Lloyd Luthier: Week 2

So we arrived at the workshop refreshed after our ‘day off’ for the week which included listening to some wonderful music by Archie Roach and Missy Higgins – who would have believed two such widely different artists would appeal to the same young crowd. Good on you Archie for staying relevant and humble!

It was clear that Chris had a busy day yesterday . . . apparently six students were occupying all the available benches. Chris was very considerate in putting our stuff back on ‘our’ benches so it was all ready to go when we arrived.

On the Top for the Day . . .

I could summarise my day in three words – bracing my top. That said, there are many rules, conventions and traditions to be followed when bracing. Fundamentally, and as mentioned previously, we aim to leave as little bracing as possible to open up the sound of the wood – but leave enough on so the guitar will stay together for a reasonable period. And it is here that we try to trick the wood into thinking it is thick – by leaving humps (or peaks) in it along the length of the brace. Who knows who is correct??

Move to the Next Post . . .

To those who aren’t remotely interested in guitars, you should immediately tune to the next post – my entire day was taken up with marking, shaping, chiselling, sanding and admiring the braces on the (back) of the top of my soundboard.

On with the Rest . . .

Nearly all the other braces were attached in the one gluing session – including the:

X-Bracing (w - 8, h - 19, l - 522)

· Upper Transverse Graft (w – 22, h – 3, length 328 – one piece)

· Upper Face Brace (w – 13, h – 16, l – 335 – one piece)

· Lower Face Brace (w – 6, h – 13, l – 290 – two pieces)

· Finger Brace (w – 6, h – 6, l – 100 – four pieces)

· Sound Hole Brace (w – 8, h – 10, l – two pieces)

Shaping the X-Braces . . .

The very sad few other people, my first job of the day was to shape the X-Braces. There are absolutely essential and the integrity of the guitar – so a lot of care and respect needs to be offered. We marked up where the peaks need to be and then set about removing all of the wood in between. A good method of removing wood around a curve is to cut slots respecting the curve and then chisel it out – which is what we did.

Sharpening the Chisel . . .

A strip of leather and jeweller’s rouge (iron oxide – or rust) is required to keep the edge of the chisel sharp and feeling good about the next cut.

Big Moments . . .

Both Garry and Bob were in the workshop again today - and Bob had a couple of big moments. First, Chris showed him how to make a repair to the top just near the binding. It involved wetting the wood, heating it with an iron and then making a paste out of Titebond and glue and wet sanding the job.

The other big moment was that Garry oiled his guitar - with Danish Oil. What a marvellous transformation!