#11, Wabi-sabi Guitar

[Will Reyer]

Numero Once: Wabi-sabi Guitar

Last year while building my 10th guitar, a prototype for a small parlor model, I was also building a maple body, #11, with African mahogany bindings that had an honest-to-God Adirondack spruce soundboard like vintage pre-war Martins used to use while it was available. I bought the 2 book-matched billets for the soundboard at a price I could afford from my luthier friend, Kjell, here. He bought up the entire stock of a deceased luthier up in Grand Rapids and then sold off parts of it to pay for the ones he wanted to keep.

This was going to be a 12-fret to the body, but long scale, Norman Blake variation of my Orchestra Model design which is basically identical to the Santa Cruz I own and is in its turn almost the same silhouette and depth as a Martin. This body also featured a slightly wider X brace than my 14-fret previous builds, as I’d done that for guitar #9, another 12-fret, and liked the sound.

Then I started on the neck, African mahogany with maple. I rout the neck blank to the finished and attached fretboard, Indian rosewood in this case. Do this on a sheet of particle board on sawhorses for a router table with a bit that makes the neck side flush with the fretboard edge. But the pass for the second side I must have gotten it rocked slightly on the 16” radius fretboard away from the bit and it gouged both the neck blank and the fretboard. Photo, attached

This was fairly disheartening, as about the same time I had my #6 and #9 builds down at a new guitar store for sale, and the guy had no humidification and they both cracked in ways that well may be beyond my abilities to fix. I was an Art School boy, and every gallery in the world has humidification, not to mention any and all stringed instrument stores or repair shops of my acquaintance. I keep my house at 45% in the winter here in Michigan by a humidifier centrally located in the dining room, about 3 pails of water a day. In the summer, without the forced- air furnace, nature does it. Guitars in the basement are fine year-around.

I left the guitar construction alone and made plans, drawings, bills of materials, etc. for projects to be done to renovate the house we’ve lived in for 20 years. Working with a local builder to do this in phases.

But I finally decided not to go backward, with a new neck, but just go forward. Had a lot of time getting the neck that far. So I routed a slot with a micro-taper like gunsights use or guitar end grafts. No Indian rosewood scrap on hand, but some purpleheart, also hard. Used that. Photo, attached

Sent a photo of the latter to one of my artist friends, Ahde, and he emailed back that it was kintsugi, like the Japanese do to repair tea bowls, et al. I sent him back email saying that kintsugi is part of wabi-sabi, and that I think wabi-sabi is what defines my approach to luthiery. Still need to finish the neck. And like one of my Texas bosses used to say, “All's we lack is finishing up”

[banjopicks]

Nice save. This is something I need to accept as part of hobby guitar building. I have a completed body that I sanded through the side into b the kerfed lining. I put it away in disgust for a year and moved on to other hobbies. I've realized that it would be a terrible waste of material and effort to not finish this. I'll have to do something similar to the body as you did. Thanks for sharing.

[John Parchem]

Sorry to hear about your guitar store experience. I am glad you got back to the guitar and patched the neck. I like the Japanese repair technique of accentuating the damage and showing craft in the visible repair. Good looking boxes waiting for a neck.

[Herman]

Great save Will,
The term wabi-sabi was unfamiliar to me. But looking it up, the principles are very appealing to me. I tell my customers always, that my guitars will show little imperfections. Not in playability or sound (still being a perfectionist, haha), but in cosmetic minor flaws. It proves a living creature is in the equation.
We builders appreciate that. Now it is up the person who pays 1K+ for a guitar.
Herman

[Kevin in California]

Good fix Will.
You could easily say you planned it that way.
I didn't know you'd made that many gits.
Keeps us young !

[Will Reyer]

19/17/23

Fall is Winter's way of saying “Do it now or forget it”. Lots of stuff to do to prepare here in the Frozen North. Need to cut trees and brush back but nowhere to pile and burn the cuttings until our tenant combines his soybeans. Made a trip to Battle Creek with the trailer for a ton of wood pellets to heat the shop.

Mowed the 3-1/2 acres of yard for the last time this year just before three days of rain last week. Both zero-turn mowers blown off, tanks topped off to avoid condensation, Marine Stabil added. Parked in swept-out mower/garden shed.

Three days of rain let me work in the shop on my incomplete kintsugi-repaired neck for Number 11.

Shaped the neck, added side dot markers, installed frets and leveled, polished the frets. I'm using StewMac #0148, and #0152 (.009” taller) for a zero fret. Bought a new can of satin wiping urethane as the old can was probably 10 years old and what was left was getting to be like bunker oil compared to gasoline.

I don't glue down fretboard extensions. I like to have 1/32” clearance between the end of the fretboard at the soundhole and the soundboard when I tighten the two 1/4-20 UNC screws. Bringing the strings up to concert pitch pulls it down flat.

Got out a straightedge to discover I needed to remove .023” from the bass side shoulder of the neck tenon to get the centerline of the fretboard in plane with the center join of the soundboard halves. Did that with a sharp 1” chisel.

Fretboard is Indian Rosewood from the 2nd of 4 Pam bought me for $5 ea. on Facebook from an Indian guy in maybe St. Louis 10 years ago.

Got a blank of same or possibly wenge for bridge, plowed for my 1/4” Corian saddle and thicknessed. Just needs to be shaped and drilled. From a bridge blank maybe John or Kjell gave me.

Now that the yard's dried up enough I need to take my utility tractor with the loader bucket and move all Pam's ceramic flower pots into the garden shed and the rest of the lawn furniture.

First 2 photos are rotated 90 degrees CW. Ton of stove pellets in 40# bags behind the guitar in 2nd photo.

[Kevin in California]

That's a very cool neck heel.
How do you like Corian for a nut? Do you use it for saddle too?