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I considered the stacked heel and scarf but I wanted a one piece. Since buying mahogany this way is so cheap I have to try it.

I already found it to be a problem. I broke my 1/4 blade cutting it. Not enough light in my garage and I couldn't see that the blade was being pushed to the side. I ordered a 3/8 blade and going to buy some LED shop lights today. Once I can see a little better I'm going to make sure the bandsaw is setup perfect before cutting the other 3 necks.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Since my bandsaw blade won't be here til Monday, I thought I would prepare some of this wood for stacked heel and scarf. Hey I get one more neck this way for a total of 5. Still need the BS to cut the scarf.

Plus I got some 1/8 veneer.????

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

After sanding everything in sight with my new 19X38 thickness sander, I now need a go-bar deck to install my braces. I have a very low ceiling so I decided to build a bench with a piece of ply attached to the ceiling over it.

Here's the first stage of the bench. It's 6' feet long so it can be used for other things as well. I got all the wood including the top (3/4" T11 ), I put the grooves face down, from the HD bargain bin. I had to do a little work on some of the twisted 2 Xs but I'm OK with that. I think the bench only cost about $30 so far.



I'm going to make the rods from hickory, ash or oak depending on what I can find with straight grain at the lumber store.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Have you already built the bench in the drawing above? If not, I have a suggestion depending on what other bench(es) you may already have in your shop. On the island bench I built and do most of my work on, I made the the top overhang by 3 1/2" on all sides. I use that feature all the time (almost daily) for clamping things to the bench. Very handy.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks but I have another bench for clamping and other work. This one is mostly going to be for go-bar deck and maybe a drill press on one end and wood storage underneath.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Keep in mind for your go bar deck...
You’ll need a way to adjust the height. Clamping braces is one thing but if you close the body you’ll need a good bit more clearance.
What I’m saying is make it tall enough to close the body:)
You’ll need to stack things up and use a radius dish or something then to take up the slack to do braces on a plate.

I’ve been wanting to build and adjustable deck, but just haven’t gotten around to to it


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Another thing about the go bar deck: The bottom deck needs to be unyielding. T11 is relatively thin, and the grooves weaken it a fair amount. You might want to double or triple it for the benchtop.

I made another leap. Got my go-bar deck finished and ready to go. I may finally glue in some braces this week.
Watching me build a guitar is like watching grass grow. I'll get it done though.

I made the extra lift so that when I put back onto the body, I can remove it and still use the same sticks. I ran out of 2x4s or I would have put one in the middle of the lift. The bench is high to accommodate my height 6'2" plus I could get two rods out of each driveway marker. These things put much more pressure than required but that can't hurt.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I would maybe recommend doubling up the plywood on the upper deck. Here is a pic of my setup (I copied Terry Kennedy’s setup). Once you have a lot of the bars in there it might flex. If it flexes you have a room full of fiberglass arrows.



Brad


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Whooo! It's starting to look like a guitar now. I used HHG last night and this morning I cleaned up the mess and tightened a few spots with water and a heat gun. I wouldn't have been able to do that with carpenters glue.

Having done this now, I'd like to get away from the go-bars and build some spool clamps. I also found that I need a glue bottle for applying the glue to the rims. I had a big mess to clean up from using a brush. I knew going in that the brush was going to make a mess but I wanted the back on so I dealt with the clean up. Water, heat gun and paper towels took care of the inside. I'll clean the outside after I bandsaw most of the over sized back away.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I use little 2oz glue bottles with a stainless bolt inside for HHG. The bolt helps the bottle float upright in the hot water bath.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

It could be that you mixed the hot hide glue a bit too thin for this particular task. Think about what you are doing: Wiping glue on the top of a vertical wall of wood, with kerfs cutting up the top surface. If thin glue can trickle down, it will. I think it is better to use a thicker mix of the glue for that particular task.

Well I had to undo it. It was off center by an 1/8th inch. I don't know how I didn't see it. I think I need better light at the go-bar deck. Anyway, now that it's apart I might wait until the top is ready to install and do that first as some have suggested.

What's a good way to clean up the glue? I'm thinking a pot of very hot water and a rag. I tried with the heat gun but it really doesn't have much affect. I don't see how leaving it in a hot car would either. HHG is awesome!

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Yes, you will need moisture as well as heat to remove HHG

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

As far as being off center ...you could have very possibly been on center, but then had some glue slip when you clamped


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So, now that I have that all cleaned up, I'm going to take some other steps backwards to fix some things I'm not proud of. For one, the cuts in the linings for the braces to go through, were a really poor fit. I'm going to replace the linings on the back and try again. The other one is removal of the tail block so I can make the rim fit better in the mold. There are some gaps I don't like and this is due to inexperience and watching too many videos. I had glued the blocks on out of the mold, this time everything will be done in the mold.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I'm starting work on the top by routing for the rosette. This got me looking at the plan and thinking about bracing. I'm not 100% sure if the the view is reversed or through. There aren't any dotted lines to indicate a through the top view and I certainly don't want to screw up the top bracing.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

That would be what it looks like from the inside of the guitar.

Yep. So you have the top face down (rosette side down) with the braces facing you.


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Thank you very much.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Speaking of rosette it took me a few tops to figure this out but just in case as a matter of procedure...

1- get any saw marks out of what will be the visible side of the top.
2- go ahead and install the rosette a tad proud then bring it down to level.
3- thickness the top from the back

I’m sure you’ve got that chop already, but just wanted to toss that out there


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Yeah, right up until #3. It's already thicknessed to .100 so I'll have to be very careful from here on out.

Next one I'll get #3 right.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Almost done building a circle cutter for cutting rosettes in guitars. I picked up the hardware to complete it on my way to work. Tomorrow morning I should be testing it.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

We think about top and back thickness as a set of minimum thicknesses. For the top, there is a) joining thickness (minimum thickness to get a good joint milled and the top glued up), b) rosetting thickness (minimum thickness to get a rosette in and still be able to thickness the rosette to flush or a few thou beyond), bracing thickness (the minimum thickness where the top is ready for bracing), and d) the final thickness in the white after any tuning, thinning, etc.

For the back, a, c, and d apply.

For joining thickness, we usually don't worry about getting a perfect saw-mark free surface...we take just enough off to read both sides and for spruce, re-candle to look for defects which might appear as the top is thinned. Usually, 0.150" is our minimum for the top, although we've used down to 0.130" where we know the top thickness will end up close to 0.100"-0.105". 0.010" is our allowed loss to flush the top joint, and we assume a further 0.005" lost in leveling the rosette. We used to allow more loss associated with removing the sanding marks from the drum sander (0.005"-0.007") with ROS, scraper, and hand, but the Jet 22-44 ODS largely eliminates that loss (as would some oscillating belt sanders). The rest of the reduction in thickness required to get to bracing thickness is done on the underside of the top, and if things are close, we will tolerate a few saw marks where they will not be an issue for bracing integrity or result in a stress riser.

The back is similar, although target values are more material dependent. For routed back trim, we try to keep thickness such that we can handle the back and get the trim in without too much risk.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

Build and learn. Thanks for the input Woodie

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!