Week 1 - Day 2 . . .

So maybe some sad souls are still reading this mindless blather . . . and I can guarantee that it won’t get any better.  Fil and I met in at our rendezvous point at 7:30am and made our way to Montsalvat.  This time we took notice of the GPS in the car . . . while it may well have been 75m shorter, the number of traffic lights and amount of traffic meant a longer journey to meet with our embryonic instruments. 

On a Bender . . .

This morning was always going to be bending day . . . and I could see the dark clouds amassing outside in anticipation of gloom and doom!  Bending the sides of a guitar takes skill, patience, judgement and understanding of the qualities of the wood.  I happen to possess little of any of those attributes!  

With Chris’ encouragement, I persisted with the notion of hand bending the sides.  The alternative is to put them into a jib and very carefully create the desired shapes.  We persisted and things seemed to go very well – mostly.  There were a few cracks and tears that appeared . . . but Chris tells me they are nothing and they’ll come out in the wash.  I wish I had his confidence – or skill!!

Demonstrating the bending -- very carefully

Back Braces . . .

Once we had got so far with the sides they were left in the moulds to ‘cure’ – or something.  So I turned my attention to preparing the braces for the back of the guitar.  This meant placing four rough cut Queensland Maple braces on the honed mould for the CA guitar – and working out how much material needs to come off each of the braces.

The first step in removing the excess wood involved using a beautiful little block plane to taper each piece.  Once planed to the rough shape I used the belt sander to take even more of the offending material away.  This meant sitting alongside the machine with the curved back mould and chipping away.

The second and final step involved putting a piece of Japanese sandpaper (wonderful stuff - need to get some) in the curvature of the mould and sanding the excess bits way.  While this sounds simple enough, it took me more than an hour to get the braces ready for installation.

Braces reading for shaping

First cut - plane off most of the excess

Rough shaping on the belt sander

Finer shaping in the dish

Thicknessing Again . . .

My next task involved ‘thicknessing’ (we really ought to sort that word out – thinning is more appropriate!) the back of the guitar.  Given I am using Tasmanian Blackwood, this task involved about 1,000 passes through the machine!  Still, I was delighted with the slow reveal of the wood as I renewed my acquaintance with the thicknesser.  I had initially chosen one side as being the outside of the back, but I changed my mind as a gorgeous fiddleback (too hard to describe – but think of a violin as being a fiddle!) started to reveal itself.

This is pass number 346!

Just for something interesting - coming out the other side

Marking the Shape . . .

My next job involved laying out the CA mould and deciding exactly where it would define the back of my guitar.  Everything went to plan in that I was able to maximise the pattern AND avoid a small flaw in the wood at the neck end of the back.

There is clearly no time to be lost in this course, so my immediate next task involved marking up the centreline on both sides in readiness for gluing and clamping the bracing.  Finding the centreline should be an easy task, right?  It took me quite a few minutes to accurately mark it and happily draw a definitive line.

The mould fits perfectly around some tricky bits

Finding the centre line and making the braces

Lunch Break . . .

I also took a bit of a look at some other students’ guitars over in the corner of the workshop.  Most seem quite standard – except for this rather interesting ‘slotted’ back.  Perhaps I might see it on a guitar one day?

 

And while having a break I noticed a bit of attitude creeping into some quarters of the workshop – like anti-Dylan rear guard society!  Frankly, those who don’t like Dylan have no idea what they have let themselves in for by inviting Fil into the workshop . . . his choice of music is beyond 

comprehension and taste!! Perhaps I will come back to this once he has assaulted everyone’s taste with bands like Half Man Half Biscuit!  

Interesting back construction

Back to the Braces . . .

So after lunch and other interludes it was back to my braces.  My first task was to plane off the ends of the braces – back to a point of 65mm and 50mm from the line for the top and bottom braces respectively.  This turned out to be a quite easy job – the Queensland Maple shaves away very smoothly.  

Once this was done I needed to glue the braces in place – and use as many braces as possible in the process!

And I now remember about using the right amount of glue . . . too little and it will fall apart, too much and it will be an impossible clean-up job.  I never seem to have enough fingers, rags, 6” rulers and whatnot to get all the ‘squeeze’ sorted.

Removing the excess at the end of each brace

Gluing a minor crack

Back braces glued into place

Head and Tail Block . . .

The next job was quite a simple one – cutting the head and tail blocks out of pieces of Queensland Maple.  They were already roughly cut in all dimensions except the length – and we need a 4 degree angle on both so as to allow for the ‘bent’ back of the guitar.  Once marked, it was quite a simple process using Chris’ huge band saw.

Sanding, Planing and Scalloping . . . 

No, we are not having bivalve molluscs for dinner . . . my next job involved getting all four of the back braces into reasonable shape.  The thinner of the two braces (closest to the neck) were simple in that it could mostly be done with a plane.  The bottom two braces (huge!) involved planing and a lot of sanding.

The scalloping involved using a chisel (or two) to remove excess wood from the end of the braces.  I managed to complete all eight ends (of four braces) without creating any damage to other parts of the fledgling instrument.

Planing the braces

Scalloping the braces

Back Strip . . .

My last main task for the day involved shaping some back strips – again, from Queensland Maple.  I used the belt sander to rough them into shape and then sandpaper to round them into a more attractive shape.  Once done I set about the task of cutting each section very precisely with a Japanese handsaw and slotting them into place.  I made one stupid error by cutting one too short – but luckily I could use it in a narrower section.  They will be glued into place tomorrow.

Back strips ready for cutting

Back strips placed ready for gluing

Fil's Progress . . .

Fil has made excellent progress on his guitar today.  When he walked in this morning Fil asked Chris 'wot are we doin' today Gov'.  Chris rattled off a whole lot of things - and Fil said 'is that all!'.  But by the end of the day Fil had done them all.

Let me know if you would like some more words and photos here Fil - it is easy!

Blocks glued into place

Another view

Braces finished

Some repairs with a Titebond and dust paste

Let's all the clamps in the workshop!

That looks alright then!

 

Productive Day . . .

We both walked away from the workshop feeling good about the progress we had made today – and all of a sudden building these instruments in two weeks seems possible!

And we of course continued our research into the pubs and beers of Melbourne.  This time we had a pint at the Mitre Tavern, which is ostensibly Melbourne’s oldest pub – although quite a few seem to make this claim.  Rather than find out about the establishments we have decided to focus on where we can find a reasonably priced beer – a pint of Fat Yak cost $12.40, which we think is highway robbery!  We’ll have to try another tomorrow.