The Neck Block - Mortise

The neck block is essentially just a mortise that is fixed into the correct position inside the top end of the guitar (at least in the style of neck-fitting I'm going for with this build). Some would say that the best mortise is one that has been cut from a single block of wood, taking the laborious time to chew - er, I mean gently carve - the notch by hand. Well, I'd like to do that, but my tools are limited. I chose to construct the block out of sections. This had the advantage of giving me the opportunity to ensure that the side pieces of the mortise were exactly where they needed to be to accept the tenon perfectly.

Didn't get pics, but I cut the side pieces first and clamped them tightly against the sides of the tenon. I then glued the end piece onto the sides, to create the semi-box shape. After that dried, I removed it from the tenon and glued the bottom piece on. The bottom is maple, the same maple the back will be made from.

Test fitting is always a good idea. I used small clamps to hold the mortise directly under the slot I cut for the neck join on the guitar top. The neck slid down nicely into place, and when I checked for alignment I saw that the neck was directly in line with the centre line of the guitar. Yay me!! The only issue was the angle of the neck in relation to the plane view, which is ever-so-slightly off. This isn't really an issue, however, as I have to carve down the receptacle for the neck overhang anyway. I will just keep in mind that I have to fine-tune the level on either side of the mortise and tenon.

But, hey!, it's starting to look like a guitar!

Neck Block Fitting

The tenon and heel on the neck had yet to be cut at the correct height and angle. As mentioned before, I'm going for a 3.5 degree angle for the neck. I achieved this by making a very simple jig. All I did was glue a piece of wood edgewise onto another piece of wood at 3.5 degrees (lengthwise - the wood had to be perpendicular to the base) to the straight edge. With the fingerboard held firmly against the 3.5 degree board, I ran it through the table saw, after I determined the width of the tenon and heel (based on how thick the guitar will be, etc).

The image isn't plainly obvious - the piece of wood in the upper left of the top photo is the 3.5 degree angle against which the fingerboard was held. What you can't see is the edge of the base that was straight against the table saw fence. Anyway, you can see in the second photo the result, as the tenon and heel are now the correct depth and angle (though the photo seems to exaggerate the 3.5 degrees somewhat. Dang parallax!).

Oh, in case you're wondering, the grey blob on the neck is where I used epoxy to blend the curve of the added overhang with the sides of the neck at the join. It will be painted black, so this will not be visible... nor will the scorch marks from cutting the wood be visible.

Preparing The Neck Join

Wow, three posts in one day - I didn't actually do all this stuff today, I just got around to posting about it.

In this photo you can see the notch I cut in the guitar top for the mortise, and you can see the pencil line around that which indicates where the fingerboard overhang will extend to. There is a little extra wood still on the top at the outer edge of the neck join area (where the cutaway is). That will be gone when it's trimmed to fit the side walls after they're done.

Anyway, the long tenon on the heel of the neck will need to fit into a long mortise in the neck block, which means I need to access the mortise via the top of the guitar (not all mortise and tenon joins are done this way on guitars, but archtops often are - many acoustics are built with a very shallow mortise and tenon, only accessed from the wall behind the neck join).
The neck will sit at a 3.5 degree angle from the body of the guitar. It will also have to be set slightly down into the top so that only a portion of the overhang and fingerboard will be higher than the guitar top at the 14th fret (the 14th fret is where the neck will meet the body). The reason for this position is to allow for proper string clearance with a 1" bridge. My plan is to make the neck block square-cornered, but carve down the guitar top area that will sit under the finger board overhang (the area within the pencil lines), at an angle, until the desired depth and neck angle are achieved.

Strutting My Stuff

Yeah, yeah, I know. My puns are a little lame, and more than a little silly, but I have a seven-year-old daughter, so silly puns are part of my daily communication skills.

So... I carved and glued the struts in the guitar top. Sorry I missed getting pics of the process. Essentially, all I did was to take two strips of spruce (the same spruce I used for the top) and orient them so they were also quarter sawn (the grain edges going up and down, rather than side to side). I used a pencil to follow the curve of the inside of the guitar top on the struts, with them positioned where I wanted them, and then cut them on the band saw.
Using a variety of tools - from tiny planes to sandpaper to an X-Acto knife - I gradually refined the bottom curves until they fit perfectly along the contour of the carved surface. They are spaced so that the outer edges of the struts match where the outer edges of the neck and tail blocks will be.
They are now glued in place. I will do the final shaping with my tiny luthier planes, as you can see they don't quite match exactly, particularly at the bottom end.

Head Stock Re-facing

I re-faced the head stock on the neck. You can see below (meaning, the previous post) that it had been a rather unattractive brown mess (it was originally painted black, but I sanded it off hoping it would look nice underneath... no luck). The new face is a thin veneer of curly maple (1/42" thick). This will be same veneer I use on the sides of guitar body.

I started by cutting a piece just slightly larger than the head stock and glued it on, using a flat block of wood and some clamps to ensure that it was pressed tight and flat against the face. After the glue dried I just trimmed the excess wood with an X-Acto knife and sanded it smooth around the edges.
Next came the holes for the tuning gears. I carefully drilled through the existing holes from behind and trimmed out the excess, again with the X-Acto. I then used a cone-shaped grinder from my Dremel kit and cleaned up the circles by hand (no power needed here, one might slip and make a huge mess). And viola! nice round tuning gear holes in the veneer to match the ones that were there to begin with. This is much easier and much more accurate than trying to cut the exact shape and the holes before gluing it up. The only issue that MIGHT be a problem is if you mess up your veneer while working on it, it's already glued on. I guess that's why they tell you to be careful.
The truss rod access notch needs a tad more cleaning up. I'm not too worried about the edges of the veneer beneath showing through, as this area will be hidden by the truss rod cover, which will be made of ebony.

Neck compromise.

Well, for a number of reasons, the neck I'm building is ending up going slower than I had hoped, so I decided I would use a pre-made neck. It was rescued from an acoustic, and I modified the bottom end to have the overhang. I didn't get much in way of pictures, but essentially what I did was remove the old fingerboard from the existing neck (very careful prying - very anxious was I), and take out the truss rod. It had been oriented with the adjustment at the bottom end, so you could work with it from the sound hole on the acoustic. In my case, I want the adjustment at the top end, to be hidden under a truss rod cover. Obviously, my guitar won't have a convenient sound hole down at the bottom end of the board.

I had to extend the cut for the truss rod out beyond the nut region. I looks a bit of a mess right now, but that will clean up and get repainted. After some effort to ensure that the gluing surface was flat and true, I got my courage up and splashed on the glue. In this case, I didn't use the waterproof Titebond I had been using for other parts, mainly because it's quite possible the fingerboard will need to be removed at some point or other.

I wanted the head stock to be "my own", so I re-cut the top end into a new shape. It isn't the shape I originally designed, because it wasn't wide enough.

Quick Update

Life is getting in the way of having this project done in a reasonable amount of time - working out of town a lot, and various other factors, are limiting what I can get done on the guitar. I don't want to rush it either, as this will almost certainly lead to an unusable instrument. In the interest of moving things along a little faster I am considering using an existing guitar neck I have on hand. Although it isn't from an archtop, I can easily modify it to do the job. The best part is that it has its own truss rod that I can reuse, and the channel is already there. All I need to do really is add the extension for the overhang at the bottom end, and put my own fingerboard on.

The neck I have started will be made good use of for another project. If this guitar works out I plan to make another like it.

Sound Holes Written in .... Spruce.

I often say to myself, "it ain't gonna get done just by me lookin' at it all day", so I went ahead and decided I was happy with the position of the sound holes and cut 'em out.

After carefully and gently clamping the top down, I started by drilling a few pilot holes, and then I used a small keyhole saw to cut them. No high-tech stuff here, just old-fashioned hand/eye coordination. I used a template to make sure the holes were symmetrically placed, that's about as technical as I got. I used an x-acto blade to refine the cut, and sanded them smooth. They just need a little more cleaning up and they'll be good to go. Since I'm going for the look of an old radio design I have decided not to put binding on the inside edges of the holes.

Voila, I now have enough room at the back end to place the buttons - no more pesky stuff in the way of strumming problem.

Button Problem Solved.

Well, I played with a whole bunch of ideas for new sound holes, most of them involving completely new designs. In the end, all I did was make them a little smaller, flip them end for end, and move them forward. The first pic is my original design; the problem with the sound holes is they don't allow for the best placement of the vol/tone buttons. I cut two sound hole shapes out of card stock to play with placement and size. After making the changes to the size and position of the holes, there is now plenty of room for the buttons, and I think I have managed to maintain the cathedral radio influence I was going for.

Pesky buttons.

I designed this guitar with the sound/tone buttons for both pickups all in a curved line along one edge, like this (let's call this image A):

















But I am starting to wonder if it isn't too crowded looking down there. So, I took some pictures of different arrangements.

There's this one (B):
















And (C):
















Then (D):
[I have no idea why this and the next pic turned sideways]







And finally (E):

Shaping the neck.

I put the oak face on the head stock before doing the cut out work, as I wanted to be certain of exactly where the forward-most surface of the head would be as I shape the neck.
The shaping is the part I've been dreading most, and I still have more work to do, so the nail-biting isn't over yet. I actually got a fair bit done on the basic shaping today. I have the taper toward the head end cut, which I did with the use of a simple jig I made in about two minutes. It's just a piece of wood that I attached the neck onto, face down (through a couple tiny holes in spots that would either be lost to trimming or easily filled and hidden). The neck was fixed at the correct angle along the length of the board so that when it was put through the table saw it cut the taper (second picture). The fence has been moved in the photo, but all I did was set it up at the correct width on either side, one at a time, and carefully pushed it until it reached the desired stopping point. The excess was trimmed away carefully and gradually with the saw blade set very low, nibbling into the curved sides toward the head stock. I stopped the long cuts short of the head because the cut needs to curve outward there.
The curve at the heel was rough cut on the table saw as well. This will also need to be refined with other cutting tools, but it's better than having to start going it with all that wood down there.
The thickness of the head has been trimmed down on the table saw as well (no pics of that here, but I have some I can post later).
The final picture shows the profile of the rough neck and the oak head stock face before I glued it on.
Next post I will talk about the angle of the neck, and the particulars of the neck block I ended up making (out of oak).

Carving the spruce top.

I never ended up getting spruce billet for the top. Instead, I decided to just go with some lumber and re-saw it so it was quartersawn*. I had to laminate a lot of strips together to get the width (narrow boards), but I read somewhere that this may not affect the tone as much as some might believe - I guess we won't know 'til it's done. I'm not interested in getting the perfectly clear look with no "imperfections" that many luthiers favour. I much prefer the "real wood" look that comes from grain streaks and knot shadows.
At any rate, the top picture is carving in progress. Notice the cool little brass plane. This has a rounded bottom to allow for scooping out contours like those around the edges, and inside.
Further along, you can see in the second picture how I've refined the curves and made it a more gradual incline toward the centre.
The inside is currently being refined to match the outer contours I have settled on.
*For those who are wondering what "quartersawn" is - this effectively refers to the direction the grain is going. In a softwood guitar top, you want the grain to be oriented up and down (as you look at the end of the wood), rather than side to side. This makes for a stronger and more stable top than if cut the other way. This is why you almost always see a tight, narrow grain running end to end on a guitar top. Almost all lumber is cut flatsawn, which is simply cutting the log into slabs. The slabs from near the centre may be effectively quartersawn on the outer extremes because of how the grain is running, but most of it runs laterally, or close to it.

Spruce Top, Under Way

I've only just gotten the spruce ready to be shaped for the top. Nothing to show yet, really. As it progresses I'll get pics and talk about it. I'll start off by saying there are a number more seams than I had hoped, but I read somewhere that somebody made a guitar with 10 seams in the front and he claims it didn't affect the sound. Let's just put that to the test.

Up To The Neck

Remember when I said in my introduction that I was going to jump right in up to the neck with this project? Well, I'm up to the neck now... the guitar neck, that is.

It's only rough cut for now, although I have to say I'm pleased with the job my table saw did on it. The upper face (where the fingerboard will be glued) is quite flat and even, only needing a little work to get it perfect. The pencil line down the middle is where I will be routing for the truss rod - after I cut the head stock and glue up the scarf joint.

The neck itself is hard maple, but the added pieces at the top end are oak. Remember when I said I sometimes change my plans in mid stride? Well, that's what happened here. After it's fully cut and shaped there will not be much oak left on the outer edges, just enough to give it a bit of a wood grain/colour flair on the outer contour of the head.

Bottom pic is just lookin' down the surface of the fingerboard face after I ran it through the table saw.

Still workin' on that tailpiece

The bottom is carved out now. All that needs doing is to have the holes drilled for the strings. I'm gonna get a pro to do that for me, as my tools are not quite as accurate as I would like them to be. The spacing for the strings at the tail will be 1cm apart. The bar of wood left at the bottom is where the holes for the mounting "gut" will be drilled.

A couple of the things I've been tweaking are the tailpiece and the fingerboard. The tailpiece needs the underside carved out - looks a mess now, but it'll be all spiffy when I'm done. I want it hollowed to decrease the weight of the unit, as well as to provide a way to drill for the chord that will mount it on the endpin. You can see the portion I have left uncut; this will be the part through which the holes will be drilled for the mounting chord.

The fingerboard was not cut evenly, so one side was wider from the centerline toward the bottom end. The lines on the paper were used to line up everything in relation to the fret slots and centerline of the board. I had to angle in 3mm off that side toward the bottom end. The cut isn't perfect, but I'll be routing the edge later for binding, after its on the neck.

Although I haven't posted in a few days, I've been working on the project in some sense. Mostly, I've been doing stuff like making some purchases of supplies, and tweeking some of the items I've made or am making so far. So, although some progress is being made, it's not much to blog about. Hopefully I will soon be adding more interesting stuff.

Fretboard

The fretboard is ebony. I got this one with the slots cut in, I just had to trim it down the size I want. I got brave and did that on the table saw. Got a few minor chips around the edges here and there, but I'll be routing it down for the binding later, so it won't matter. In the first photo here, I'm preparing to cut the excess board off the end. I decided to do this with a metal guide and a narrow saw blade. It worked quite well, especially since I took my time to make nice gentle strokes along the edge of the guide. The tape is just there to help protect the surface of the ebony. I can use the extra portion for something else.
I want to cut one more fret slot in the board, as this one only has 21, and I'm looking for 22. I thought I had a bit that would be the right width to cut a new slot, but it turns out it's a shade too wide (tried it on the leftover piece of ebony first). Guess I'll have to get a proper fret saw for this job.
On the other hand, I discovered that the (thingama) jig I made earlier is actually quite useful. Think I'll keep it around for other jobs.

Tailpiece

The archtop guitar has a tailpiece like those you would see on a violin, or cello. Many archtop tailpieces are made of metal, but some are made of wood, particularly ebony. Mine will be made of maple. I'm a re-use, recycle kinda guy. We had an old coffee table that was pretty beat up, but it was made of maple, and the legs were flat rather than round, being cut in an elongated triangle shape. I traced around a metal tailpiece that I have laying around and used it as a template for the one I was going to make (with a few modifications to the design of course). The dark line along the front edge will be a raised ebony purfling on which the strings will rest.

Then came the carving. Maple is pretty hard. This took a few hours of work to get to this shape. Still needs some refining, but getting there. Next, I have to cut the channel for the ebony purfling. This required a bit of a (thingama) jig contraption I slapped together from scrap wood.

Here's the (thingama) jig. Yeah, the base kind looks vaguely guitar-like. That's because it was some leftover stuff from when I cut the mold for the sides of the guitar. Anyway, I have this cool rig for my Dremel. It works like a drill press, but it also allows the tool to be rotated at different angles. So I put it horizontally and built up a wooden guide to accurately slide the end the tailpiece along under the side-cutting bit. The result was a nice straight cut.

The sliver of ebony, which is not completely cut to size in this pic, was from an old piano I took the keyboard out of (replaced it with an electronic one). The piano is roughly 100 yrs old. I'll probably also use some of the same ebony for the nut on this instrument.

Just a bit of sanding and fine-tuning and the sliver of ebony fits like a glove into the slot.

I'll be posting with more on the tailpiece as I get into working the underside to accept the gut chord (for mounting onto the guitar), and drilling for string holes, putting fermata inlay on the "bulb", and final finish work.

Neck Block Quandary

I have a bit of wood on hand that I laminated up and cut into a tentative neck block, however I'm not convinced I'm going to use it. I thought at first it was oak, but on closer inspection I think it's actually virola. Never seen anyone use virola in an instrument, but it's a fairly nice wood. Research reveals that it is quite nice to work with, being easily glued, and working well for mortise and tenon type joins... which is exactly what I plan to do to attach the neck to the body. If anyone who reads this happens to know anything - good or bad - about virola with regard to use in an acoustic guitar, feel free to post a comment. In the meantime, I will seriously consider just getting some basswood from a shop up the hill from me. Basswood seems to be a common choice for neck blocks, so I guess it would be a good one.

However, regardless of the whatkindawoodisitandshouldIuseit? quandary, something I wanted to say about it was with regard to the grain orientation. I've been reading that the best way to orient the grain is horizontally. This is for stability, as the grain of the sides of the instrument will also be horizontal, meaning that expansion/contraction should not lead to splitting seams open.

Pre-Construction Design

Pick Up Ring

The pick up ring is really just a housing in which the pick up sits, holding it at the correct hight and angle in relation to the strings. I had been looking for some ready made ones, but then I realized I could make my own. Better yet, I could address the question I had in the first post; where else can I use oak? The pink paper is just template of what I'm going for. I wanted something that reflected the shape of the framing around the tuner dial on the old cathedral style radios.


The trick will be to get the angles and curves just right to make it fit on the guitar top properly. The one in the picture is oriented as though at the neck position. The one at the bridge would be inverted. This is because I want flush, close fittings near the edges of the neck and bridge.

Pre-Construction

The Mold - Part Two

Well, the mold is pretty much done now. I gave it a shot of paint on the inner edge so I could more easily see if there are any problems, and to help seal the surface of the MDF.

It looks quite narrow, and it is. The reason for this is I'm going for a slim body, and the sides will only be 1.5" (38mm) high.

The next step will be to devise an effective way to clamp the veneer in place when laminating. At this point I'm thinking what I will do is cut holes in the MDF along the contour of the side wall shape so I can arrange the clamps horizontally around the shape. We'll see what happens as I get further along. Sometimes I change ideas right in mid-thought.

Pre-Construction Work

As tempting as it is with all my projects to just dive in and start making the thing, I have learned that the right amount of prep work can make life so much nicer when it comes time to actually start making it.


The Mold - Part One

The finished shape of the guitar will be greatly dependant on the shape of the sides. This feature must be considered in three dimensions in order to obtain the finished result desired. First, the shape of the body, as you look at the face, will be determined by the shape of the hole made in the mold. The mold (seen below, rough cut) is what will give shape to the sides as the maple veneer is laminated up against the inner edges. The surface against which the first layer of veneer meets the mold will be the shape of outer edge of the guitar when done. The first of the three smaller images on the right is the process of turning the two halves into a frame that can be put together and dismantled. I've glued the support struts to one side, and will use screws to attach it to the other side, making sure that the mold lines up correctly.

























The two images that are heavy on green show how I used a card stock template to check the shape of the mold. Pretty good, really, but for one area that just happens to be crucial to the construction - the area where the neck meets the body. As you can see, I had to shave a few milimeters off here and there.

Now, the vertical aspect of the cut must be square. If it isn't I'll end up with a wonky jazzbox. I'm using glazing and spot putty to get a perfectly smooth edge. Most guitar builders probably don't do this, but it's a method I've used a lot to get my sculptures surfaced just right, so I like to use it. The bottom image shows the use of a compound square to check the angles. Every spot I see that is off - such as the one you see below - I work at it until it's perfect.