Non-PBG Mockingbird. From Scratch.

[B'Lark]

Today was the second day of work. The build and how... kind of absurd it is has caught a few people off guard, most people are building fairly stock standard acoustics, which don't get me wrong are really nice, but the extra complexity in my plans have been catching a bit of attention haha.

So I got my piece of Jarrah today for the top. There was 3 bookmatched pairs to choose from, and well it basically came down to "which looks more figured" so yeah... It was actually fairly easy to catch this figuring on camera, I expected it to show a little less, because while it's definitely there, it's not amazingly striking right now, but of course it will come out much more after it's been worked with.



Aaand plenty big enough for the body.



I also got my slab of Mahogany!! It's much lighter than I expected too. It should have a bit of ribbon figuring through it, as there's 2 other guitars at the workshop that have come from the same piece of tree, and they've got some nice figuring in them. I need to remember to get pictures of them next time I head in there now that I mention it.



Pretty dirty and messy for now but hey that's how it all starts!!



Unfortunately, it's not going to be the "one-piece" dream. Not quite. The long story-short is that it would be less stable in the middle of the guitar, and be at risk of splitting and etc down the line, so for stability's sake, we're splitting it down the middle, and flipping the pieces around. And as you can see, it's much nicer on the inside!



And more in the next post because I can only attach 5 pictures to one post.

[B'Lark]

So first thing to do today was glue up the Jarrah. The piece was already nice and even in terms of thickness, so didn't have to worry about that at all, just had to clean up the sides and get them nice and even. The figuring also became reeeallly visible there too, makes me quite excited to see how it will look later.





After that, clamp it up, wedge some wood in, and clamp it up again, and there we have it.



After that was when we chopped the Mahogany in half. Then planed off the outsides to get them nice and even for gluing.



Now I don't have any pictures of gluing the Mahogany back together because a) I ran out of time, and b) Matt is going to do it for me. His belief on the issue was that since he's never joined pieces that thick together before himself, he wanted to make sure he could do it properly before making anyone else do it, which is fair, and it means I'll know it's done properly, and it will be done before my next class, so everyone wins.

The last thing that I did today was make up an MDF template of the body. In doing so I discovered that I'm bad at cutting accurately with a bandsaw, and so a couple of little sections had to be shifted inwards to accommodate. Not a big deal in the end really.



That's about all I have in terms of progress for that for now.

In terms of future things: It looks like I'll be going with a set of Blackwater Guitars Neodymium Vintage pickups. I'm not exactly spoiled for choice, but they seem like solid pickups, I can customise them a bit, and they're the cheapest I can do (If anyone does happen to have any other suggestions for multiscale appropriate pickups though PLEASE let me know, I'm totally open to options here!!) I also decided on plans for the Piezo/MIDI electronics. I will just go with standard electronics initially, but I will ensure that everything is routed/drilled so that I will be able to add the Piezo and MIDI functionality down the line myself, without having to do anything more than maybe drilling some holes for extra knobs.

Oh also, if a mod happens to see this, would I be able to get the thread name changed? To "Non PBG Build: Multiscale, Semi-Hollow, Drop-Top, 7-String Mockingbird" Thanks

[Andy40]

A friend of mine owns the Brisbane franchise of the 'Australian Guitar Making School'.

Its just that little bit too far away for me to take advantage of his great workshop.

I'm thinking of doing a scratch build one day, but the thought of making a neck is a reality check, so I'll be following this one closely too.


Thats almost identical to the headstock I designed for my build, but only 6 holes. I THOUGHT I'd come up with a unique design, an amalgam of Maton, PRS and Ovation, but there ya go...

Its just down the road from me! I'm gonna sign up maybe next year to build an acoustic.

[vh2580]

Thats looking cool, that jarrah looks like the figure will come up nicely.

[FrankenWashie]

another one i need to take notes from! Thanks for documenting online B'Lark.

[B'Lark]

Its just down the road from me! I'm gonna sign up maybe next year to build an acoustic.

Do it man!! I've been really enjoying my build so far. And no worries FrankenWashie!! I know it's nice to see stuff like this, so I'm glad I can help

Unfortunately no pictures from today, phone issues. I'll make sure to go crazy with them next week.

Today's events: Plane off all the gack from the top and bottom of the Mahogany. It came up very nicely, one side was fairly free of figure, but the other had some nice ribbon figuring, and some flame, and some nice looking knots too. I won't be able to get the knots in to the body unfortunately, because of the shape, but the flame is going to be in there, which I'm really happy with.

Second: Attach a Jarrah veneer to the headstock. I actually attached 2 veneers, a very thin maple one in between the headstock and Jarrah. Why? Because it looks cool. No reason more honestly. The Jarrah veneer was very very cooperative, by some stroke of luck, we ran it through the Thicknesser, only expecting to take a little bit off it, then have to sand it down, but it cut extremely cleanly so we didn't have to sand it down

Finally, cleaning up the Jarrah top. This was basically just running it through the Drum Sander a bunch of times, levelling out the rips from being cut and so on, and getting rid of all of the glue. I looked at it after that had been done and was a little disappointed because it looked like the figure was going to be much tamer in the centre, but we popped some Metho on it to bring out the figure and it's DEFINITELY there, and definitely heavily figured. Will make sure I get photos of that next week.

Between then and now I have to plan the F-holes on to my template, and the chambers. But yea sorry about the lack of photos today, I'll make up for it next time!!

[dingobass]

Will be following this with interest.

BTW, I will move this thread to Non Pitbull Guitars

[B'Lark]

Will be following this with interest.

BTW, I will move this thread to Non Pitbull Guitars

Fair call, I didn't realise there was actually a section of the forum for it, my bad!

[dingobass]

No worries mate, thats what us mods are here for

[SIMpleONe89]

Nice! Where do u get the wood from B'lark? I just finished my first scratch build and it was a fun and rewarding process. Hope you enjoy the process too.