Lyn #14 - Solid-body Acoustic

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Finally, how much Tru Oil I apply. These 9 drops will do half of the top of the guitar.
Attachment 15409

The neck and the headstock has been stained a Walnut colour so I could not apply my usual black printed decal on the headstock so you can see it here applied to the body of the guitar.

That’s it for now. I will start assembling the guitar in the next few days and then comes the tricky part of positioning the bridge and hoping that it lines up with all the pre-drilled holes and cavities. Fingers crossed.

Cheers guys
rob

Looking amazing as usual Rob! I Love the contrast between the top and back/sides. Looking forward to seeing it assembled and hearing a demo!

cheers,
Gav.

Wonderful stuff Robin.

great to see you back at it Robin.

Damn! Was wondering what happened to this build!
If that's not a good finish, then I'll just quit now!!

Nice work Westie07 great to have you back. You have and always will be the king of naughty oil. Binding and colour contrast look very good

Hi Robin! I'm amazed for this building, it's something like a work of a genius, I'm starting building guitars and I've read all your posts like a student at the university hehehe. I have one question, if I may ask, I've seen you've used brasso as the final coat of the body and the result was surprisingly shiny, can it be used with any kind of finish? I'm planing using polyurethane in my first proyect, will brasso work with it?

Welcome back Rob. The build's looking great, as always.

This is a pretty amazing build. Can't wait to see it all done. Looks like you're in the home stretch (curing time notwithstanding).

@ Gav, Frankie, Dedman, Zandit, WARREN ;), Antonio, Scott and G-Axe
Thanks so much guys. I know this is a well used, and often an over used statement, but the encouragement and support we all get from this Community is truly amazing and much appreciated. Thank you guys.

@ G-Axe
I’m hoping to have her finished next week, time permitting. I have to admit that I applied the Tru Oil over a month ago, so it has cured nicely, but I then lost interest and motivation again. But I’m back into it again and hopefully will see her through to the finish without any back sliding this time ;)

@ Antonio
Thank you my friend, but there are far more capable guitar builders than me on these forums. I just have the luxury of more spare time than most to indulge my hobby. Just over 3 years ago I had no carpentry skills and, like you, was looking forward to building my first guitar. Trust me when I say that if I can do it, anyone can.

In regards to Brasso, I have only used it on Tru Oil, so I can’t really advise you on how effective it is on Plyurethane. It is actually a metal polish similar to a cutting compound that is used to polish automobiles. Most people use the auto cutting compounds that are available at most car accessory shops. It’s just that I had some Brasso in the house and thought I would give it a try. Try and avoid anything that has silicone in it.

I hope this helps.

rob

Brasso is very good on polishing nitro and acrylic finishes, I'd imagine it would be good on poly as well, as it is just mainly a cutting compound. Silvo is a slightly coarser polishing liquid than Brasso, so if you have any lying around, you could always try that first followed by Brasso.

However, you don't want to leave a puddle of it on the finish, as it can dissolve the finish and leave a rough patch. I discovered this the hard way after unknowingly leaving an acrylic finished guitar sitting on a small puddle of Brasso. But applying it via a cloth and then rubbing away and cleaning off is fine.

Brasso? Well, you learn something new everyday. Great tip and a great finish. A beautiful looking job so far. Can't wait for the finished article.

Ahhhhhhh, Great to see Robin the Luthier back!
As per usual, a beautiful job Robin.

Thank you Robin and Simon. I'm learning a lot here at this forum, I'll remember the brasso and how to use it, I'll gives it a try with a wood before using in the guitar, but of course later I'll remove as Simon said to avoid it damages the poly. Thank you for the advice.

Ummmmmmmm.....
Never use brasso on nitro!
The solvents will end up destroying the finish.. been there, done that.
Wet and dry paper with a small amount of water (make sure you don't slop it around too much and get it into rout outs etc) to flatten the finish then a good quality polishing compound that does not contain silicone to buff up to a gloss.

Good point Dingo, I will remember it. My idea is using poly with my next guitar and the idea of brasso seems interesting, it's a very good finish.

Great job Rob looks awesome!

Sent from Android N

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dingobass

Ummmmmmmm.....
Never use brasso on nitro!
The solvents will end up destroying the finish.. been there, done that.

---

It does depend on how much you apply at a time and I've had some very good results using it. But as you say, it is best to use proper polishing compounds to avoid problems with excess application. I've now bought some, so I won't be using Brasso again.

@Simon
Thanks for your usual insight Simon, always good to learn something new.

@ILRGuitars and AndrewO
Thanks guys.

@DB
Thanks Phil, it’s always a nice feeling to get praise from the “Master” ;)

rob

Time to install the bridge.

So much more pressure to get this right. First time for me with a non-adjustable bridge so it has to be just right.

You know the old adage of “measure twice cut once”, well multiply that by a factor of about 10 and you are getting close to how I approached this job. My google research gave me more than one “correct” measurement for placement of the bridge/saddle. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing I decided to go with the measurements on the StewMac web site.

In brief I taped off the general area of where the bridge will sit and then measured the scale length and added 1.6mm to treble side and 4.0mm to bass side to the inside edge of where the saddle should sit. I procrastinated long and hard but finally made the decision and cut out the space for the bridge and applied a few more pieces of tap to give me a better defined border.

I then had to scrape away the TO finish so that I had bare wood to glue to the bridge. With that done I glued the bridge in place. I will know in a few days if I got it right, when I try for tuning and intonation.


Rob

Taped off with low tack painters tape.
Attachment 15458

The process of endless measuring and checking.
Attachment 15459

Scraping away the Naughty Oil.
Attachment 15460

Ready for gluing.
Attachment 15461

For better or worse, the bridge glued in position.
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Clench factor of 10 to the 7 on that job Robin!

looks very tasty with the bridge on and neck in place Westie07, keep up the good work mate

This'll be you when you tune it up.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...e41f283578.jpg

Awesome work Robin. I feel the stress, but looks like you did a good job.

cheers,
Gav.

Thanks Franky, Warren, Axe and Gav. Getting near the home stretch now.

Still not overly confident how she will turn out, but I have enjoyed this off-again, on-again build, and have learnt a lot about myself, and working with wood.

Now it’s time to do a little bit of soldering. And start putting all the pieces together.

It’s all pretty much straight forward. As I had previously cut off the battery portion off the pre-amp I now have to connect a remote battery holder to replace it. I bought some mini connectors (so that I could disconnect everything in case I needed access to any of the parts) and just had to solder the connections between the batt holder and the pre-amp.

With that done I had to feed the wiring through the cavity in the body and hope everything lined up. Fortunately it all went fairly smoothly and all the components fitted in the right places and it was just a matter of screwing the pre-amp in place. Because of the way the battery holder was designed it made it virtually impossible to screw that in place as the surface “plate” is barely bigger than the cavity needed to house the holder, so it is just pushed in place for the present. Luckily I made it a very tight fit so once in place it’s not going anywhere soon.

Pretty simple setup. The only thing not shown here is the connection to the output jack which has already been screwed in place with the wiring fed through the body and connected to the pre-amp unit. You can clearly see the under saddle Piezo pick up in this shot before it was fed through the cavity and out through an access hole drilled through the body of the guitar. Luckily it lined up with the hole I had already drilled in the saddle slot of the bridge.
Attachment 15528

Here you can see the Piezo pickup poking through the saddle slot of the bridge.

Attachment 15529


All in place. The pre-amp area looks a bit of a mess, but that’s because the unit is designed for an acoustic guitar and not designed for the confines of a solid body.
Attachment 15530

This is the back finished with the pre-amp cover in place.
Attachment 15531

I have already glued a bone nut in place and roughly slotted it. Next will be the part that will either make or break this guitar cutting a bone saddle and the final setup and intonation.

Stay tuned………. Get it! Tuned, intonation? Yeah I know, pretty pathetic.

rob

Looking great robin. Down the home straight now.

cheers,
Gav.

looks excellent Westie07 glad it all fits together, and don't give up your day job to be a comedian mate haha

Thanks Gav and Warren.

Hey Warren, no day job to give up, so look out for some more lame jokes. ;)

haha no worries Westie, look forward to the future jokes mate !

Queue crazy scientist’s voice...... “It’s alive. IT’S ALIVE!”

Well after months of not knowing whether I was wasting my time or not I finally got to hear her. And I am so relieved that she works. Tuning was somewhat of a problem, as she wouldn’t play in tune anywhere on the fretboard. As it was a PBG neck I knew that wasn’t the problem, so it had to be the nut and/or bridge saddle.

I had already cut the bone nut fairly low, but tuning problems over the first few frets is usually nut related so I got into that and lowered the slots by about 1mm but it made all the difference.

Next, intonation, and (a first for me) to compensate the bone saddle. The original position of the bridge was spot on (phew) as the “e” and “G” strings intonated perfectly, but the others were out by anything up to about 10+ cents.

I then began the painstaking process of filing a bit away from the nut, bring the string up to tension, check intonation, loosen the string, file a bit more off the saddle, re-tension, check intonation, loos………. Well you get the idea. This is done with each string. With the amount of times I have loosened and re-tensioned the strings while cutting the nut and saddle it’s a wonder that the strings have any tone left in them.

But I finally finished and intonation is good to within 2 or 3 cents at the 12^th fret measured on an iPhone App. Its not perfect but as acoustics are mainly played below the 7th fret its as good as I could get it. Bottom line is I am REALLY happy how she turned out. I can always cut a new saddle at a later date if I end up not happy with it.

I used my 12” radius block to rough out the shape of the saddle
Attachment 15588


Then strung up the guitar and worked on each string until I was happy with the intonation. For a noob like me this was pretty time consuming, as I had to "sneak up" on the scale length for fear of filing away too much.
Attachment 15589


Once I was happy with the intonation I removed the saddle again and finished up shaping the saddle in my hobby vice.
Attachment 15590


Done!
Attachment 15591

great stuff Westie07 we are going to need a sound demo and finished photos.
Glad you got it fairly well intonated and it all works, I had faith in you it would work from day 1 mate !

I never expected it to sound exactly like an acoustic, but to my tired old worn out ears she doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll be using her at church but will be playing with other electric guitars so she should add a bit of jingleness to the overall sound. I also hope to use her in future home recordings where I can tweak the sound a bit so it sits nicely in a mix.


Attachment 15592 Attachment 15593

Attachment 15594 Attachment 15595

Attachment 15596

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Very nice, it's definitely nerve wracking cutting your first saddle. I did my first one in acrylic then copied it to a bone blank rather than risk going all in first time ;)

And now some close up shots

Attachment 15603 Attachment 15604


Attachment 15605Attachment 15606


Attachment 15607

@ Warren
Thanks mate, you have more faith in my abilities than I do. Lol.
I’ll do a quick demo later this afternoon.

@Scott
Thanks mate, by the time I’d got to cutting the saddle I had no nerves left, it was either going to work or it wasn’t. But I had a spare saddle just in case. Such is the level of my confidence. ;)

Thanks guys
rob

Dang it Robin! If it plays half as good as it looks you've got a winner.

Beautiful well done

Sent from Android N

looks unreal Westie ! Are the equaliser controls in the back cavity ? Couldn't see them exposed. Love the simplistic look of the front with just your logo and bridge. Top job mate and glad it will fit will in the church band

Wonderful bit of work Robin. You've created a beautiful object, really looking forward to hearing a sound demo of it.