My hope is that this will be an interesting and educational page for all.
Lets begin with David Nichols and his work shop (Pictured to your right). In this workshop some of the finest guitars in the world have been made, repaired or blessed with David's gifted inlay creations. David offers classes from time to time in the making of instruments as well as inlay. Recently I attended the inlay course at David's and this April I will be going in for a guitar building class. Let's be sure to note that I am not the best at artistic type endeavors (in fact if possible I was gifted with 10 thumbs) however David is a very patient fellow and I was able to complete my first inlays and Guitar. I will also follow it up with step by stem inlay instructions.
(Click on anything blue for the an associated picture.)
If you would like to see the end product of my first classes click FRONT BACK. I am very proud of this guitar however you can judge from this picture just how much further you wish to go in this page. Please remember I have never before attempted to do anything like this.
Here is number 2 This is for me. FRONT BACK
Here is number 3 This is for me. FRONT BACK
Prepared Bridge and Fingerboard
When building a guitar you can start the project is several places. We will start with the sides. Once you have the wood in front of you all you see is a couple of flat strips for the sides and a top and bottom. (Note: not always is everything all set up for you. In many cases you need to build a back and top then cut the sound hole and such. In this case much of that was already done for us. We able to select a back and a top and sides and work from there. In the beginning you have 2 strips of wood about 3' long and 5 " wide. Generally speaking this wood is very hard and flat. We are going to need to bend / shape the wood in order to give your shop the correct shape. For bending the wood we use a form in the shape we wish to create. We place the wood on the form dampen the wood and cover it with a heating blanket. (not the type you would find on the bed. This is designed to heat the wood evenly without burning it.) As the wood becomes more pliable we begin to lock it down in the form. Once completely locked down we turn down the heat and let the wood cool and dry the excess moisture. Now that your sides are bent your ready to move on.
In order to be sure that we allow for the proper alignment of the bridge in the final steps we need to plan ahead now. David indicates from the start that we will not be seeing a lot of very fancy stuff here just good common sense and simple techniques. Yes it is very helpful to have a well equipped shop however you would be very surprised what can be done on a budget. First we find the center line of the top. Then we aligned the fingerboard with the edge of the top at the 14th fret (where the neck attaches to the body) We then measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret and added 1/8 of an inch. Then we use that measurement from the 12th fret to the bridge where the middle of the saddle goes. for a double check of your measurement the middle of the saddle should be 25.525" from the center of the bridge. As we are measuring on the back of the top wood, this gives us the placement of the bridge reinforcing plate. Everything in the making of the guitar adds or detracts form the tone and volume of the instrument to say the least. The final placement of the bridge seems to be one of the most critical parts of the puzzle. the placement should be as close to exactly 2 octaves from the nut to the saddle on the bridge. The placing of the reinforcement brace also gives us the start of the "X" bracing for our guitars top. The top is generally made of a softer wood than the rest of the body of the guitar. Once the strings are on the guitar the will also place more pressure on the top. We need to assure the top wood is properly supported for the stress it will take and to assure we have no splits or cracks in the future. This must be balanced with the desire to minimize the amount of bracing so we allow the top to resonate.
We measure the x-braces for the top (face) and the cross braces. We sanded down the edges of the cross braces so that there was a peak in the middle of the brace. We attached the x-brace so that it would cross the back corners of the bridge plate. The tone bars run parallel to the X bracing. We place bracing at the neck end of the top to reinforce for the stress of the neck on the top. We carefully plan for the neck block spacing. This will be important when we attach the top to the sides. We glue the bracing and tape the pieces in place so we can clamp them all at the same time. We clamp the glued bracing in place using a vacuum clamp. We must be very careful to assure we do not move any of the pieces as we place the top in the vacuum bag. We also watch for movement as we add pressure to the clamp.
We need to trim the sides in preparation of joining them. We do this to create a FNP ( very near perfect) joint when we put the ends together. attached the sides with and end block and neck block and glue the pieces together.
Once the sides are glued together we keep the sides in a mold to maintain the shape. We attached the kerf lining to the edges of the top and the back. We want to make sure that the seams (when more than one piece of kerf is used) are away from the sound hole so that they can not be seen We attached thin rosewood braces to the sides to prevent splitting and sanded the edges of these so they would look nicer. If your making the guitar out of another wood you may wish to use strips of that wood to match.
We now begin to prepare the back. Generally the back is 2 or 3 pieces. Sometime it is one but this is rare. The 2 piece and 3 piece back are joined and generally have a small binding in the joint. although this is very strong we still need to brace it. We attached bracing along the seams (mine was a three piece back) and then four cross braces running perpendicular. We sanded these down to get rid of sharp edges. We then glue and use the vacuum clamp once again for clamping the whole back at once. Once the clamping has been completed we must remember that if we look through the sound hole we can clearly see much of the back so we want to remove all the excess glue.
Top: We cut off the braces so that the ends of the x-braces were the proper length the notch under the kerf. Optional: fit the tone bars at the end also under the kerf.
We shaved the braces of the top and attached it to the sides making sure there were no gaps. We had to make sure that we didn't clamp too hard on the sides but clamped heavily on the ends (with the support of the end block and neck block).
We attached the back in the same way. We cut off the extra back and top to get close enough to the sides. We removed the excess glue. Keep in mind you can see much of the back through the sound hole.
Now that the top and back are attached, it is time to route for the binding. In this class most of us are not binding the guitars so that they can be completed in a week. You will still have a very beautiful guitar if you do not bind it however I wanted a bit more in the way of looks and also wanted to have a high gloss finish so I will be taking a bit extra time. In order to bind the edges you need to first route the edge to the proper dimensions. What is right will depend on the binding style. For mine I will only bind the top and it will be Tortoise outside then white-black-pearl-black-white. Initially for the pearl we use a strip of Teflon that we can pull out later. We can measure the depth of the cut based on the combined with of the bindings. Take small cuts and then test wit a strip of bindings to see where you are. Please be very careful as the your tolerance for error is minimal at this point.
Sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, and more sanding. We used separate paper (220) for the sides/backs than for the top to prevent rosewood sawdust from bleeding into the spruce. We sanded until all of the cross scratches came out. After sanding (always along the grain) we would wet the back and sides in order to raise the grain and then we would sand again. (it is very important to let the wood dry thoroughly to prevent pulling up the grain during sanding) Let me say this again (it is very important to let the wood dry thoroughly to prevent pulling up the grain during sanding) If you pull up the grain at this point you can ruin your work. Yes you can fix it to a point where others will not see it but you know it there and I can tell you first hand it hurts. Final passes were with 320 paper. Once the sanding is completed on the back and sides it is time to put the filler on. The filler will smooth out much of the deep grain prior to the application of the sealer. Once you lightly apply the filler you rub off as much as you can and then sand one more until you get the shade of wood you wish. After sanding we apply the a seal coat vinyl sealer. Once the seal has dried we start the application of several coats of finish lightly sanding between coats. Once you have the final coats of finish sand to smooth the finish with 800 grit. then Wet sand with 600 then 1000 then 1500 (All wet). Now you are ready to buff to a fine high gloss finish.
Well let's not forget we have a neck to complete as well. The first thing we need to do is glue our head stock onto the neck. Next we need glue the fret board to the neck. Once the fret board is attached we can then bind the neck around the fret board. Now we prepare the fret board for fretting. The first thing we do is assure the slots are sized correctly and any inlay has been cut through using a Dremmel tool. Next we fill the slots with fine sawdust. Once the slots are filled use any car paste was and wax the fret board. Once the wax dries clean the sawdust out of the fret slots. This procedure will allow for the epoxy to stick in the fret slots and still be easily removed from the fret board. Now epoxy 2 to 3 slots and lightly hammer in the frets. Clamp the glued frets in place and repeat the process until complete. Next we can drill the holes for the tuners. Assure you use the proper drill bit for the selected tuners. Now that you have finished you can begin the sanding. That's right the neck must be sanded as well. When this is completed tape the fingerboard to protect it and begin the spraying of finish. When the neck is finished you may install the tuners.
Now we cut a hole in the body to attach the neck which is bolted and glued after it is properly fit using a mortise and tenon joint. The bridge is attached and glued and temporary bolts were used along with clamps to hold the bridge while the glue dried.
Rick had a pickup put on his so a bigger whole was drilled for the endpin jack. A saddle was placed in the bridge (the pickup transducer was placed under it) and a nut was cut to size and glued in. Slots for the strings were filed on the nut. Strings were attached and music magically came out.
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