What I did this weekend.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 7:03 pm

Well, I've been waiting for some tools to show up from Stew Mac. Lost in the post somewhere over the Pacific.

. So I've been stalled trying to get my Petite Jumbo completed and ready for finish.

Instead I've started on making 2 identical guitars but with different tops, so I can get a better feeling of what I can expect from the different tops.

I'm using some more spalted avocado for the rosette. The tops are Australian Cedar and Engelman Spruce. The back sides will be some perfectly 1/4rd Queensland Walnut.

First up, routing out some purfling channels in the rosette blank.

Cutting some purfling strips from veneer

.

Inlaid and glued in with rather thin hide glue. I usually use CA for this, but ran out and didn't feel like going out to the hardware store. It was 35 today and the sun would take your hide off.

Inlaid and leveled.

ozziebluesman · Post by **ozziebluesman** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:15 pm

G'day,

Yep, 35 degrees today here as well.

Mate, that is beautiful work there.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Alan

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:38 pm

I love them Allen . Really striking rosettes .

Cheers , Craig

Serge · Post by **Serge** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 11:32 pm

very nice tops and i love the look of the rosettes, it's got some nice touch that i can't define but is very attractive, great job Allen!

Serge

Dave White · Post by **Dave White** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:14 am

Allen,

Lovely rosettes. That spalted avacado is gorgeous - lovely variation in colour and texture make it look very tactile. Personally I think the Englemann sets it off better but they are both lovely.

Ron Wisdom · Post by **Ron Wisdom** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:42 am

Wow, that's nice. I love spalt!

Ron

sebastiaan56 · Post by **sebastiaan56** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:49 am

Allen,

Not 35 but 32 with 90% humidity here. The boys and LOML went swimming, I went on sweating.

I love that spalt! I think its a very contemporary look.

Sebastiaan

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:25 am

Yah, the Engelman does set the rosette off better, but we'll see how the whole package comes together.

It's funny how a build goes. On each one that built I've started out with an idea. Have the wood that I think will work well together, and lots of times I change things out as I go along, and so far I think that the guitars have come out looking pretty good. That's half the fun of doing this.

.

Dave Anderson · Post by **Dave Anderson** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:29 am

Looks very nice Allen! Love those rosettes.

Hesh1956 · Post by **Hesh1956** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:17 am

Allen my friend excellent work and that is some beautiful spalted wood!!!!

What body size/shape are these two guitars going to be?

Tom Morici · Post by **Tom Morici** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:59 pm

Allen,
I like the way the spalted rosettes look on both tops. Good thing you told us that is spalted avocado, I thought it was spalted maple. You learn something every day. Is that one of your local woods? Great job!

Tom

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:55 pm

These are going to be my Petite Jumbo design. Basic dimensions are, length, width of lower bout and depth of a OM. I've designed for a 25.4 scale, but could build a short scale without any drama.

I like small guitars, and love the curves of the Jumbo style. I've built one Dread, two OOO's and one OM. My first Petite Jumbo is waiting for tooling to show up. Fret Caul and such. I could do it the old fashioned way, but you guys convinced me that pressing frets was the way to go. It really is my least favored part of building, so hopefully it's going to make it a job I'll look forward too.

The spalted avocado came from some scrap that showed up at the Cairns Woodworkers Guild. They were going to throw it in the bin, but I grabbed it first.

Yes, avocado grows around here. There are huge orchards of the stuff, and lots of homes have an avocado tree in the back yard. The season is all but over now, so we don't see them in the markets much, but the mango's are coming on strong. There down to $10 a case. You haven't lived until you have pureed mango on vanilla ice cream.

Dennis Leahy · Post by **Dennis Leahy** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:27 am

Allen, those are beautiful rosettes.

I love your further stretch of the oxymoron "small jumbo" into "petite jumbo." Petite jumbo has a bigger ironic payload, something on the order of jumbo shrimp.

Well said!

Dennis

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:16 pm

Dennis Leahy wrote:Allen, those are beautiful rosettes.

I love your further stretch of the oxymoron "small jumbo" into "petite jumbo." Petite jumbo has a bigger ironic payload, something on the order of jumbo shrimp.

Well said!

Dennis

That's why I chose that name Dennis. I didn't want it confused with the OLF's SJ plans, and I got a chuckle out of the name. I'll just refer to it in my notes as a PJ.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:21 pm

Heres a bit of an update to my build over the Christmas holidays. The sides for both of these guitars have been bent using my new MEI heat blanket. One side set has been put away for the time being, and I've got the back glued on for the one that is going to get the Australian Cedar top.

These are going to be essentially identical guitars except for the tops and embellishments. Qld. Walnut heart wood back and sides. This wood is very hard but only moderately heavy. I found that I had to thin the sides down to .080 to get a nice bend on them, but they are still very stiff.

Top and back are braced with some Engelman spruce and the bridge patch is some off cut of the Qld. Walnut.

The top is .100 around the bridge and upper bout and down to .090 around the lower bout. It weights in at 199 grams. Braces started out at 7X13 mm and shaped from there.

The back is .092 and weights in at 272 grams. I went with the standard ladder braces on this one, but I think that I'm going to go back to the x-brace that I've used on previous guitars. Seems to hold the dome better in the extreme humidity fluctuations we are getting up here.

I've got neck wood ready to go, so tomorrow I'll be glueing on the top and then working on the neck. Pictures to follow.

Serge · Post by **Serge** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:52 pm

Neat work Allen, i can't wait to hear on the sound difference between those 2 lovely tops especially if your braces are carved at the same dimensions and same kind of brace material, what a nice experiment, after my current build, i plan on experimenting on 3 D-r-e-A-d-n-aughts so i'll be checking out what you observe, cool!

Serge

Kim Strode · Post by **Kim Strode** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:18 pm

Thanks for the pictures of the progress Allen, I would really like to see some pictures of the x-bracing you have used on the back of your previous guitars. I've heard a lot of discussion about x-bracing on guitar backs, but have never seen what it looks like or the dimensions of the bracing used.

Hesh1956 · Post by **Hesh1956** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:43 pm

Very neat and well thought out Work Allen. It's also a pleasure to see a top that is not over braced. Great work and I am sure that you are going to be thrilled with the resulting guitar. :serg :serg :serg

Tom Morici · Post by **Tom Morici** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:25 am

Allen,

That build is coming along nicely! Your work looks clean and those braces look good! Thanks for including the weights of the braced top and back.
Im looking forward to the next progress pic's. Way to go!

Tom

Bob Connor · Post by **Bob Connor** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:09 am

Nice work Allen.

Looks like you've forward shifted the braces on the top.

Bob

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:27 am

It's looks like it doesn't it. Not that I consciously planned it out this way.

I just got my scale length marked out and then laid out the x-brace so they intersected the sides of the bridge. The other braces just got laid out so they looked kinda balanced. Not much science behind it

Bob Connor · Post by **Bob Connor** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:34 am

I did our Bargey much the same way Allen.

Just eyeballed a few of the bracing patterns that we had and drew it up on some butchers paper.

I have'nt made any perspex templates for any of these yet because I'm not sure what they're going to sound like and the bracing pattern may need some "massaging" before the final placement is determined.

Bob

Dave Anderson · Post by **Dave Anderson** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 4:22 pm

It's coming along very nicely Allen. Very neat and clean work!
Nice bracing.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:28 pm

Here's a couple more pictures. The top is glued on today as well, but I'll wait for a picture of that until I get the binding on.

There's a lot less work getting the braces inlet when you don't have to do the lower bout

. Great tip that I think Hesh made. Makes a lot of sense too when you're trying to free up the lower bout. That's something that you don't get on any of the plans that I've seen yet.

This is my first attempt at making a neck block like this. Thanks to Colin for posting pictures of his. I'm going to be trying the butt joint heel and using hanger bolts along with the fret board extension. For me this has been the weakest part of my building skills, and Hopefully this will solve some of the problems that I've encountered in getting this part of the build under control.

Dennis Leahy · Post by **Dennis Leahy** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:06 am

Allen,

What did you use for rim linings? How many layers, and what is the final overall dimension of the linings? Those rims look really stiff! (said in a good way)

Dennis

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What I did this weekend.

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