number seven

[Will Reyer]

Numero Siete 01/22/20

Number 7 guitar is black ash, a variation I was unaware of; was familiar with white. It was a board in among some rough-sawn red oak short pieces I had. The sawmill guys told me what it was, see: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3183

I pieced in a central red oak panel with .25” walnut strips as dividers for the back, as I didn't have enough of the ash to complete that part. The end graft is red oak with teak strips.

Planing the back to thickness on Dewayne's splendid Powermatic drum sander with digital controls uncovered borer tunnels that look similar to a white ash piece I use as a clamp with my homemade Fox bender (photo) but the sawmill guys say that they aren't the dreaded Emerald Ash Borers as they only eat the cambium layer. Same destruction, though. In my lifetime we've lost elm, chestnut, and now ash trees.

I make up yellow poplar head blocks with mortises .75” wide x 1.00” deep before gluing to the sides, so I put a temporary block filling that space when I rout the binding channels. It somehow moved this time so I had two little 1/32” nips into the back when done from the router bit. Spent part of three days making a semicircular patch for that instead of filling the gaps with glue and sawdust.

Hadn't made linings for three years so promptly put the wrong side of the lining strips against my hot pipe for the waist bend so they aren't reverse kerfed, but they work. I notch them with a chop saw blade in my old Sears radial arm saw that I bought with my last check from the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in 1966. They're basswood, .25” x .75” with a .035” strip left keeping them continuous. I'll admit they look big, as well as better reversed, but they're easy to clamp to and a lot less tedious than little tapered tentallones.

The bindings are tiger maple, about the last from a board I had that provided same for guitar 6. They're .100” x .25”, made on my cobbled up purfling plane, see: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3199

I put the body together in the summer, humidity in the farm shop, but the back cracked when I started the pellet stove in November, mostly in the central oak panel. Glued the cracks with cyanoacrylate but looking in through the sound hole it looks like a a dry cedar shingle roof from the attic (photo).

Soundboard is white pine. My first 4 guitars had plywood soundboards but then John Link gave me cedar billets for #5 so I wanted to practice making a rosette. I maintain the original purpose of rosettes was to contain possible cracks starting at the soundhole, not necessary with plywood.

I had this short piece of rough-sawn white pine from the stash of my late brother-in-law, wide enough to make a soundboard for a practice rosette if center glued. It was too wide to resaw with my 14” bandsaw so I kerfed it from both sides with a 10” blade in my cabinet saw at full extension, and then handsawed out the remaining middle part.

When glued, planed, and drum-sanded down to .120”, I routed a .125” circular dado and glued in 5 lines, two purpleheart, two maple, and one mahogany, making a basic practice rosette.

This was an unlikely candidate for an actual soundboard. It had quarter-sawn grain where joined in the center, but ran out to what could barely be construed as rift-sawn at the sides, and the grain lines were miles apart there. It was somewhat stiff longitudinally but just limp, really floppy-loppy, transversely. It also has a nail hole near the binding in the lower bout on the bass side. But it seemed like the lack of transverse stiffness just cried for a ladder-bracing scheme, and I hated to waste the construction effort.

I had made my #4 build, .125” Russian birch plywood soundboard, ladder braced, but without a useful bracing plan my attempt let the soundboard dome up below the bridge, raising the action far too high.
See: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2073
It did sound splendid, though, as played by Tjarko Jeen in the accompanying soundbyte.

This time I lengthened the maple bridge plate under the sound board and added a brace.

I make my soundboard bracing exclusively out of white pine, as Don Teeter said in his first book that he'd once used it for that purpose with excellent results. In addition, I can usually find vertical grain like quarter-sawed easily in most #2 common white pine boards.

The neck is yellow poplar with a .25" walnut center stripe, double-action truss rod. The headstock is hard maple with a veneer of black ash, attached with JB Weld at a version of a Spanish Vee joint. The JB Weld's gray color here is visible (and looks messy on this one) but it's lots stronger than Titebond. Discovered this after accidently knockng a prior neck off my router table and the Titebond, with an obviously less than close fit, popped the headstock off, although it had withstood my "railroad track" test (photo).

Back on #5 I used my old Sears router and an 1/8” bit to successfully inlay my mother-of-pearl NT logo in a quarter-sawed sycamore veneered headstock. Then I had cataracts removed that resulted in double vision. Borrowed David's Dremel with StewMac router base, still couldn't manage to successfully do that for #6, so got some black dye and made a surround for the mother-of-pearl with clear epoxy, which I again did on this one. Couldn't find the MOP so spent an afternoon making the NT out of Corian, then went looking for the bits and found the MOP. Used the Corian logo. Second operation this last October finally cured my double vision.

The fretboard and bridge are (plain-sawn) walnut, per the old Acosta guitars made in San Antonio where my son-in-law is from. 25.4” scale, 14 fret guitar, OM body. No end block on the heel of the neck. Zero fret is StewMac #0152, .009” higher than the #0148 frets.

My luthier friend here, Kjell, has done some ukuleles and mandolins using garnet shellac, which makes for a splendid, dark, aged look as a finish. I don't build fast enough to use up 3# of shellac flakes, so went looking for alcohol-based dyes, couldn't find any locally. Substituted some orange alcohol-based ink, which I mixed in the Zinser Seal Coat that I use two coats of to start, in order to give it an older “orange shellac” look under the two finish coats of satin wiping polyurethane.

Wonder of wonders, after all the trials and tribulations I had with two different necks and bridges on #6, my original angle selection for the neck of #7 worked fine and the projected bridge height was within 1/32” of the build height.

The neck attaches with two K-D fasteners. The (false) nut and 1/4” saddle are Corian from a sink cut-out, a lifetime supply. Nut and saddle are not glued, though closely fit, so easily removable. Neither is the fretboard extension glued; I want the soundhole end 1/32” high before stringing up, and the string tension pulls it down flush, no rattles.

Strung it up yesterday. Sound file maybe next week. First pass at setup left low E clearance at fret 12 higher than I like, after concert pitch string tension put the wood where it wanted. I always think the bass is too weak when I first string one up, but by next week it'll be fine, sounding better already. Treble is nice and bright.

[Kenny Wiebusch]

Way to stay after it Will. I have a friend /luthier here in town that loves to build from not so common materials. The one guitar he keeps is made from quarter sawn yellow pine he found at lowes. It sounds OK for what it is. It's a small guitar .
I had three red oaks cut down last fall. I started to save some billets but by the time I got to it all it was splitting. I was very curious what it would look like.
Had termites as well. Firewood for me.

[peter havriluk]

Gotta love it! Just wonderful. And I suspect it sounds just like itself, not an imitation of some storebought instrument.

[John Parchem]

Great looking guitar Were those mostly Michigan woods? The combinations really looks good.

[dave d]

Great work.

[Will Reyer]

Sound file, as promised.

Quick trip to the basement (January in Michigan) for a one-take sound file. The upstairs box runs on Windows 10 and the one in the basement utilizes some antique version that still permits running my $20 monoral DAK MP3 and Wave Editor, the only sound software the Luddite can use, being basically clueless past DOS-operated computer systems, and the Family Technical Officer residing in Austin, TX, a long commute.

And it's pretty embarrassing to forget which song I'm playing in the middle of Freight Train, too, after jumping into that, considering I played the heck out of it 50 years ago.

But all said, it sounds like a guitar, even considering the white pine soundboard was never intended for that purpose. And it does sound different, being ladder braced, than my X-braced gits, but "you kin play it".

[bftobin]

Really like the sound ! Just goes to show that many domestic woods make a fine guitar.

Brent