Thingamatar Label

I had been calling an earlier guitar construction my "thingamatar". It was just a name I gave it because I didn't know what else to call it. It's a strange combination between an electric guitar and something called a Tahitian ukulele, which is not really a ukulele at all, and is more akin to a banjo made of wood.

Anyway, my friend Jeff told me recently that he liked the name of that guitar as much as he liked the guitar. So, I thought I'd adopt it as my "brand name". From now on, whatever guitars I make will be called Thingamatar, each one having its own designation. In this case, Radio Jazz Box.

Here is the label for the inside in place waiting to be glued down.



I simply printed it out on gold/brown paper and cut it out. I coated the back with glue and pressed it down in place using some wax paper to prevent mess spreading from my fingers.

 And, voila! My guitar has a label that will be visible through the lower sound hole. That Michael Gallant guy on the label? Yeah, that's me.

The top has been set temporarily in place to get a sneaky looking pic of the label, as it will appear when done.

Kerfing

Sometimes I like to try to make funny sounding title for new blog entries, but "kerfing" stands on its own.

 Well, kinda. The sides of the guitar are standing on their own in this shot, but not for long. The glue on the kerfing is drying even as I type.

 I had to run out and get more of those clamps before starting this stage. They are great clamps for this kind of job.

And, just for added security, I'm throwing in some nice pink clothespins as well. Not sure how that blue one sneaked in there. The big clamps take the brunt of the chore of holding the kerfing in place, but the clothespins add just enough extra clampitude to make it all neat and in place.







After the two remaining upper bout sides are in place I will finish the kerfing on the bottom and then glue the rest around the upper edges as well. Once that's done the back will be ready to assemble onto the top. But not before I prepare the top for the pickups, knobs and electronics.

Back to the Back

I'm down to detailing the contours of the carving around the edges, particularly on the underside. I've opened up the inside scoop quite a bit, which will make more inside space for resonance. The overall thickness of the back averages about 4mm now. There is still a tad more work to do around the contours to bring the thickness down, but it's almost there.

The outside of the back is pretty much there. I've been gradually making it smoother with progressively finer sandpaper. Although it is vaulted somewhat, the back is essentially flat near the middle. This is an unusual form to carve an archtop into. Some would probably say you can't carve it that way and expect it to sound good. We'll see what happens when it's done and I get a recording of it being played.

The Flip Side

Well, after rather a long period of time, I finally got back into things. I recently received a new tool. It's a convex spoke shave. The rounded bottom makes carving contours ever-so-nice. And the fact that it's a well made tool means that I can actually draw the thing along the surface and expect it to cut nice little curls of wood. I've only started on the outer contour of the guitar back, but already you can see the shape I'm going for.

I'll update this post with progress pictures.

March 17 - More definition, getting closer to the desired depth at the edge.

April 23 - It looks more like this.

















April 26 - no new pictures, but the carving is still being worked on. It doesn't look much different now than it did in the April 23 entry, but the over all thickness is getting very close to my goal, which is to say 4mm. When I started, the whole laminated block weighed about four pounds. Now it weighs less than a pound.

On The Level

Now the task is to make the outside of the back level before I start to carve it down to match the inside contours. I am doing this with a very old Stanley plane I found at the flea market. It needs proper sharpening, which I am working on, but I was able to get it sharp enough to bring the laminated sections down to pretty much level. The centre piece is actually the level I'm going for. I wish the others had been the same thickness but that's just the way I got them, and I don't have an electric planer.

As you can see, there are variations in the grain patterns. I actually wanted that for this guitar. Most builders go out of their way to get a consistent grain, but I'm going for a look that will evoke the feeling of an old style radio, which often made use of wood grain in a different way. As I progress with the back, I will simply add new photos to this post, as I did with the inside carving earlier.

The Inside Scoop

I actually started the guitar back some time ago. Even though I've been carving on it for days, the depth of the scoop is hardly apparent. It's actually deeper than it looks, but it's still going very slowly. This is the inside scoop... so to speak... I haven't started carving the outside contours yet, as I want the flat underside of the back in place for stability while I carve the inside.

The spoke shave I'm using is flat-bottomed, which makes the task ... tricky, to say the least. I'm able to use it somewhat here and there, but as the depth of the scoop increases the usefulness of this tool decreases. I'm looking forward to the arrival of a convex spoke shave. That should make this project go quite a bit faster. The brass round bottomed luthier planes are great, but they don't remove a lot of material at a time, and they get hard on the wrist when you use them for a while.

I decided to just update this post rather than make a new one. I've been working on that back for a few more hours, and it's getting to the point where I can actually see some progress.



As of January 27, I'm still carving. Getting into the tight little area inside the "horn" is made much easier with this awesomely tiny convex plane. The pictures don't show the depth of the carving very much at all. I'm a whole 7 mm down, believe it or not! It looks a little rough at this point, but there's still a ways to dig. I'll get more refined with my carving as I approach the depth I'm after. I can no longer use the flat bottomed spoke shave in the picture up top.



As of Jan 28.... down to 8mm depth. I figure 11mm is how far I need to go, so it's no longer as daunting as it used to feel.



January 30. As I carve this thing, I don't really see the progress. It's only after I take a photo and compare it to the previous photo do I see the changes. I admit I took advantage of some helpful lighting from the window across the room; the carved area is actually somewhat exaggerated in this pic due to the shallow angle of the sun, but wow! what a difference between this and the one up top of this post. I'm down to just touching 10mm depth. As mentioned before, I'm headed for 11mm. So close I can almost taste it... wait, that's wood shavings in my mouth. Darn things get everywhere! A little more digging inside then I can clean it up and start the outside carving.