Guitar Making

The Tinman’s Heart guitar is finished and delivered to a happy customer! It has it’s own page, of course, filled with details and pictures. And, like every major build, after it was finished, it had to have a photo shoot. In past years (thanks to teaching at a University as part of a Fine Arts school), I have had access to professional grade photo lights to take my pics. Sadly, they are temporarily out of commission, so I had to improvise. My first option was to use an inner office with copious fluorescent lights. Some of the final pics came from that set. But, depending on the angle of the camera and the lights on the guitar, some shots were downright ugly, with bizarre color in the image. Here’s a shot of the front that wasn’t too bad: And here’s the very next shot of the same from from a different angle that has gone horribly, horribly, awry: After reviewing the shots from that first set, and finding not enough useable ones, I went searching for a new locale. Luckily, our Fine Arts building has a large glass enclosed atrium by the auditorium, and the rainstorm had finally stopped and was starting to clear. This gave me the ideal lighting environment: natural, but not direct, light. Here’s the back of the headstock under fluorescents: Here’s the same shot from almost the same angle, with natural light: Big difference! The Osage orange actually looks orange rather than green (yech!), and the mahogany has that beautiful rich color that it is known for. So, that is the first component to good pics, GET THE LIGHT RIGHT! But, that’s not the end of the story. Even with the right light, you still have to work out the best angle. Especially with reflective surfaces, you have to make sure that you aren’t getting light bouncing back, washing out whole sections of the piece. (This is particularly tricky with guitars since they have almost no flat surfaces; everything is curving every which way.) Here’s a shot (in natural light) of one side of the guitar that is reflecting too much: From the other side, the light is much kinder: But, the most important factor in getting good shots is this: Take as many pics from as many angles in as many environments as you can! Pixels are cheap, use as many as you can. You can always delete the really awful ones if you’re running out of space in the camera. (A second card is also a good idea!) The more you have to choose from, the more likely that you’ll find just the right shot. Nobody wants to end up with a Tinman that looks like he’s green to the gills!

I've just completed the Classical Guitar section of my archive. There are two posts, Early Classical Guitars and More Recent Classical Guitars for those of you who are interested. I don't seem to have an abundance of photos, so if you have one of my classical guitars that's not there, please send a photo and I'll be happy to include it.Cheers Gary

Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Facebook Post on Google Buzz Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Tweet This! Add this to Google Bookmarks Before you begin a guitar building project, choosing your guitar plans will be the most important decision that you’ll [...]

For those who are interested I just put my emando up for sale on eBay. The listing is here if you are interested. Putting instruments on eBay is a great way to reach an untapped audience and of course, you get the PayPal option. Just to round things off, here’s a lovely comment on from a Mandolin Café member about the emando, “This has to be one of the prettiest musical instruments of any sort, I've ever seen. I'll go further....I've never seen a more artistic use of wood.”

Working on Nadim’s guitar and John’s mandolin at the same time, swopping from the size of one to the other, really makes my brain hurt! I keep picking up Nadin’s neck and thinking, “Nah, it’s too long!” but of course the distance from the nut to the 14th fret is about the same as the scale length for the mandolin!Here you can see both of the rims completed.You may have noticed that head overlay on John’s mandolin is made from Thuya Burl. It is a very odd wood to work and you can read about it here. The Thuya Burl complements the Brazilian mahogany beautifully; so I’m going to use it in various places such as here….…..the tailpiece cover and possibly the heel cap on John’s mandolin.

OK, maybe not building an actual ship, but this entry is all about bridges and portholes. I’ve been focussed on teaching and getting in some WWing and luthiery instead of posting blog entries, but as the guitar build nears its conclusion, I’d thought I’d catch up a little. The body and neck are all completed, so before I can get it into the finishing room I need to make the bridge. We decided to go with cocobolo for the bridge, instead of ebony as we originally decided on, so that it would match the cocobolo bindings etc. I had a leftover blank from the Beast builds that was only partly cut out that would fit this size bridge easily. Before doing any shaping, while it is nice and flat and rectangular (-ish), I routed out the saddle slot and drilled the pin holes. Then I could cut the shape to outline. I created a new design to compliment the jumbo body shape, echoing the round belly, while providing an upper shape that would achieve the most important function of the bridge: to tie into the X-braces for best transmission of the sound vibrations. With the outline cut at the bandsaw and the saw marks smoothed, I could proceed with the shaping with rasp and file and sandpaper.I wanted a multilevel bridge, with the central belly being the highest part, then the much lower wings, but with a front ridge to provide strength and (again) maximum vibration transference. Positioned on the body (with all the blue tape helping with position and layout marks): After masking the bridge and fingerboard glue surfaces, and much finish sanding, it went into the finishing room for its first coats. Two coats of blonde shellac were followed by two coats of an oil/varnish, applied VERY thinly, and sanded to 600 grit between coats. I wanted to get things sealed and protected before the next step, which was to cut a sound port into the upper bout. This is a new innovation that the customer wanted that is to allow the player to hear the sound of the guitar better while playing. Not having done any before, I was concerned, especially with the osage orange, which has a tendency to want to splinter at cuts. Sure enough, I had some trouble with the edges, so I decided to make a decorative porthole ring to go around the hole. Easy to say, tricky to do. It had to be thin enough to not be intrusive, but it also had to follow the curves of the upper bout. I used the same mallee burl that I used for the endgraft and heelblock. Using a combination of a circle cutter, band saw and drum sander, I was able to get my ring. Then I fired up the bending iron to carefully bend it to shape. After letting it dry in the form overnight, it was ready to glue into place. Some homemade spool clamps proved to be the best method for glueing. And, after some finish sanding and some shellac, voila! Now, back to more finish coats, then final assembly and setup.

I used my new bending iron to bend the tiger myrtle bindings. First time I’ve used a bending iron and by the last one I think I was getting the hang of it. Luckily I had some spare lengths of binding as I broke a couple when I wasn’t patient enough…

You may remember Sean’s cocobolo twin-point that was completed November last year? Well, you can now see it being played as it should be, by Sean, in his rather wonderful band “The Dandy Horses” Enjoy!

I’ve just completed “Standard” mandolin V (i.e. this is 5th mandolin built to this design). If you wish you can read a totally independent review of Standard III by its owner here-Standard III reviewSo, number V has: American Black Walnut back & sides with maple bindings,American Black Walnut neck with maple laminations and carbon-fibre reinforcement stripsEuropean Spruce soundboard with a bound soundhole,You may remember that I’ve introduced a thin black line around the soundboard? Looks good eh?Rosewood, compound radius fingerboard with MoP dots & side markers, and wide gold evo fretsBurr Walnut head overlay with Golden Age tunersIt has an open-pour shellac satin finish.I really like the look of this one and it plays very well too: I only wish I could play better so that I could do it justice in my demo videos! And here is that video:It’s on sale now at 770 GBP which includes a Hiscox case; shipping for the mainland UK is an extra 30 GBP. If you’re interested in owning this mandolin, contact details can be found on my web-site.Nava Website