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The Spaceship – The voyage continues
Mar 2nd
The mission: To boldly go where no Jazz Guitar has ever gone before…
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- Ready to assemble the body
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- Inside the sides
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- The back is glued first
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- Gluing the neck laminates
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- The inside of the body is sprayed
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- Neck blank in foreground and body ready for top gluing
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- The top ready for gluing to the sides
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- Secret message
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- While the top was drying I marked out the neck
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- The body is now complete
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- First I route the truss rod slot
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- …then I cut the headstock angle
Captains Log
Star Date: 22712.5
It seems so long ago when this journey began… like the dawn of time. As if nothing ever existed before we embarked on this unearthly path. None of the brave pioneers who originally set out on this mission could have foresorn the possibilty of any of the events to befall us. Those of us that survived have formed a new society, one based on baked beans and sausages, and now, well over half way through the assignment and still accelerating towards our distant goal, things are again running smoothly in this intergalactic class starship we have come to call Bailey World.
When the aliens left it took some considerable time to clear up the mess, but having two large anuses 18″ apart cannot be easy, especially with the plumbing we have around here, designed essentially as it is, for humans only. Seargeant Davies’ attempt to rig up a dual funnel type device and try to catch some of the foul effluent had been fruitless as the phenomenal pressure these creatures produce proved too much for even her technical aboundments.
Meanwhile, as things have been a bit calmer, I have had some time to concentrate on the contruction of our latest specialised ’Jazz Class’ Spaceship, meticulously and painstakingly installing the additional ‘….nice’ and a little extra ’….cool’ just to be doubly sure.
This is Steve’s Arcthtop jazz guitar I have been making for some time. As you can see work has progressed somewhat since the last update. The top and back have been glued onto the sides so the body is complete. The truss rod slot is cut and the headstock angle is cut. My next job is to rough out the neck and then cut the dovetail to fit the neck to the body.
…All systems are go…
Update:
Further studies have revealed that the fetid odour was imbued with a substance of hallucinagenic properties. I am not an intergalactic starship commander but a lowly earthbound guitarmaker, and Carol is angry.
…back to work…
Bailey custom acoustic guitar- Ziricote and Bearclaw Bootlegger-P5
Jul 14th
Assembling the body
Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
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- Scalloped bracing
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- A closer look at the bracing
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- The heel block is glued to the soundboard
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- Fitting the sides
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- Gluing the sides on
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- Centre seam reinforcement diamonds
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- Gluing the final kerfed lining strips
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- Gluing the brace end reinforcement
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- Brace end reinforcement
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- Carving the back braces
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- Notches for the back braces
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- Ready to fit the back
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- Ready for the back
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- The back is ‘roped’
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- The body is now complete
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- The body is ready for binding
The courses are finished for a few weeks so It is time to carry on with this custom Bootlegger I am making for Euan. Before the last course I managed to get all the parts for the body made, so to complete it all I had to do was finish carving the braces and then glue it all together. Now the ‘box’ is complete it needs binding and then I can continue working on the neck. I am still waiting to hear whether Euan has decided to go for a gloss finish or not…but there is still plenty of time for him to make up his mind…It will be a couple of weeks before I get as far as thinking about applying the finish…
Bailey custom acoustic from 40,000 year old Kauri-p3
May 11th
Working on the neck
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- The body with its ancient kauri soundboard is pretty much finished, now its time to concentrate on the neck
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- The headstock is clamped to the bench while the neck is hand carved
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- I carve the main part of the neck first, the heel and blend into the headstock will be tidied up later
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- A wider shot of the work bench with neck carving tools laid out
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- Carving the heel with a chisel
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- The neck is rough carved, it will be sanded later
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- The neck is mounted onto the body
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- Rear view of the neck mounted to the body
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- The guitar is strapped into the string tension simulator for levelling the fretboard
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- The offset position marker dots are marked out and 3mm holes are drilled for the inlays
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- Mother of pearl 3mm dots glued in then sanded flush. The neck is then removed for fretting
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- The frets are pre-bent and cut slightly longer than needed
After the neck was carved, I strapped it into the string tension simulator. This simply holds the guitar firm while pushing up on the back of the headstock and pulling down over the nut area. The amount of pressure is adjustable, which enables me to ‘dial in’ the stresses on the neck as if the strings were on and tuned to pitch. This greatly improves accuracy and removes any guess work from the equation. With the fretboard level the neck was removed for fretting to avoid damaging the ancient kauri soundboard.
Well it is starting to look like a guitar…I still need to put the frets and the side dots. I will also glue on a rosewood heel cap, made using an off-cut from the back. It needs the obligatory Bailey logo, then the neck can be sanded and the guitar will be ready for a finish.
Bailey custom acoustic from 40,000 year old Kauri-p2
May 5th
Making a new custom guitar from the oldest workable wood in the world!
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- The Ancient Kauri soundboard
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- Rosewood was used for the back and sides
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- The tail piece end graft was fitted last time
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- The binding channel is cut, a chisel cleans up the furry edge
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- An angle is cut onto the end of the strip to be fitted
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- The end graft sticks up slightly…
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- A chisel cuts a mitre into the black white black binding strips
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- an angle is cut onto the end of the strip to be fitted
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- making a perfect join in the BWB
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- The body is now ready for the binding to be glued on
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- Clear sticky tape holds the binding in place while the glue dries
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- The fillet is glued over the truss rod to hold it in place and wings are glued on to make the headstock wide enough
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- The extra pieces are planed level to the face of the headstock
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- The headstock is marked out with a pencil
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- The neck is now ready for the fretboard to be glued
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- The fretboard is glued on and left to dry
Sandy was kind enough to provide a link to this web page for more info about ancient Kauri. It is really amazing to be using the oldest workable wood in the world. To think that this tree was alive so long ago- before human civilisation really began…it is fascinating.
But I have always had a fascination with wood and would also like to think that I have a natural affinity for it which I try to apply to my instrument making. Making guitars by hand gives me time to get to know each piece individually and intimately as I am striving to get the very best out of every part of the instrument.
A Confession:
I always smell a piece of wood before I use it…I guess there is a word for people like me. (Yes I just googled….its xylophile: one who loves wood.)
When I was young I heard about old craftsman folk who can identify any wood species by smell alone…I wouldn’t say I was that good but I can certainly recognise a few and understand how it could be true as each species releases its own distinctive aroma while it is being worked. My all time favourite is antique Brazilian rosewood which is just gorgeous…like cherries and chocolate. Indian rosewood is similar but not as nice. Walnut and cedar are particularly distinctive.
The Ancient Kauri smells kind of like cedar to me but I must admit the first time I smelled it, I thought I caught faint whiff of abalone which also comes from New Zealand, so that would make sense. Is that what NZ smells like?
I should say here that sniffing wood is not good for you generally- some woods are carcinogenic (will give you cancer) and a dust mask should be worn at all times when working with any material that creates dust.
No harm in a quick sniff though….
As far as workability of the wood goes…no problems there. Works just as well as any other wood I would use for the soundboard.
It produces a strong powerful tap tone now the body is together…we’ll have to wait and see what it sounds like with the strings on…
Highland Hot Club visit to check progress on The Spaceship
May 4th
Steve wants his guitar to light up like a 50′s UFO!
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- The sides are bent around the hot iron then clamped into a mould
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- Both sides are done
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- Gluing the tail block into place- the heel block is aready done
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- The kerfed lining is cut to size
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- Lots of small clamps are used to glue on the kerfed lining
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- Cutting the kerfed lining- each set of four is the same length
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- After each set of kerfed lining is glued a side reinforcement piece is added
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- The lining is pre-bent before gluing the tight curves
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- Steve inpecting the work in progress
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- As usual I couldn’t resist laying out all the bits while Steve worked on his drawing
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- The finished art deco headstock design
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- These pieces will be laminated to make the neck
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- Steve designing his finger rest
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- The finished drawing- click for larger image to see more clearly
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- Checking the tuners fit ok on the headstock
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- Close up of the finger rest design
Steve and Evelyn from the Highland Hot Club came down from Inverness at the weekend for a blistering series of gigs and dropped by to see how the Spaceship was getting on. Me and Steve spent the Sunday afternoon in the workshop where we did a bit of work on the drawing to fill in a few of the missing details like the finger-rest, tail-piece and headstock. The black parts of the art deco style designs will be ebony and the rest blue azurite which should look amazing.
During the conversation he casually murmured something about blue LED’s inside the guitar. He has a microphone which lights up blue, so he wants the guitar to match! Shouldn’t be a problem but I’ll have to look into that…I know blue LED’s have been hard to get in the past but I checked and they seem to be readily available nowadays. I will probably mount the watch batteries and a on/off micro-switch for this under the finger-rest. Not sure how I’ll mount the LED’s inside but I’ll work something out…
While he was here Steve showed me some of the three note chords he uses in the ‘Hot Club’ style…I learned that Am6 is also D7, D9 and F#dim and Adim and Cdim…Amazing… 6 chords in three notes…Now I am really confused!
