New guy

[Haole Joe]

Aloha! This is a cool forum and I'm stoked I found it. I'm trying to get started on my first acoustic kit but hit a bit of a mental road block.

During Covid I bought some cheap electric guitar kits. I found that I really enjoyed the work (I was a finish/cabinetry carpenter in a past life) but ultimately lost interest in "polishing turds" as wood quality was pretty poor, the necks were narrow, the body shapes a little off, etc. So then I bought a rosewood "Martin Kit" based on looks, but learned before building it that I don't like the sound of rosewood guitars! So next I bought some inexpensive "sawmill specials" of mahogany and walnut and a bending iron. But now I'm stuck over-thinking the thicknessing and jointing (tools and methods, etc.)

I have a small shared craft room and will do messy jobs outside, so tools have to be small and/or portable. I've been devising all these plans to use a drill press/safe-t-plane, router/sled/table, etc but I don't think those are the right process or approach. One idea that's been resonating is using a flat stone with a home-built adjustable height sanding bar to do the thicknessing, and jointing with a sanding shooting board. Maybe if I join the boards before sanding the edges will be clean enough?

I know traditionally this was all done with hand planes, and I'll consider thicknessing with a hand plane, but I want to put off the plane-jointing learning curve for later.

Anyway, thanks for reading and any advice/motivation. I'm looking forward to things finally moving along.

[Haole Joe]

I was looking for ideas to bring out midrange and reduce bass and learned about rear shifted bracing. The videos I watched seem to make quite a difference! I might try that and just use the rosewood.

[John Parchem]

Welcome to the forum. Many of us on the forum started with a kit build. I think I would finish the Martin kit. Being your first guitar, you can make something that sounds good; however I am not sure you will hear the difference in the back wood used. Not that the back wood does not make a difference but there are so many other concerns in thicknessing and bracing the top that will make difference where it will overwhelm the choice of wood for the back.

I now use a drum sander for thicknessing but I used a plane and cabinet scrapper for my first. I hate to sand anymore than I have to. I do use a SafeT planer at times, it is not a bad choice.

The best Idea I have for bringing out the midrange and reducing the bass is to build a guitar more in the 00 size instead of the D size. Other than dreds most steel string guitars have great mid range and trebles and the fight is getting a good bass response.

Let us know what you are working on and post pictures as you go.

[Haole Joe]

Thanks John. I've been listening to rosewood guitar samples online and some certainly sound better than others. I also found plans available for V-bracing, which I might do, as I like Taylors rosewood a bit better than Martin's.

The kit is from Blues Creek, and is a Martin OM with cutaway, spruce top, and Indian rosewood back/sides. The rosewood is pre-bent and beautiful, so it would be a shame not to use it anyway.

I also came to the same conclusion that a plane makes the most sense for thicknessing, if I were to go that route. I was more hung up on jointing with a plane, but I found a Stew Mac video where Dan joints with a router, straight edge, and a sanding bar. I can do that with my Dremel. My reservation was edge jointing with a plane and chasing concavity, which is what most online videos seem to focus on. I've used a powered jointer in the past with amazing results so the hand plane thing just seems more difficult than it needs to be.

I'll post pics as I get things going. I built the go-bar deck and made a radius dish. I need to get sticks for the deck, I guess I need to decide if I'm V-bracing or not, and see if I need different bracing material.

[peter havriluk]

Don't fixate on the sound of a particular species of wood. Skilled luthiers can optimize their work to get good results from wood. The wood does not have an inherent unique sound that will show through a guitar's being made of it. And when I started building I absolutely stayed away from 'name' species; I knew that any inherent characteristics that showed up would have done so by accident and paying for a name wasn't in my budget. Same for soundboards, the headwinds are against a new builder getting superior acoustic performance by spending lots of money. Being rough-cut wood, the only quality being sold is appearance, acoustics has zero effect on price or valuation.

[Rick_A]

Hi Joe,

Is there a makerspace near you? I was lucky enough to have one near me in addition to the traditional woodworking hand tools and power tools they also have a drum thickness sander which I've used to thickness sides.

-rick