The Back Plate Finished

Back plate glued on, flush trim routed, filed and sanded down. I like the lines especially the point at the base.

Better angle of the base.Did some planning for the placement of the tuning machines.

Then I realized that I needed to drop the placement down to not interfere with the inlay. I do like the offset look of the tuners. Also like the lines of the strings. Not too sharp of an angle and spaced pretty well.

I might just drill some holes tomorrow, but this scares me so I will probably make a dummy to test before I risk ruining the real deal.

Back headstock plate and Nut test #2

So I decided to add a back plate vaneer to the headstock. The is a line toward the transition of the headstock that I think will be unsightly. So I want to fix it.

Here is the chunk of birdseye maple to match the tail spline. It's a little bit thick though.

Took it outside and since I don't have a planer I used a belt sander to thickness it.

Then clamped it on tight to shape it to the back. This didn't work even after two weeks of clamping. So I sanded it down some more and dropped it into a pot of boiling water then re-clamped it. This time it worked.

Haven't glued it up yet maybe tonight if I can get the thickness of the entire headstock slightly thinner (to accommodate the tuning machines). That said I decided to run another test – making a nut for a new-to-me guitar (an old H53/1 Rocket) that I just purchased. My last nut was less than perfect and I thought this would be good practice. I also put some new tuning machines on this guitar. Again, more practice.

Filing the bone nut down to the shape of the old plastic nut.

I also don't have $125+ dollars to drop on a set of nut files. But I read online that some guy used this tool – a welders tip cleaner. I purchased this tool for about $8. You know what? It worked great! (Edit: take back it worked great once – then it dulled) It did take some time, but I would rather take my time and do it right than quick and bad. (I think I will have to invest in some nut files someday.)

The only issue with this tool was the thinnest slot .10. The wire file was pretty weak and it took some time to make that work. (but it did work) I'm guessing I will purchase the smallest nut file and use this tool for the rest of the slots on my next nut.

Also replaced all the tuners on that Rocket H53/1. This is a cool old (40 years) guitar, that just got way cooler with the new nut and tuners.

And here's the nut on that guitar. All in all I have a lot more confidence in making bone nuts now. and can't wait to do it for my acoustic build guitar.

Straight on shot of the new bone nut.

Binding Issue Fix

Thanks to whoever posted the encouragement on the last post. I've been thinking about this project a lot in the past few weeks. I need to get moving and finish this already! It makes me so excited to see the guitar so close just sitting there waiting to be finished (and played!)

This is about where I'm at. I still need to bolt the neck on, put a heel cap on the back, make the nut, make the saddle, finish sanding, do binding on the headstock, drill and put the tuners in place and french polish this bad boy, glue on the bridge, drill the string holes in the bridge, do the set-up and string it! Long list but nothing is too labor intensive except for the french polish. Oh and I have to fill the grain as well.

Arrrggghhhh! I made a mistake sanding the binding... I took it too far and didn't notice until it was totally messed up! (the photo above was taken after the fix)

The fix. I just need to put some more wood down. And start over with the sanding.

CA gluing in the replacement piece.

Ahhhh, much, much better!

I also ordered some gold colored, Planet Wave, locking, string-cutting 18:1 tuners. These are the same tuners that I placed on my electric guitar and I love them. I can re-string so fast with these.

If I don't post again within a week, hunt me down and slap me up-side the head.

Scraping the Binding Flush

Spent some time scraping the binding flush with the back and front of the guitar body. I have spent quite a bit of time to get them flush and my hand was hurting so I decided to take a break.

Looks like I'm going to have to scrap the back again to get some marks out.

I still need to scrap the binding flush with the sides.

It was nice and sunny so I did a lot of this out on my front porch. So nice that winter is ending. Hope to be strumming this guitar on the front porch in a couple more months.

Binding

The first step in setting the binding is routing a channel. I used the Dremel with the router base and attachment (shown earlier in this blog to do this. I took it real slow to make sure I didn't chip out any pieces. As you can see that tool is smooth.
Same thing with the back.
Remember what I said about chip out... well I goofed. I was simply moving too fast and took a small chunk out.

Glueing the piece back in with crazy glue. I saw this trick on youtube. Once I put the french polish on you wont even see this small crack. Plus most of the wood was nibbled away by the router after the glue dried.

I also routed a channel for the purfling, but I didn't get any good photos of that. However, if you click and zoom in on the photo showing the purfling (down about 4 photos) you can see that channel as well.
Steaming the curly maple binding. I just boiled some water...

... and poured it on. Notice my floor is a mess. My ShopVac broke and I had to go get another one.

I tied the maple to the guitar to pre-bend them.

I chose black on white purfling for to go between the binding and guitar for contrast (white maple, black purfling, white perfling dark back).
On the front I chose to go (WBWBW) with purfling that is B/W/B. Since the top is light colored. This is the same stuff I used for the rosette. Below, I'm starting to tape it in place.
One quarter done.


Below is the final side complete. The bottom of this photo has the tape removed. Once the rest of the glue dries I will need to scrap all this binding flush with the top and sides.
This process took way more time than I had anticipated.

Making the End Patch

Before I start putting the binding on there was one last thing to do – put the end patch on. This is the decorative piece that goes at the bottom of the guitar on the tail block. It separates the sides and just looks good. The first step was to route the channel for the plate. I did this with the dremel with the router base. It worked perfect. I then sanded it straight.

I found this awesome piece of birds-eye maple that I bought from the scrap bin at the hardwoods store back when I first purchased the wood for this guitar. I didn't have any plans for the scraps, but it just worked out that I found this piece in with them all. It really looks sharp. I cut it to thickness on the scroll saw and then sanded the sides down to match the angle on my belt sander.

Decided to put some black/white binding material in there too to make a better optical separation. There was a loto of sanding, fitting and re-sanding here.

Once glued in and dried I used an orbital sander to sand it all flush. Wow, this looks cool, I hope the rest of the binding turns out this good.

Another angle. I couldn't be happier with how great this looks.

Flush Trimming the Top and Bottom

Before I put the binding on I need to get the top and bottom flush with the sides. As you can see below there is overlap on both. Bottom:

Top:
I was so excited to use my new router (xmas gift from my family – thanks Mom and Creig!). What a great tool this thing is smooth and doesn't have the initial kick that other routers give.

Smooth as can be... No chip-out, just perfect. One thing to note for anyone using a router on guitars. Always go from the top of the hill to the valley – (big bout to the waist, little bout towards the neck) this keeps the router from splitting the wood. At least that's what I've read.

Hope to start in on the binding soon!