Lyn #15 - Solid-body Nylon Acoustic

[robin]

Hey Guys,

Time to start a new build. Actually I started about 3 weeks ago but had grave reservations that I would get even this far, but as I have I thought I’d better document my progress and mistakes.

I’ve never owned a classical nylon string guitar before so guess what, I’m going to try and build one. It will be similar to my solid body acoustic with the piezo pickup only with nylon strings. And like my last few guitars it will be built using only hand tools.

This may come as a surprise to most of you but I was not able to buy a classical “bolt on” guitar neck. I guess those things are frowned upon by the classical guitar aficionados. Go figure! So I thought it was about time to build my own neck.

I know that most of you will say I’m mad (and you're probably right) and it won’t work (and you're probably right), but as this will only be a prototype it will be made out of what I have laying around, that being a laminate of 2 pieces of pine and 3 pieces of marine plywood (for stability). Apparently a nylon string guitar has about 1/3 the tension of a steel string guitar so I thought it might even work so I would give it a go.

I thought if I can’t make a neck out of pine I sure won’t be able to make it out of Maple, so I might as well save the $$’s and try a pine prototype first. If it is a success, bonus, but lacks stability I will just strip the hardware off and build a maple one. I figure I have nothing to lose.

When I started my research I found out that there is no such thing as a “standard” size neck for classical guitars. So I bought a cheap (and quite frankly, nasty) Rosewood fingerboard, so that has determined the width. The profile? I have no idea, so it will be done completely by feel and what feels comfortable to me.

Pretty much a make it up as I go along type deal.

So progress so far:

Cut the pine and the ply.


I thought it would be easier to give the individual pieces a rough shape before gluing. It also gave me the opportunity so rebate the centre strip of ply for the truss rod channel.


Glue the lot together


Add Headstock wings


And you end up with this monstrosity

[robin]

After roughly shaping the headstock, I used a plane to shape and square the sides.


Used coping saw to shape headstock


Drilled starter holes for tuners


Finishing off the tuner space.


So that's the Headstock roughly finished, showing some of the tools used.


Next job will be to glue the fretboard on, and profile the neck. But that as they say, is a story for another time.

cheers guys
rob

[Simon Barden]

Looking good.

I'm a bit surprised that you're putting a truss-rod in, another classical no-go area like bolt-on necks. As classical necks are normally wider, thicker and the nylon strings have far less tension than on steel stringed guitars, they don't really need a truss rod. Of course it will work, but you'll probably find that the neck just stays flat without needing to tension it at all.

[gavinturner]

Looking great Rob. As always, jealous of the skills man. I am interested in how you measure and cut the fret slots so if you could detail that part I would be very eager to read! Do you do it before or after the fretboard is radiused, and what do you measure with?

cheers,
Gav.

[FrankenWashie]

Another sterling job from Mr. Robin! The pine/ply laminate looks really great.

I assume it is going to be similar to a bolt on neck, without the traditional Extended neck heel?

[WeirdBits]

Wow Rob, that's my kind of crazy. Fantastic!

[dave.king1]

My young brother made a steel string acoustic using basic hand tools, no truss rod so the neck was a bit thicker.

From memory it was a slightly odd size in both scale and body so he had to do the calcs for the fret locations, it both played and sounded remarkably good.

Good luck with the build Robin, like the rest I will be looking on in awe

[Kick]

I'll be following this thread Rob! Nice build and I have lots of respect for guys like you!

[robin]

@Simon
Thanks Simon, the truss rod is a bit of the belt and braces approach. It’s there if I need it, but I hope I won’t. Being pine I thought I would play it safe as it’s not the most stable of woods.

@Gav T
Thanks mate, no need to be jealous of my non-existent skills, just have pity on my stubborn streak.

For measurements I just used the fret position calculator here:
https://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator.html

I don’t own a fret slotting saw as they are too expensive but I did treat myself to one of these:
http://www.irwin.com/tools/handsaws/dovetaildetail-saw
I guessed it had a very fine blade as its described as a pull saw. I have tried it out on some scrap wood and I think it must just do the job.

My bro-in-law gave me some tools he no longer needs and one was a kind of mitre jig. It looks pretty sturdy and accurate so I will be giving this a go. I'll post a pic later.

Although the fretboard is very low quality wood it is dimensionally very square so I intend to measure and cut the slots before I do any shaping. I will just be using a rule and a try-square. I will have a centre line marked on the FB so I can line it up with the centre of the neck to keep it square then, when glued, trim the overlap to bring it back to the taper of the neck.

Being based on a classical style guitar the FB will be flat with no radius.

@Frankie
Thanks mate. You are correct, hopefully just like a bolt-on, with no extended neck heel.

@Scott
Crazy! Very apt choice of words.

@Dave
Thanks mate, I fully expect this build to be odd in all manner of ways.

Thanks again for the encouragement guys.

[wokkaboy]

Hey Westie07, inspiring work as usual, cool looking project.

The reason you don't need power tools because you are a MACHINE !

keep up the good work buddy !

I still worry about losing power all the time and having to do work with handtools and a way to keep my beer cold !