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Martin Guitar Kit (It's First Public Outing!)

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 23 May 2020, 16:18

Having made the sides of the mould, I needed to be able lock them together and then release them again, and so I fixed a pair of toggle latches at either end.

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(296.67 KiB)


Having locked them laterally, I now needed to prevent them from moving along the join. So while they're locked together, I put all the old cutouts in the mould with wedges to lock the moulds longitudinally and bored a hole 3/4 of the way down the join to take a dowel. Fortunately I had a couple left over from the roofing build. They get glued in place on one side using greaeproof paper to prevent the glue going round the dwell on to the other side.

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Watching glue dry.

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(286.05 KiB)


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(293.71 KiB)


The finished mould.

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(246.75 KiB)
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Robert » 23 May 2020, 17:46

Looks a nice quality expensive ply that you've used for that former. Guess you are going to be making a lot of guitars then?

Seriously though from what I've seen so far it should be a quality job. Looking forward to seeing it as it progresses.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 23 May 2020, 18:40

Robert wrote:Looks a nice quality expensive ply that you've used for that former. Guess you are going to be making a lot of guitars then?

Seriously though from what I've seen so far it should be a quality job. Looking forward to seeing it as it progresses.


Wickes' finest! :D

I might be prepared to lend it out to members on a lubrication basis.

Thanks, Robert.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby RogerS » 23 May 2020, 21:45

I'm missing something here, Malc. If you've already got those sides, why do you need that mould ?
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 23 May 2020, 21:56

RogerS wrote:I'm missing something here, Malc. If you've already got those sides, why do you need that mould ?



I'll try and explain in more detail tomorrow, Roger, but the sides come 'pre-bent', and even if I bent them myself, which I did on my last project, they do not form into the shape of the finished guitar and they are like a spring, so they have to be 'encouraged' to the final shape. It has to be right, because everything else is built on them, and any discrepancy will be magnified as the build goes on.

Everything will be in tension, the sides, the back, the soundboard, and the neck when strung. That's what gives the acoustic guitar its sound.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby RogerS » 23 May 2020, 21:58

Malc2098 wrote:
RogerS wrote:I'm missing something here, Malc. If you've already got those sides, why do you need that mould ?


....

Everything will be in tension, the sides, the back, the soundboard, and the neck when strung. That's what gives the acoustic guitar its sound.


Now that is something I never realised. Fascinating..I really look forward to seeing this develop. :text-bravo:
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Pinch » 24 May 2020, 08:00

Very nice Malc. 8-)

Is every component you need for the build in the kit, down to the actual finish?
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 11:37

Pinch wrote:Very nice Malc. 8-)

Is every component you need for the build in the kit, down to the actual finish?


Every component is in the kit but not in finished condition. There are no finishes included, that choice is down to the builder. I shall be looking to see if I can, or get someone else to, spray clear cellulose after grain filling etc.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 12:06

Having made the outside of the mould, the inside needs making and I just so happen to have some guitar shaped bits left over from the external mould build! :) Add a couple of cheap turnbuckles and look what I've ended up with!

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Adding to my comments in answer to Roger and Paul's earlier posts, you can see that the sides have been bent, but not to the finished shape, which is one reason why you need the mould. On top of that, the guitar will now stay in the mould until the back and top have both been fitted to the finished sides.

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(267.29 KiB)


Each of the sides slightly overlap the join of the mould so, today's first job will be to accurately cut the sides so both perfectly fir the mould ready to take the neck and tail blocks.

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(259.47 KiB)
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Andyp » 24 May 2020, 12:37

I am looking forward to the live streamed concert when finished.
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cheers
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 13:20

Andyp wrote:I am looking forward to the live streamed concert when finished.



Kind of you to suggest, Andy, but I realise now that my woodworking skills are better than any musical skills I might have.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 16:09

Quelle Catastrophe!

While I was cutting then ends of the sides to fit in the mould one of them cracked! Do did I, nearly!

I t cracked about six inches long from the tail. A quick google and I found the repair answer on my supplier's YT channel. Don't try to open the crack. Don't fiddle with the crack. Stream low viscosity superglue along the crack. Let capillary action do its stuff. Spray activator and quickly wipe excess off. Squeeze together.

It bloody worked!

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I often use Heavy Duty Stanley blades as a cabinet scraper, so if did here and got myself back to a reasonable finish that can be sanded when the time comes.

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(177.2 KiB)


Phew!
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby DaveL » 24 May 2020, 16:33

Nice recovery, well done.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby RogerS » 24 May 2020, 16:39

oooh..if that had been me, the air would have been blue. Good recovery. Is it worth sticking veneer tape across the ends to try and prevent this from happening again ?
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 17:51

RogerS wrote:oooh..if that had been me, the air would have been blue. Good recovery. Is it worth sticking veneer tape across the ends to try and prevent this from happening again ?


If I had veneer tape I might have thought about it, but I quickly went into glue the rim together with the end blocks which I've been doing, including there dry runs for the last hour.

Later in the build there's a point where you glue strips across the insides of the sides to prevent splits when it's tensioned up as a whole body.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 17:59

RogerS wrote:oooh..if that had been me, the air would have been blue.


I might have let loose with a 'gosh' and a 'dash', as you do! ;)
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby RogerS » 24 May 2020, 18:02

Malc2098 wrote:
RogerS wrote:oooh..if that had been me, the air would have been blue. Good recovery. Is it worth sticking veneer tape across the ends to try and prevent this from happening again ?


If I had veneer tape I might have thought about it, but I quickly went into glue the rim together with the end blocks which I've been doing, including there dry runs for the last hour.

Later in the build there's a point where you glue strips across the insides of the sides to prevent splits when it's tensioned up as a whole body.


I was thinking more as a precaution for the future weeks to come.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 24 May 2020, 20:44

At the start of this build there are two references, one is the top of the sides, the top being the soundboard side, and the other being the centre line.

Having cut the two sides to length, I have been able to fit them into the mould with only a little persuasion.

Now, I have placed the whole lot onto an MDF board which is relatively flat, so the top of the rim, what the two sides are called when they are together, can sit squarely on the pdf. You can see that I've placed ply offcuts under the mould so all the referencing downwards is now off the mdf and I can lift the mould up and sit it roughly central on the rim. And at the same time, I've drawn a line on the mdf which can reference the centre line of any components that sit on the line. Notice I have chalk marked the insides T and B, Top and Back, because the top is straight, while the back is pre-contoured.

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(262.58 KiB)


Centre line reference agin, this time for the neck and tail blocks. Both these blocks' gluing faces are slight arced to match the inside shape of the rim at their respective locations.

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(259.04 KiB)


With the rim braced in place to prevent creep, the neck and tail blocks are glued with TBO, clamped and left overnight. That took me three dry runs to be confident enough to open the glue bottle. :eusa-pray:

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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby fiveeyes » 24 May 2020, 22:47

Nice
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 25 May 2020, 21:44

Well, when I took all the clamps and cauls off and released it from the mould, it looked guitar shaped!

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(285.2 KiB)


And although very springy, it was still square to the board at rest.

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(294.15 KiB)


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(300.73 KiB)


next, I had to do something to the mould that I should have done before gluing up the sides. The mould need to be able to not slide around on the base board when sanding the edges of the rim later. So I bored a couple of holes through the mould and into the baseboard and a couple of dowels hold the mould in place.

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Now the next part of the process might be difficult for me to explain, but I'll try. The top of the guitar will be very slightly bent from the waist to the neck and from the waist to the tail; by about 1.5 degrees. The pros achieve this by using a large round board that has a dish route out of it to a radius of between 25 and 40 ft. I managed that with a flat sheet of melamine chipboard covered in sticky back sandpaper.

The back of the guitar is radiused to anywhere between 15 and 18 ft. The manufacturers choose their own specs. I'm told the difference make little if any change in sound output. Those dished boards are covered in 80 grit sandpaper and rotate around a post in the middle of the base board and they sand the edges to that radius.

You can buy those boards and if I were making several guitars, I would do, but I'm not shelling out for a single use. So, using some mathematics, arc, chord, mid-ordinate, radius etc, I worked out what the triangle dimensions would be for a 600mm chord and 10mm mid-ordinate. I also drew the arc using three nails and bent steel rule. The narrow acute angle of the triangle was about 2 degrees and the greatest distance between that and the arc was less than a millimetre. So I arranged a post in the middle of the base board, cut a 2 degree angle from the middle of a lump of 4 x2, bored a hole through it, stuck some 80 grit to it, placed it on the post and gently sanded the edges of the rim.

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(293.89 KiB)


You chalk around the edge of the rime and when all the chalk has gone, you've achieved the angle/radius. This also sands the neck and tail blocks to their respective angles.

Hopefully, when I build the back, I will build a compound curve into it using braces, and it should more or less fit over the rim with little fettling.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby DaveL » 25 May 2020, 23:20

That's a neat solution. One of the things I have made for making the bass is radiused sanding block for the fret board.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 26 May 2020, 09:38

DaveL wrote:That's a neat solution. One of the things I have made for making the bass is radiused sanding block for the fret board.



Thanks, Dave. I keep thinking it can't be right, because if it were that easy, the pros would do it. But, it's better than freehand.

I have a small number of fretboard sanding block from when I made my last guitar, except I have no idea what radius they are. Fortunately in this kit, the fretboard is already radiused.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 26 May 2020, 17:49

Kerf linings clamped while gluing.

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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby RogerS » 26 May 2020, 21:36

I envy your patience and skill, Malc.






Also your clean floor.
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Re: Martin Guitar Kit

Postby Malc2098 » 26 May 2020, 22:23

RogerS wrote:I envy your patience and skill, Malc.






Also your clean floor.


Thanks, Roger. I'm retired, on lockdown, over 70, so I've got plenty of time and don't have to rush things. I'm not a patient person by nature, but why rush?

I'd just swept the floor before I started today's session. yesterday I was ankle deep! :D
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