Acoustic Guitar Construction

Kevininca wrote:That is just plain YUMMY John. What a beautiful guitar.
By the way, mess your shop up more...it doesn't look like you really built that, not enough mess.

Kevin

Thanks Kevin,

You should see the shop now, it is spotless. Now when I start finishing I clean and vacuum the whole shop. I have bumped sanded guitars into chisel, rasps or whatever laying around in a pile near my work site one too many times. My normal working methods is to just push the piles out of the way as I work. I have nearly 2 of everything from my inability to find a critical tool in the mess. I am talking about tools the size of a jointer plane.

Sorry you have to indulge me, here are a few pictures after one session of FP on the back and sides. I have not started the top.

I can not say enough about Robbie O'Brien French polishing technique and his on line class. I have successfully learned a few different methods including Milbure's. Robbie's is the clearest most straight forward, and repeatable method I have tried. He takes the magic out of the process and puts it in the results.

To see pictures like this is very inspiring.

What does Robbie reveal in a class $$ that is not shown here?

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=51

I thought this was the pretty much universal process used by many makers.

Perhaps if you have a technique established you don't need to spend the money for O'Brien's class. I had not much of an idea on how to FP and decided to put out the $ for it and was quite happy. He doesn't skip through the process and show the finished product after a brief explanation. He goes step by step, almost real time on French polishing a guitar so that you can see the technique used at every process of the French polish. He also covers different situations like polishing problem areas and fixing mistakes. I used his process on the Ubass I did and was happy with the results. And from what I'm seeing of Johns guitar it's working quite well for him.

kencierp wrote:Want does Robbie reveal in a class $$ that is not shown here?

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=51

I thought this was the pretty much universal process used by many makers.

In addition to Robbie's course I have followed Milburn's technique from their tutorial and Frenandez's DVD. I had also watched and tried the technique shown in the above video and had a class with Cindy Burton. They all have different techniques that work very well for them. For example Cindy does the entire guitar without oil. I think the universal part is shellac applied to the guitar with a cloth applicator.

What you get from Robbie that I did not find in the above youtube tutorial is complete information like when to recharge the pad, what is it suppose to feel like, what happens when things go wrong and how to correct it, do you work several days continuously or what. Robbie has been a luthier instructor by trade. As an instructor he knows how to demonstrate and describe an action highlighting the important attributes, anticipating and addressing a students problem and filling in the missing details that most luthiers giving demonstrations forget. As his videos are very long (near real time) he also has time to discuss the why's of his process and alternatives.

Robbie lays out a very repeatable process. After watching it you know how and when to recharge your pad, and to add oil (a lot less oil than Michael), you know when to switch from a circular motion to straight strokes. His method breaks down each charge of the pad with shellac into a discrete and repeatable set of actions.

As I mentioned above Robbie is a true instructor. His video course is an in depth course not a demonstration of technique. His experience as an instructor of luthery allows him to make his on line course nearly as good as a live course. I think there is true value in the instructional content that Robbie produces and I am happy to pay for it.

Wow John! Looking amazing, and it's early in the FP process! The contrast between the sides and the binding is just beautiful. Each component looks incredibly rich on its own too. Man, you set a high bar.