Joe G’s PSH-1 First Build Diary

[Simon Barden]

All info useful here, especially your lovely little tools. Nice work.

And a record like this is useful as you can look back if you discover a problem later to see if it had existed all along, or something that happened during the build.

You'll probably have to ream out the control holes again once the finish is on.

It's a good idea to stuff old newspaper or similar into the body when applying finish to stop the finish getting on the rear of the interior (note that digital newspapers don't work as well as the older paper ones do). Or try and stick masking tape over the inside of the holes. Something I'm sure you would have done, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case and also for the benefit of other readers.

[Joe Garfield]

I think this was the first thing I did. It was pretty chewed up and was hard to sand evenly (with the tool I was using at least.) But it’s miles better than it was and it made me feel better about the guitar. I then proceeded to make more sanding dowels and clean up all the drill holes, the corners of the pickup cavities, etc.

These are inexpensive kits which usually means (for manufacturing in general) the Factory tooling (bits) is not changed frequently, and also less concern about “Feed and Speed” when machining which leaves a lot of tear out and rough holes.

[FrankenWashie]

Nice work Joe, the cabinet making background definitely shows in the attention to detail!.

[Joe Garfield]

I, uh, sanded the top very lightly with 150 to see if I could hide the machining marks. It looks much better. I need to quit sanding the veneer while I’m ahead. I scraped the glue spots but didn’t get much out and didn’t want to take off too much material. Then I read the label for Goo Gone and it says not to use on raw wood. I can’t help but to wonder if some of the lightness we see after treating glue spots is also from the chemical, or from moving glue around but not actually removing it?

I read you can wet sand the glue spots while staining to get the spots to accept stain. I also read you can add solvent to the stain.

I don’t mean to go against the recommendations of forum members but I think I want to try a light first stain coat to see if there are glue spots, and try the wet sanding method. Because deep down I find sanding the veneer a bit exhilarating. Just kidding. Well not really. But really I don’t want to move glue around and make it worse.

Oh the places I scraped, where the worst glue is, I didn’t final sand which is why it looks “different.” Just in case I do some other work, I’ll wait till the end to final sand it.
Anyway, here it lies in its current state. I’m off to bed!

[Bakersdozen]

You have probably already read this, but using the Goof off with a firm fine brush instead of sanding with it. I find a firm toothbrush works well here. This "should" break up the glue into more manageable pieces to get it out of the wood. Once it starts to ball up, you can wipe with a rag to really get rid of it for good. To give you an idea of unknown glue spots give it a wipe down with gum turps or similar and you will see in good light the inconsistency where the glue spots are.

[Simon Barden]

Goo Off and Goof Off are very different products. I'd use straight acetone (with no additives) if you can't get Goof Off.

[Joe Garfield]

I need to figure out the bridge thing. I want to start working on the neck joint, but that requires knowing the neck angle which means I need to know the bridge height.

In order to use the ebony tailpiece, I need to figure out a bracket that will properly support it, and not flex or bend from string tension. Any movement in the bracket means tuning issues. Most guitars with this style tailpiece use a system that lets the tailpiece adjust to string tension: either secured with a wire, or mounted on a hinge. My favorite guitar apparently uses a solid metal bracket. I’ve been looking for good pics for years and never found one, finally I did. I also noticed that the ‘copies’ of that guitar are now switching to solid brackets.

If the bracket is too thin, or if the angle is wrong, it will bend under string tension. It looks like the Languedoc guitar (the $15000 guitar I love) uses a 90 degree, and I guess it’s just thick enough steel that it doesn’t move.

So back to the neck angle: I need to have a secure tailpiece bracket, need to know bridge height, and need to make sure there’s enough string break angle over the bridge to the tailpiece. As it is right now, I’d need to add a bunch more angle to the neck to make the bridge pieces I have work. So what I can do to minimize that is reduce the height of the rosewood bridge base.

A good method to do this is lay sandpaper on the guitar, and rub the bridge until it takes the shape of the guitar top. But, my guitar is unfinished and has a very thin veneer. I’m afraid if I do that, I’ll rub in the grain a little (burnish?) which would affect how it absorbs stain. So what I’m thinking is to just uniformly remove material from the bridge to get approximate height, then build and finish the guitar, then come back and finish the bridge.

Here are some examples of guitar tailpieces. You’ll see the wire mount, the hinge mount, and finally the bracket mount.

[Joe Garfield]

After writing all that and posting pics, I thought I’d take a pic of my guitar. It turns out the break angle looks pretty good, and lowering the bridge might actually make it too shallow of an angle. That said, this is the lower of 2 bridges I have and it’s not on studs yet. But honestly I think it looks pretty good.

What do you think?

[Simon Barden]

It certainly looks good enough for now. Really no point taking the bridge height down at the moment (if at all). It can easily wait until final setup.

[Joe Garfield]

I’m still torn between a standard combination (wraparound) bridge and the tailpiece. I ordered a wraparound and was thinking this isn’t really the right guitar for a tailpiece.

Then I found this, which only needs minor modification to work:


It’s a bracket for mounting hydraulic “springs” - I think this one is for the escape hatch on a boat or something; it’s from the marine supply store. It’s literally the exact size, shape, and one of 2 colors I wanted. I’ll drill out the ball and put the strap button there, and drill a couple holes for screws.

The top of the guitar is very thick: the topside is carved but the bottom side is basically flat. There is some material removed from the underside around the control routing, otherwise the top is pretty thick. Here’s a pic looking through the jack hole at the underside of the top (I swear these pics are right side up on my phone!)


This means the guitar probably won’t have much of the resonance one would associate with a nice hollow body. The arch top style bridge with the tailpiece is all about transferring vibration to the top for resonance. So in this case it would be purely aesthetic.

But, I have an idea to do something to the guitar I bet you’ve never seen done before I need to wait for the tool library to open on Friday so I’ll leave you with the suspense.

Anyway the rest of the bridge hardware won’t be here until at least Saturday so I can’t set the neck angle yet. But I will pick up some fishing line and work on neck alignment.