it’s been glued to the neck. The dots go in next and then the fingerboard can be fretted.

The frets have to be carefully filed so that they are all level with each other. This process leaves a slight flat spot on the top of the frets which are then restored back to a curved crown using specialist files.

Now I start shaping the neck, the first few steps look a bit barbaric! The fine work starts tomorrow!

You may have wondered what’s happened to the Blackwood pair; Morgan came over for a couple of hours earlier today, to discuss the bridge design; so that should all unfold over the next week or so. More on that later.....

Jill's Mandolin VI

2009-05-17T17:05:00.006+01:00

I’ve been working on the purflings and bindings for Jill’s mandolin, so I thought that I’d go through the process with you. Once the soundboard, back and sides have been glued together and cleaned up, a rebate has to be cut around the entire instrument to take the purflings and bindings. You can see why the linings are so important, as the joint between soundboard, back and sides is completely cut away. Although the router cuts an accurate rebate, an instrument such as my twin-point mandolin needs a bit of fettling by hand. You change the width of the rebate by changing the diameter of the bearing.

With the rebate cut the first layer of thin (0.9mm) black/white/black purfling goes on; I use map pins to hold this firmly in place whilst the glue dries. Once dry, the second layer, a red veneer and another thin black/white/black purfling goes on. As there is no longer any room for pins, masking tape is used to hold this second layer in place. The purfling at the points has to be very carefully mitred.

Once the last layer of purfling has dried, the bindings go on. I always use wood for the bindings and they tend to be about 2.5mm thick, so they have to be bent on the bending iron, just like the sides. I’m using Claro walnut here to match the head overlay. Mmmm maple and walnut my favourite ice-cream! The bindings are held in place, whilst the glue sets, with cloth tape that is stretched around the instrument. This piece of cloth tape is 50 metres long and on a guitar all of that will be used up!

The whole purfling process takes quite awhile, around the soundboard there are 16 separate pieces of wood and it took me 10 sessions to glue them all on, allowing about 5 hours for the glue to dry each time. And of course once the front is done, turn it over and do the back!

One of things that I have been doing in parallel to the purfling is preparing the fingerboard. I use a modified (by me: notice the toggle clamps to hold the board firmly) Stewart MacDonald jig for cutting the fret slots. StewMac tools and jigs tend to be expensive but they are very well designed and made and should last “forever”!

Once the fret slots are cut, I drill holes in the edge of the fingerboard for position markers: I like to use nickel silver wire which matches the fret wire. I also like to drill pilot holes for the dots on the front of the board. It’s so much easier to mark out accurately before the board is glued. Nothing worse than a wonky dot! These Incra rulers are excellent for marking out: thoroughly recommended!

Now let’s do the rest of the purfling on the back.........................

P.S. You may remember that in a past post I mentioned my friend Mandolin Jack Flatt? He has a great new CD out available via CD Baby
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mandolinjack

Jill's Mandolin V

2009-05-07T12:16:00.002+01:00

As you saw in the previous post the two Blackwood instruments are now being finished. An hour or so is spent on each one and the remainder of the day on Jill’s mandolin.
You can see the bracing of the soundboard and back. The X-bracing works very well on the back, giving it a graceful arch. I’ve always used X-bracing on mandolin backs it seems to make more sense on a small, almost round body shape, compared to transverse bracing.

Before the soundboard and back are glued on to the sides, small housing joints are cut into the linings to take and support the braces.

Next stage, glue them together!

How do they do it?
I’m always surprised when you see cheap electric guitars, how on Earth can they make them so cheap? Raw materials, hardware, labour costs, factory up keep, shipping, dealer’s mark-up etc.
I’ve been commissioned to build an ergonomic electric guitar later in the year and have just bought some prime mahogany for it. Below you can what £100 worth of neck and body blank looks like. So a guitar for under £100! How do they do it?

A guitar, ukulele and mandolin!

2009-04-29T17:06:00.009+01:00

I’ve been working on the two Blackwood instruments: Matt’s guitar is now constructed and is being finished.

An added complication with this is that I’m using two types of finish on one guitar; French polish on the soundboard and Tru-oil on the rest of the instrument. The Tru-Oil will give a very natural looking finish to the Blackwood and a fast feel to the neck. You may remember that I finished my son’s bass, that is regularly gigged, with Tru-Oil as a test and it has really stood up well.

I’ve also completed construction of Morgan’s uke.

Shaping the neck was interesting I tried using one of these little chaps on the heel.

This is a Dura-Grit sanding drum; it fits into a Dremel and has proved very useful. The instrument is held down and is not subjected to the same harsh physical treatment that can happen whilst using a rasp or chisel for shaping.

Another revelation has been using 120 grade silicon carbide paper on the end grain; it removes the wood quickly without leaving deep scratches.

Those are today’s top tips!

I think that you can tell a lot about a luthier by the heel on his instruments and it’s often an area that I look at closely on others’ guitars; some are very clumsy, lumpy and poorly finished. I’m slowing moving towards a conical shaped heel that takes its inspiration from early parlour and romantic guitars.

Below is the heel of Shelly’s guitar (as in poet) that I was fortunate enough to examine at the Bodlien Library a few years ago. See where I’m heading?

Jill’s Mandolin IV

Jill’s mandolin is progressing nicely too. With the sides bent, I’ve been working on the points. To join the two side pieces together I shape a piece of cedar; I made up this simple sanding jig to ensure that the cedar fits perfectly.

Rubber bands are used to apply pressure whilst the glue dries on this awkward shape. Once the two side pieces are joined the point is flattened off and, in this case, small blocks of burr walnut are glued on and will form contrasting points. The burr walnut is cut from the same block as the head overlay so will match perfectly.

The soundboard is being braced and below you can also see the wonderful quilted maple for the back.

Jill’s Mandolin III

2009-04-18T17:13:00.009+01:00

I’ve just bent the sides for Jill’s twin-point mandolin. What a joy to bend some maple again!! Recently, I’ve bent snakewood, African Blackwood, pink ivory, cocobolo and Brazilin rosewood; all of those woods have their own challenges, but maple almost bends itself.
The sides are taken down to a bare 2.0mm thickness (thinness?) and carefully marked out. Each side has to be cut where the point will be, a bit nerve wracking cutting a side in two!

The sides are soaked for about 15min in water and then bent to shape on an electric bending iron (made form aluminium!). You can see its cross-section; shaped to give all of the curves you could need. The combination of heat and moisture magically make the wood flexible.

Many luthiers use “Fox” (after luthier Charles Fox, see below) bending machines.

But I use such a range of shapes for all of my instruments, that I prefer the flexibility of an iron. Besides, you feel like a proper luthier doing it this way!!

Once the sides have been bent, they are left clamped in an external mould over night to dry out.The next day, after some tweeking and careful trimming, they all fit together into the mould and await linings and end blocks.

Red Mandolin Completed

2009-04-16T17:55:00.006+01:00

The Red Mandolin has finally been completed and here it is!

It is always a worry when the instruments get sent off and this one had a long way to go!
You can see the crate that I made for it.

The mandolin reached its destination safely and I had this lovely message from Alan its new owner:

It is beautiful and exceeds my expectations! The finish is superb and the fret finishing, the best I have seen.
The combination of woods gives a lovely rich tone for such a small instrument and the sustain will be perfect for the traditional and classical music I play. Many thanks for the years of pleasure I hope to enjoy.

Thanks Alan; it doesn’t get better than that!

I’ve made another video so you can see it; I just wish I could play better and demonstrate the instruments’ potential.

So much to do!!

2009-04-02T17:20:00.016+01:00

The Red Mandolin nears completion; I’m just waiting for the French polish to harden and then it can be shipped to its new owner Alan.

Alan has been waiting very patiently for this mandolin and I must admit that I’m very grateful that all of my client’s are so patient. Those of you who regularly look at the blog might realise that I‘m bit behind at the moment, I’m still trying to catch up after my sinus operation at Christmas! Also I mentioned this phrase, “caring more and more about less and less,” in a recent post and I think my increasingly fastidious approach is slowing me up a bit too!

Jill’s Mandolin II

Have a look at the sequence of photos below for the construction of Jill’s neck...... I could just have band-sawn a maple neck out of a big lump of wood but there is going to be a decorative stripe of walnut and red veneer (which will match the purflings and binding) and structurally a laminated neck with a scarf head joint is far stronger.

Planning the best way to use the wood.
Heel glued to neckIt's then cut down the middle ready for the laminations
And finally the head overlay which you saw in the last post is glued on and the head shaped.

I’ve also been working on the rosette and you can see the red theme being picked up again.

Each piece of abalone is individually cut and I was pleased to get the whole rosette from one piece, so the colours match throughout.
How pretty is that!

Matt and Morgan's Blackwood instruments

The two African Blackwood instruments are coming along nicely and you can see that Matt’s guitar has caught up with Morgan’s uke.

So you want to be a luthier?

2009-03-15T15:49:00.014+01:00

I get, on average, an enquiry a month asking either for a job in my workshop or advice on how to be a luthier. So, I thought that I would write some thoughts on this process to refer any future enquiries to.

Firstly. I understand the romantic appeal of wanting to be an artisan producing musical instruments, working with wood etc.

When I was about 14, I remember seeing an article on the Nationwide TV magazine program about Tony Zemaitis. Pop luminaries such as Eric Clapton and Ron Wood were going to his house and ordering guitars and I though that’s the life for me. I knew by that tender age that I wasn’t going to be a good musician (my YouTube videos prove this!) but I was good at woodwork and the rest as they say is history.

Tony Zemaitis

Link to info about Zemaitis.

So you want to be a luthier? One of the first things that I think you should do is some maths. Have a look on luthier supply websites and price up the materials for an instrument. Then have a look at the prices that luthiers charge, sure there are some UK makers like Sobell or Fischer who can command high prices, but most (like me!) charge modest amounts. If you’re lucky, you might be able to make (and more importantly sell!) around 10 to 15 instruments per year: factor in tax, workshop overheads etc and that should put you off of the idea! You’re not going to get rich being a luthier! That’s the tough love bit!
My advice is to try to make one at home, by yourself to see whether or not you catch the bug. You’ll need some specialist tools such as a bending iron and router, but these can often be picked up on eBay; use them and if guitar making is not for you sell them on to the next would-be. There are loads of good books and many web-sites showing how to build a guitar so there’s no shortage of information available.
Having made your first instrument you can either continue making by yourself selling to friends, fools and family until you’re confident that your product is as good as anything available.
Trying to price your work is difficult; you cannot say my plumber charges £50 per hour, a guitar takes 100 hours to build therefore I want at least five grand! The price will be a complex combination of your reputation, quality of work and most importantly, what the market will bear.
Alternatively, you could try to get work in one of the few small factories that are about, although I imagine the competition is tough or go to a luthier school and train properly. Even once you have been down this route there is no guarantee that you will make a living.
There isn’t an easy route into guitar making and it takes years to build up a range of skills and a good reputation. I was lucky enough to go the London College of Furniture and train there for three years, at the same time as doing repair work for a local guitar shop. Repairs are a great way to learn about guitars. Those are my thoughts for what they are worth, good luck to you.

So what’s happening in my ‘shop. Well the two Blackwood instrument are coming along; I love this photo! Maybe I should make Russian dolls!

And the Red Mandolin is being French polished. The more I polish the more I like it; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the shellac really brings the wood to life. There is such variation in the grain of the Brazilian rosewood, on the mandolin’s back, that wasn’t apparent until the polish started going on; the shellac must have some optical properties that I’m unaware of.

The mandolin really has the look that I wanted; I was telling its new owner Alan, that last summer, before I started work on it, my wife and I visited the Sir John Soane's Museum. He was the architect who designed the building for the Bank of England and the museum is based in his house. The house is absolutely wonderful with fantastic craftsmanship and details everywhere and something kind of clicked within me and I felt that I wanted my instruments to look at home in a wonderful place such as this. The Red Mandolin was inspired and this is hopefully the first of many instruments that I will build with this feel.

Sir John Soane

Link to info about Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Although my workshop is small and I try not to have too many things going on at the same time, once the mandolin has had a good hour or so being polished and I’m waiting for glue to dry on the Blackwood instruments.....

...something else needs to be done and so I’ve started Jill’s mandolin.

Jill's Mandolin Part 1

I know that Jill is a follower of my blog and has shown great interest in my work: therefore it only seems fair that I feature the construction of her mandolin in some detail.
One of the first things that I have done is make up the head overlay. This is a small component, so it can be made and put safely aside until needed. A piece of abalone is glued to thin plywood; the abalone is brittle and the ply stops it from snapping whilst being shaped. I no longer try to make each N logo identical; I like the idea that each one will be subtly different just like a hand-written signature.

The N will be inlaid into some beautiful burr Claro Walnut that I have.

Some careful marking out...
The finished overlay At this stage I’ve also glued up the two book-matched pieces of quilted maple for the back. The joint between the two pieces has to be perfect and I always use my jack plane with a shooting board. The idea of the shooting board is that the plane can lie on its side and not wobble; this ensures that the edge of the wood is in the same plane along its length.
I then use sash clamps to apply pressure to the joint whilst the glue dries. There are other methods of clamping, using string and wedges, but I find that clamps allow me to adjust the pressure more accurately.

And of course the soundboard is put together in exactly the same way.
These two pieces will also be laid aside for awhile.

Two heads are better than one?

2009-03-01T16:52:00.017+01:00

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!

"Caring more and more about less and less"

2009-02-23T15:46:00.008+01:00

My wife gave me a copy of “The Violin Maker” for Christmas. It’s a beautifully produced book which tells to story of a violin commissioned from luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz by the violinist Eugene Drucker. Although there is not much to learn about the construction of a violin for a luthier, its description of the angst that I luthier can feel whist trying to fulfil a commission confirms the feelings that I often get and that I’m not entirely insane! There are other people in the world who endeavour to produce beautiful, hand crafted work. One phrase that has particular resonance (if you pardon the pun) with me at the moment is, “caring more and more about less and less.” I had hoped that by this stage of my career that I would be making instruments far quicker than I do. In fact, sometimes, I almost seem to be going slower; making sure ever minute detail, inside and out is as good as it can be; caring more and more about less and less. Talking of which........

Above you can see the Red Mandolin; it’s going through its “first fix”. One of the things that I like about building an instrument with a floating bridge and tailpiece is that you can get it set-up and playing before you finish it. Once it’s set-up, it can be stripped back down and the finish (French polish in this case) can be applied. That way you greatly reduce any chance of damaging the finishing whilst setting up. I’m really getting excited about applying the polish; I’ve done a few test pieces and the cocobolo is going to look stunning.

One of the other instruments currently on the bench is the African Blackwood ukulele and here you can see it complete with Pink Ivory bindings looking very pretty.

Still Life

As I was doing a bit of research about 10 string and alto classical guitars the other day, I came across this YouTube channel, Solo Guitarist Net; some fantastic stuff here!

Left-Handed Cutaway Guitar

2009-02-01T15:38:00.007+01:00

Andy D’s guitar has now been completed; he picked it up earlier in the week and I’m glad to say that he is very pleased with it. I’ve made another demo video for YouTube so you can see me, making a fool of myself, trying to play left-handed.

I was very pleased with way the guitar turned out and one of my favourite features is the cutaway. When you look at many factory guitars, you can see where they get their standard bolt-on neck and use it on a cutaway body leaving an ugly step; there’s an example below (no names mentioned!).

Their's....

Whereas building one-offs, as I do, you end up with something like this.

Mine...
Beautiful!!

Red Mandolin Update

2009-01-24T17:27:00.005+01:00

The Red Mandolin is coming together nicely as you can see below below and it’s really going to be a beauty!

This coming week the purfling and Brazilian rosewood bindings should go on. You may remember that Alan wanted a slimmer version of the head? Well here it is and I must say that I like it and will probably adopt it for future mandolins: it has a couple of advantages over my previous shape.

1. It will be lighter, both visually and physically.
2. The strings will run straighter from the tuners to the nut.

Speaking of tuners I’m using Schallers from now on rather than Grovers. Both are really high quality tuners, but the gold colour on the Schallers is much better: just a detail!

Back to work

2009-01-11T19:26:00.006+01:00

Firstly, thanks to those regular readers of this blog who have expressed concern about me over the past few weeks; you’re very kind.

Andy D’s cutaway is now being sprayed and you can see why I wasn’t happy to wear my dusk mask post-op! It’s a Trend mask and the reason I like it, is that it’s vented at the bottom so that your specs don’t mist up: a thoroughly recommended piece of kit.

In between coats of lacquer, I’ve been working on a number of different instruments. The Red Mandolin is coming along nicely; below you can see the neck blank made from Cuban mahogany with two carbon fibre strips inserted and the Brazilian rosewood head overlay with pearl ‘N’. It’s a bit raw at the moment and will be shaped this week.

The sides are almost completed with the end blocks in place and the linings for the top. I’m now using solid linings on both the top and back joints on some of my instruments; I’m convinced that this will make the rim of the instrument more rigid and less likely to absorb energy from the soundboard. The linings for the top are always wider as you need to increase the surface for area for gluing. The top is under considerably more stress than the back and also the purflings tend to be more decorative around the top, hence wider. As you can’t bend 5mm thick wood, two thinner strips have to be bent and glued together; which adds to the time taken. You can see the solid linings compared to the kerfed.

You can also see the soundboard and back braced and ready to go.

Bit of a delay

2008-12-21T17:04:00.007+01:00

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!!

Pink Ivory Rosettes

2008-11-24T13:29:00.011+01:00

I’m currently working on a matching pair of instruments: a classical guitar and a baritone ukulele. They will have sinker redwood soundboards with Pink Ivory rosettes. Pink Ivory is an African hardwood and a quick google comes up with quotes like, “rarer than diamonds” or “the sacred wood of the Zulus.” So it’s quite special stuff!

I thought I’d show you how the rosettes were made. After some initial design work in collaboration with the clients and some testing to see how tightly I could bend rope purflings, the Pink Ivory was sliced into 2mm strips and glued together using waterproof Tite-Bond.

Channels were routed out in the soundboards, the rope purfling bent and glued in place.

I then glued a sheet of paper to a piece of plywood and the pink ivory to the paper using hide glue so that it could be removed later on in the process.

Then using my router, with a circle cutting jig that I’ve made, the Pink Ivory rings were cut out.

As the Pink Ivory was glued down with hide glue, I could then remove the rings from the paper.........

And hey presto two beautiful Pink Ivory rosettes! More on these special instruments later.

Parlour Guitar

2008-10-19T17:48:00.005+01:00

I’ve just bought myself a guitar!

This is a 19th century parlour guitar that is in need of some work. It hasn’t got a maker’s name inside but it has a French look to it. You can see the head has a V joint and the tuners are recessed into the head which is a nice touch.

Hopefully I’ll get it playing again, but I’m also interested in using its design as the basis of small string guitar that I intend making. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that I have a Cuban mahogany lid off of a 19th century grand piano- I’m going to try to re-saw it and use it for the back and sides. There’s something nice about the idea of making a 19th century inspired guitar from a 19th century piano!

However, this wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve done something like this below is a parlour guitar based on a 1902 Ditson Martin. I made it in 1977 from a Cuban mahogany wardrobe door that my Dad found in a skip!

Cittern Completed

2008-10-06T13:13:00.005+01:00

I mentioned awhile ago that I’m often asked, “how long does it take to make a guitar?” All of my recent instruments have been custom built and all have had unique specifications. So, for me there is no typical build.
I have tried to answer the question by logging how much time I spent building this cittern. The last time a mentioned the cittern I was up to 75 hours and ready to start spraying.

Shaping the underside of the bridge to fit the soundboard’s arch.

Lacquer removed to allow gluing.

Since then, the cittern has been sprayed and polished, the bridge made and glued on (always a nerve wracking procedure!) and set-up. So now, I think that I can call the cittern complete.

“How long does it take to make a guitar?”
“This one, 125 hours!”
Take a look on YouTube.

Mandocello is completed

2008-09-20T18:25:00.002+01:00

As you can see the mandocello is now completed and will soon go off to its new home. It was built to my new shape which has been designated “Model 2”.

My intention was to design a shape that could be used for a variety of multi-course instruments as well as guitars. Most luthiers and players agree that the “sweet spot” for the placement of the bridge is the centre of the lower bout, which is why the sound of a 12 fret neck guitar is often preferred. Starting with this premise I designed the shape from scratch and as you can see the bridge is in what many would consider the correct place.
Having positioned the bridge correctly I turned my attention to the upper bout. As many players wish to gain access to the upper frets, I wanted this shape to be designed for a 14 fret neck with a cutaway and not look like a traditional shaped instrument with a bit chopped out. Also when designing this shape, I did not want an instrument that was yet another derivative of an American one or tied to a particular time or place: I wanted it to look at home on the Star Ship Enterprise or in King Arthur’s court! One great advantage that this shape has for the mandocello and cittern, over the more traditional pear shape, is that it has a waist and you can sit down and comfortably play it.
I love the shape and early next year I intend to build a steel string acoustic guitar to this shape.

75 Hours...

2008-08-22T12:30:00.007+01:00

Well, all the construction work is now done and the cittern is ready to lacquer. All the woodwork plus the preparation for spraying has taken 75 hours so far. It will be interesting to see how long the finishing process takes. I normally spray 3 coats of lacquer a day and then spend an hour or two the next day sanding it down; the instrument will get 20+coats!

Pretty stuff!

Above you can see the Paua shell rosette that I made for Andy D. I haven’t used Paua in a rosette for quite awhile and had forgotten how pretty it can look.

The head overlay below is Snakewood; it’s clear why it’s called that. This is the first time that I’ve used it; it’s incredibly hard and dense and sands to a silk like texture. It would make a great fingerboard for a fretless instrument.

So how long does it take to make a guitar (Cittern) Part 4?

2008-08-08T16:28:00.013+01:00

Now I’m up to 52 hours. Those 12 hours of work, since the last entry, have been just on the bindings and purflings. As you saw with the mandocello, this shape is a bit tricky: some of the rebates for the bindings and purflings have to be cut by hand; there are 56 separate pieces and 5 mitres that have to be carefully cut.

I always use wood (rather than plastic) for the bindings, therefore each piece has to be carefully bent on the bending iron to fit. Also I now tend to make up my own purflings from coloured veneers. So although it takes awhile you can see why - I hope!

What next?

During the initial stages of a build you can work on various components separately, but as the build progresses those components converge and you have to spend less time per working day on any one instrument. Using the cittern as an example; you fit and glue one piece of binding, you then have to wait a few hours for the glue to set before working on the next piece. The mandocello is still being polished so that gets an hour or two a day. So, you need to start the next one.

Remember the photo of the Snakewood? Well, I’ve just started some preparation for that guitar. This one is for yet another Andy, I seem to know so many Andy’s! Anyway this guitar for Andy D will have Indian Rosewood back and sides and a stripe of paua shell going down the centre of the back.

Having glued up the back and taken it down to 2.5mm I had to cut a slot 1.3mm deep and 3.7mm wide to take the shell and lines of sycamore and rosewood. One of the challenging aspects of instrument making is that you work to engineering tolerances in a material that its maker didn’t design it to be used in such a way!

The slot had to be 3.7mm wide, my nearest router cutter is 3.2 mm. You can’t force something like this so the slot has to be spot on and you have to allow room for the adhesive too. If you force it, you split the back - you only make that mistake once!

The first cut is straight forward, clamp a straight edge to the back and make sure that the router is firmly held against it and away you go. The second cut is trickier, how do you move the straight edge 0.5mm and keep it parallel to the first cut? Answer, you don’t! After some head scratching I used some strips of heavy duty tape stuck to the side of the router’s base. Each strip was 0.17mm thick so this allowed me to slowly increase the width of the slot until it reached the perfect width.

Links

You can see that I’ve added a few more links to the side bar. One is for the “UnpluggedShop” to quote from it, “This site is about working with hand tools as a hobby and is dedicated especially to computer programmers, scientists, clergy, business administrators, truck drivers, CEOs, undertakers and those of all professions who need to get out more and get a life doing something relaxing with their hands. That is what Therapeutic Woodworking™ is all about.”

There is some wonderful stuff there for anyone interested in fine woodworking. I’m pleased that they find my blog interesting enough to track!

There is also a link to a forum called Just for Luthiers - one of many forums on the Acoustic Magazine website. I started contributing to it a while ago and there can be interesting debates about guitar construction. However, it occurs to me that forums such as these and the internet in general leads to a homogeneous world of lutherie where, just because large US manufactures do something, everyone else has to follow. What many fledgling guitar makers do not take on board is that a manufacturer of guitars (or any other consumer product) will usually evolve a technique of construction that suits there manufacturing requirements and create spin around it to justify its use. Individual luthiers do not have these constraints and should be constructing instruments that reflect their creativity and ingenuity. If I want inspiration I look to past masters or original thinkers such as Andy Manson and not the major US companies.

So how long does it take to make a guitar (Cittern) Part 3?

2008-07-31T19:33:00.005+01:00

Well, I’m now up to 40 hours and you can see that soundboard, back and sides are all together.

Fixings the sides together on this shape takes a fair bit of time as there are small blocks shaped to fit inside each point and the neck block has to be exactly right to accommodate the cutaway and ensure a smooth transition from neck to body. As Ruaridh wanted to limit the use of tropical hardwoods in his instrument, you can see that the linings and blocks are all made from spruce.

The tail-block is plywood, less prone to splitting if you have a 12 mm hole for a jack socket. Fixing the sides together on this instrument probably took two hours longer than on a guitar. You can see that the purfling is now going on...

Raymond Burley

You may have heard of Ray, he is a highly acclaimed classical guitarist. If he is playing near you must go and see him. We saw him recently in concert near, Oxford and his playing is superb. He also plays with Gordon Giltrap and they have a great album out together called “Double Vision.”
If you have been following my blog for a while you may remember that a good 18 months ago I lent my friend Andy, my Classical “demonstrator” which I never got back as he bought it from me! Anyway, Andy has guitar lessons from Ray Burley and over that period of time Ray has heard it develop and played it a fair bit. So, I was absolutely delighted when Ray put a favourable comment about my work on his website.

Mandolin Jack Flat

Talking of good music, check out Mandolin Jack Flat on YouTube. He is a friend and client - I’ve done repair work on few of his instruments. He has put together some great Americana music and videos.

2008-07-15T09:42:00.016+01:00

So how long does it take to make a guitar (Cittern) Part 2?

If you saw one of my previous posts, you will know that I’m logging the time that I’m taking constructing Ruaridh’s cittern, so that I can answer the above question realistically.

Well, I’m up to 15 hours and here’s what has been done so far.
The neck blank has been worked on: laminated together, head joint made, carbon fibre reinforcement strips inserted and the slot for the adjustable truss rod done. The head overlay complete with pearl “N” has been glued on and the head shape cut out.

The sides are bent, back joined and taken down to its final thickness. The soundboard has also been joined and taken down to a bit over its final thickness and the rosette inlaid and cleaned up.

The time that I’m logging is the time that I’m hands on, doing practical work. What I’m not taking into consideration is design and development time.

This cittern being so what unorthodox has taken a fair bit of thought. The Rumsfled jig has been back in action, have a look at this if you’re interested.....

The Red Mandolin

You saw the multiple piece mandolin back in the last post. I’ve decided to use a Redwood soundboard for this one, so that all of the woods used are of a reddish hue; hence its name, the Red Mandolin.

I’ve just made up the rosette.

I mentioned a while ago our trip to Italy to visit Cremona and the Museo Stradivariano. One stunning violin, a copy of the Stradivari “Hellier” violin, by Sacconi stood out, this had pearl inlay of dots and diamonds around the outside. This motif was also used by another luthier that I greatly admire; the 19th century English guitar maker Louis Panormo. I’ve always wanted to make one of these rosettes, so this seem the right time!
Below you can see the sequence of making it, the 3mm diameter dots are bought in but all the diamonds (6 x 3 mm) I cut by hand.

Cutting 2.6mm wide strip from pearl blanks

Precautions from dust

Jig to cut angle

Careful positioning

Filling with ebony fibres and epoxy

Mandocello

The mandocello has been strung up and the tailpiece successfully tested. So it’s now being French polished. 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 waste and old well washed white T-shirts. To stop the pad sticking olive oil is used as a lubricant. As a I say as green as you can get.
If you want to know more about French polishing guitars, there is great on-line guide/tutorial by Orville and Robert Milburn.