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Ever had one fight you every step of the way? I am making a koa 00 with maple binding. I have redone the rosette after the top was glued down (had to cut a concentric plug for the soundhole) then lower the top when I messed up on the binding channel (OK because the sides were too high anyway but I had to remove the top and replace the top lining) and now I am getting ready to replace the binding because the purfling lines are just too uneven (home made purfling)

I am spending this morning making veneer sheets that I hope are more even.

I have not done this much backtracking in a long time

Just venting.

John

I'm sure you will prevail John
Yes though, BTDT

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

And I thought it was just me that was always having to deal with glitches.
You mean everything doesn't always go perfectly for you guys either? I'm
sorry for your pain, but it makes me feel like I'm not alone. On the
upside, I'm impressed with the lengths to which you will go to make
things right! That in itself speaks to your talent. And you know it will be
beautiful in the end.
Craig

That's the difference between us John....for me, I would have punched a few holes in that by now, and it would be used for stoking up the woodstove.


Persevere my friend! It will turn out great like the rest of your stuff does.Don Williams38618.3702893518

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks for the encouraging words guys.

John been there done that. Remember post about this time last year of the "Murphy Law" guitar. Still at it and may just start over on it as firewood. Believe it or not, they even have them on occasion at Dana's shop, if it isn't one they with it it is another. Just the way it goes sometimes. Thing is your a great builder and will make it work and no one but you and those told will ever know

John,

To this, I can relate! The guitar I completed a few weeks ago fought me every step of the way, it seemed like. Sounds like you're having your share of this.

As to doing your own purfling, I'll pass along a tip I learned from Grant Goltz, a fellow who has forgotten more about woodworking than I'm likely ever to accumulate.

He makes his own thin purfling from veneers. He uses a pasta cutter to make it. You know those machines with the hand crank that you can feed pasta dough through, and out comes linguini? Well, guess what? They work great for making purfling. We have a pasta cutter that's been used exactly once since we bought it about 10 years ago. So I donated it to my lutherie adventures. Since then it's been used a few times.

For the thin purfling, I've bought the sheets of veneer from LMI, and run them through the pasta cutter. Problem with finding veneer locally is all the stuff I've seen has a paper backing. I have a cabinet-maker friend who resaws his own veneers, though, and a lot of times I can find stuff he throws away that works great for running through the pasta cutter.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

Stan, if it happens at Dana's shop then it must be inevitable. That's comforting.

Michael, I like that idea of the pasta cutter. You can cook up the excess. I bet that would satisfy a weeks worth of minimum daily roughage requirements.

I have had great success making veneer sheets this morning. I had a very nice maple plank and a slab of Brazilian ebony (kind of plain chocolate colored wood) and I tood the maple down to .032 and the ebony to .o22 and it was consistent all the way down. Now to glue up ebony/maple/ebony purfling which will be chocolate and curly cream colored purfling to go with the koa nicely

Here is the secrete that I learned from this board. I ran all the pieces through the abrasive planer as fast as they could go and took very light cuts. There was no excessive thinning on the ends of the stock, which was what got me in trouble in the first place. Good ole OLF.

John,
I just finished the proverbial "Guitar From Hell".
To Date:
2 Tops
3 Backs
2 Sets of Sides
2 Fingerboards
3 Necks
2 Headblocks
2 Fret Jobs
2 Bridges
1st coat of finish wouldn't set up, had to scrape all that mess off and start over.
Too many sets of binding and purfling to count.

Who said this is a relaxing hobby. It got to the point when I told my wife I was going to install binding on the mahagony guitar, she would get in the car and leave.
Jimmie D38618.5063773148

   I recently had one fight me the same way. I, too, had to recut and replace the rosette while the top was on the guitar. I did the same thing by cutting a concentric plug and usingit as the rotation point for my circle cutting Dremel tool. Then, The edge of the soundhole bothered me so i did one of those beautiful soundhole rings that add such a nice touch to the finished edge of the hole...I used Koa to match the body binding and it looked great and very intentional when all was said and done. I'll probbly do it again soon...but as a plan this time.

    Binding and purfling always have their two cents to contribute to the build of any guitar in the form of open defiance and resistence to being bent and glued around a body or headstock. Waves. and dips and breaks and all of thos little things that make them one of our favorite things to work with.

    You'll win in the end and the guitar will look great and sound as good when you're done doing all that only you can do to it. It'll make some forunate player very happy and, just think, you're just a few steps closer to being the quintessential luthier because of its challenges.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

[QUOTE=John Kinnaird]
Here is the secrete that I learned from this board. I ran all the pieces through the abrasive planer as fast as they could go and took very light cuts. There was no excessive thinning on the ends of the stock, which was what got me in trouble in the first place. Good ole OLF.[/QUOTE]

Oh, this reminds me of something else. You didn't mention it specifically, so I thought I would. When I'll thickness something as thin as purfling, I'll lay it atop a known flat board, and run it through the drum sander. Reason for this is because the sander's carriage belt has some give that can affect thickness. Also, I've learned the hard way to support the board when the end of it is passing through the drum area, or it will tend to cant upward as it leaves the far side roller, which causes the stuff I'm sanding to get thin right on the edge.

Oh, and about the pasta cutter, not all materials cut all that well. I've had good luck with curly maple and rosewood. Grant has done bloodwood and ebony, but reported that they were rather brittle -- especially the ebony. I had better results, even with the maple and rosewood, if I soaked the veneer briefly before running it through the pasta cutter.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

[QUOTE=Kevin Gallagher]    
    Binding and purfling always have their two cents to contribute to the build of any guitar in the form of open defiance and resistence to being bent and glued around a body or headstock. Waves. and dips and breaks and all of thos little things that make them one of our favorite things to work with.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars[/QUOTE]

I really like the "open Defiance" phrase. Well put. That is exactly what it is, open defiance. And it just sits on the work table and smirks. I AM going to win, that was a decision I made early on, and this guitar will look good inspite of its onery nature.

OOOOaaaaa.

(sort of a military grunt of determination and bravado)

Hang in there, bro. Just remind yourself that there's another one coming down the pike that will make this guitar seem easy.


There. That's encouraging, isn't it?

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

[QUOTE=Michael McBroom]   Problem with finding veneer locally is all the stuff I've seen has a paper backing. [/QUOTE]

You might try wood-veneers.com. Prices seem to be good, and sequenced individual sheets are available as well as whole lots. They have dyed veneers, too. As for the pasta tool...veneersupplies.com has Super Soft II, which has been discussed here, for those crispy woods.

John he calls it a "DEAD GUITAR". For the most part things get fixed on it, but there have been times since I have been there and before I was told about. One common thing is when building the bodies, The area of the tuck gets to low or a cut made to wide and inventive ways John Slobod fixes them. We have had the guitar ready to ship and Dana push on the top and got a huge squeak that I guess was in a brace or something, it sounded horrible though. Not unusual, but try to make it rare that a top has to be removed, braces or bridge plate sanded off. One thing about Dana is he is very anal about everything being clean and right. I fully agree with him, and it has helped me a bunch. Other thing he says is that it is handmade by humans and sometimes things happen. It is rare to get one fully dead, but mistakes happen. On some, just keep happening from area to area and everyone is happy to see it leave. I can say this seeing your work here and hearing from others, your on that level of building. He has the advantage of having several really top luthiers working for him who are even better than he is and between them (I am not in that crowd for sure) things get figured out. It is harder in your own shop and alone at times. Thank goodness for this site. When get back to my own shop and now having done about 100 guitars, I will be better. For sure more cautious and anal about things and slower in some areas I used to rush. One thing found, do it right a whole bunch of times, the speed of doing it comes.

Jimmie D:
That sounds like the ax Grandpa took to California: we've replaced the handle a couple of times, and it needed a new head last year, but it's still the same ax!

Or the 'Vin Fizz Special'; the first airplane to make it across the US, in 29 days and 39 crashes. When it got to the other side the only original parts left were the gas cap and one wing strut.

What gets me about those sorts of things is that they are usually _cosmetic_ glitches: you screw up the purfling or the rosette. It won't make any difference in the way the guitar works, it just looks terrible.

I had all sorts of troubles with the double top I made earlier this year. At some point I'll have to replace the top, but we're going to wait for it to pull itself apart if it will, so we'll know what the problem is. Sigh.