New froe, old beam.
The wood is probably too seasoned (riving is supposed to be much truer when using green wood, about 30% moisture content) but it’s a short length, so I lucked out and ended up with bookmatched wedges with zero runout. Can’t wait to hear it!
Photos add, like, five pounds of dust amirite?
1x12 guitar cabinet! With a GWS ET65 driver, 3/8” cedar/fiberglass baffle, solid pine carcass.
My first f-holes! On a Cedar stave soundboard.
This is after the first, heavy coat of ground; photo taken at dusk. A light leveling and some shellac will follow.
I want to make the bow as well— but would like to avoid using endangered, foreign wood like the traditional Pernabucco (I live in the Pacific Northwest of North America). I’m thinking Mesquite, Osage Orange, or Black Locust? Any tips for the aspiring bow-maker?
Trying my hand at a guitar speaker cabinet. Determined not to use those little chrome corners. We’ll see.
More to come! The baffle is going to be AMAZING.
It’s exactly like making a mandolin. Only 2.3x larger?
Cookin’
My dream workshop has a combination go bar and fume hood.
The first step to leveling your frets is to level your fretboard. Then you need to cut your slots consistently. The slots can introduce errors in a few ways:
First: by not being deep enough.
Second: by being too tight; making the frets seat inconsistently.
Third: having sharp edges on the slots. The tang of the fret connects to the rest of the fret with a slight fillet— this curve usually just compresses the sharp edge on the fret slot, but it doesn’t always do this consistently. I use a triangular file to break the edges. This bevel also reduces tearout when refretting.
Now seat the frets: ideally, after that work with the fretboard, they will be already level. Best of all, they’ll still have the crown from the factory die so you will only need to dress the edges. Lay a straight-edge over the frets at each string position to see if you’re already done.
If not: use a fretboard block with ~120-grit sandpaper or a long metal file to skim the top. You want to stop as soon as all of the frets are touched by the leveling block. Smooth the frets with a flat sharpening stone— this plane will be the final surface for the frets.
Different amounts of material will be removed from each fret, so at this point you need to reshape the tops. Run a permanent marker over the top of each fret, then round the edges of the fret, leaving a thin stripe down the middle untouched.
Experimenting with ground coats! This first layer of finish keeps subsequent layers from saturating the soundboard and deadening vibrations. It also has a lovely side effect of heightening chatoyancy (which lived up to its reputation of not being easy to photograph).
