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My weekend accomplishments
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Author:  Kelby [ Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:32 pm ]
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My weekend boasts aren't quite as exciting as everyone elses, but I don't want to be left out here.   

I spent my weekend putting the last coats of laquer on a couple guitars. Starting with the "lesser boast," here's a couple pics of a dread I've been making with cocobolo back and sides, Englemann top, ebony binding, with a vine inlay on the fingerboard.





Now, moving on to the "greater boast," my ten-year-old son, Jeremy, has been building his first guitar. Dad did most of the power tool work (although he did a little bit of bandsaw and drill press work), but Jeremy has done just about everything else. He was nervous about spraying the finish, so I did that part for him. Here's how it looks after spraying the laquer:



When I took Jeremy to the woodshop, I let him pick out whatever woods he wanted. He picked Padauk. I have no idea what struck his eye at the time, but now that the finish is on, I'm extremely impressed with how it looks. The binding is ebony.

Both of the guitars have "racing stripes" on the neck --- the first was ebony, and Jeremy's is Padauk to match the back and sides.

One of the most exciting things about the weekend was that this is the first time I sprayed laquer and had the finish go on just about perfect. Usually, I get boatloads of orange peel and end up sanding for days to level. But these guitars have absolutely no orange peel on them. I'm actually looking forward to sanding, because it shouldn't take long. (Well, not really, but it'll be a lot less work than in the past.)

I'm anxious to come to Healdsburg and see the work you all do. I'm not sure I'm ready to actually bring my own guitars along, but I'm anxious to see yours.   

Cheers,
Kelby
Author:  Don A [ Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:01 pm ]
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Kelby, both of the guitars really look nice. I'd say you have plenty to boast about. I really like the racing stripes on the necks and in particular the way it looks on the heel of your sons guitar. Kudos for including him in your building.

What are you spraying?Don A38413.1680671296
Author:  Colin S [ Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:42 pm ]
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Absolutely, both look great, you must be very proud of your boy.

Love the blue bridge! I would leave it like that!

Colin
Author:  LanceK [ Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:28 pm ]
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Beautiful! My oldest daughter is showing signs of wanting to "do what daddy does" in the shop. Shes 7 now, I hope one day she too will do like your son.

BTW, I love the streaked top.. Thats Engelmann?

Lance
Author:  Tim McKnight [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:14 am ]
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Really nice guitars Kelby. Please offer my praise to your son as well. That's quite an accomplishment, even if dad helped a bit. Please stop by our table at HB and introduce yourself. I would love to meet you both.
Author:  Dickey [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:04 am ]
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Kelby and Son Guitars, Wow. I'm a huge fan of Cocobolo. Thank you for sharing the pictures. Kelby, quit putting it off and send Lance a Bio for the Luthiers Bio Page. May as well grab your son and stand him beside you. Congrats. My son has been hinting at a Les Paul.....
Author:  Dave Rector [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 2:27 am ]
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Kelby, what an accomplishment! Both guitars look great and the idea that a 10 year old could build that nice of a guitar is mindblowing.

Just imagine what his guitars will look like after 10 years or so of practice, when he's an old man of 20.

Be proud, both of you do great work.
Author:  Kelby [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:43 am ]
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Thanks everyone for the kind words!

Lance, yes, the streaked top on the cocobolo guitar is Englemann. Which makes me ask --- why is it that for back and side wood, interesting color/grain variations are desirable and cost more, but for top plates, the same variations are considered imperfections and therefore sold cheaper? To me, the answer is simple: People are stupid!!! Admittedly, some types of grain variations can result in strength and perhaps tone issues, so perhaps tops can't be as wildly varied as backs and sides. But I don't buy the notion that top plate color/grain has to be perfectly consistent to have a good tone, and "perfect" wood is boring wood. Unfortunately, much of the guitar-playing (and guitar-buying) world has been sold a bill of goods about "master grade" top plates with perfectly even grain and color. However, for all those who have not been ordained into the "master grade" cult, everyone who looks at the guitars I'm making seems to like the top plates with more interesting color variations.

Well, that was a lot more of a response than I meant to give, and perhaps more than you were looking for.   I guess that whole topic falls into the category of "don't get me started."

Don, I was spraying nitrocellulous laquer. I used shellac to seal the guitar and fill the pores. Which leads to ANOTHER topic in the category of "don't get me started." I have tried a lot of pore-filling methods, and the one thing I don't like aboout any of them is that the wood just doesn't look the same after pore filling. Even when you are using the sanding dust from the same wood, as in pore filling with pumice/shellac. It may be the same color, but it interrupts the grain of the wood in a very subtle way. Also, most pore filling methods are very boring processes.    So the way I fill pores is simply to put on enough finish to fill the pores, sand it back to level (so that there is finish in the pores but either none or very little on the rest of the wood), and then proceed with finishing as usual. Usually, I use nitro for that process, but this time I used shellac for that and then finished by spraying nitro. I'm not sure there's much difference in the results other than shellac is a little cheaper than a similar quantity of nitro.

This method of pore filling takes a little bit longer, but the process is not nearly as unpleasant and I very much prefer the finished look. (One pore-filling method I haven't tried is epoxy; perhaps it yields similar results.) I would be interested in hearing anyone's thoughts as to any disadvantages this method has.

Thanks again for your kind thoughts to all.
Author:  BruceH [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:20 am ]
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Nice work, Kelby. Both guitars look great and I like the stripes in the neck. How was the paduk to bend? I've read that it can be difficult.

Now - how about some detail shots of that neat vine inlay?

BruceH
Author:  FrankC [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 9:58 am ]
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Hey Kelby,

Great work. I also agree with your opinion on tops. Although too many demand master grade, I too like the variations such as your top. I bought a few tops from Ed Dicks at Acoustic Woods. He has a section for "Unique Red Cedar". I picked up a few and can't wait to put them to use. Personally, i think it adds some character and "uniqueness" to a custom guitar.
Author:  Kelby [ Wed Mar 02, 2005 11:06 am ]
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Bruce and Frank, thank you for your thoughts.

Bruce, the padauk bent surprisingly easily in my Fox bender with three bulbs (two 200W bulbs and one 150W bulb). The bends on this dread were not very drastic, and perhaps we would have struggled with a tight cutaway. However, it didn't even think about cracking at all (no superglue repairs on these sides!), so I suspect we could have tortured it quite a bit more than we did without problems.

I'll be happy to post some detail shots of the inlay, although first I will need to clean the tape muck off the fretboard from when I sprayed them. Right now, it just looks icky.   
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