Takamine F340

Circa early 1980's.  I was in my early 20's having only been exposed to playing the organ for a few years.  I had always wanted to play guitar but didn't want to be one of the thousands (if not millions) of people who start the guitar but then put it down.  I knew it was a formidable instrument and I knew I had to be 'ready' to play.

At the time Neil Young was still a major influence on my Musical tastes as well as CSNY so  I decided that if I was going to learn the guitar, I might as well learn the acoustic.  I thought at the time that if I could play acoustic than electric would probably be easier.  So I went out and bought a mid-class (which I couldn't afford) guitar that was on sale for 50% off.  That guitar turned  out to be a Takamine F340.  At the time I had no earthly idea of what the key components were in a guitar.  But luckily for me it was built well.  A dreadnaught with mahogany back and sides, a solid spruce top, ebony bridge, rosewood fretboard.

This guitar has been with me on most of my life journies.  Many memories in this one.  Three kids, a divorce, being thrown out  a top floor window and many other cases of neglect.  But over 25 years later it is still in good shape, a little worse for wear but aren't we all?  You can see some of the dings in the picture, but there are probably a dozen or so major ones across the front of the guitar.

My main goal was to finish the acoustic guitar my son and I started (shown above getting a fingerboard glued on).  We should be set except for setting of the bridge and actually putting a finish on the guitar.  Two large and daunting tasks.  So I wanted some practice before I took that on.  I had loaned the Takamine to a friend for a couple of years so when I went to pick it up he also had an extremely cheap no-name acoustic that he didn't want.  My plan now is to practice on the first acoustic.  I would like to pop the fretboard off which is tricky on an acoustic because it is glued to the thin spruce top without much support.  A crack or tear here is going to be a large problem.  Then once I feel I can do that I will recondition the Takamine.  I would like to do a fretboard inlay (of course) and refinish the guitar in a French Polish.  If I can do that successfully than I think I am ready to take on the acoustic we were building.

After doing inventory, everything still looks good.  Like I mentioned before, there are several large dings and scratches across the face of the guitar.  I think most if not all of them I can get out by sanding, but one or two are fairly deep and it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Here you can see a number of marks from the closing of the case.  This is funny because I bought a case to protect it and kept it in the case whenever I wasn't using it.  I couldn't afford a good case however and got a cardboard one which warped and didn't close properly after...

The neck looks in good condition.  A couple nicks on the back of the neck here too.  Frets are worn, fingerboard is in fairly good shape with normal wear and tear.  I will be replacing all that anyway.  But all in all the neck looks fairly straight.  I did have some string buzz at some point which I think was due to some fret wear and slight warpage of the neck.  I wasn't knowledgeable enough about guitars then to think about adjusting the truss rod so I ended up putting a shim under the nut to raise the action a little which worked.  Since I am redoing the neck anyway, I will probably replace the tuner, nut and bridge so I am hoping that will fix any bridge issues.

The rest of the body is good, a couple of wear points that went through the finish but no real damage.  With a good sanding and finish it should look great.  Mahogany is a good wood but does need special treatment to receive a good finish.   Once I sand I will need to pore fill etc...  Getting the lacquer off will be a challenge though.  This guitar will have to endure a  lot of sanding.  So first things first, I will probably take the no-name guitar and pop the fingerboard, if that goes well I will plan on a new fretboard.

This is the pattern I would LIKE to use.  It comes with a matching headstock and rosette.  I am a little intimidated though :-).  In talking with Andy DePaul he did say this is one of his more intricate and difficult pieces, however I have done about a half dozen or more fingerboards, so...  will need to think this one out a little...

Shop Master Band Saw

I do not have a band saw.  The top three things I would need to procure for woodworking would be a band saw, a planer (or joiner) and a drill press.  So when I was over a neighbors and he offered me a free band saw I jumped at the offer.

 
It ended up being a Shop Master which were produced in the late 40's and through the 60's.  At one time they were the premier tool producer for home workshops.  It sports an external induction engine with a pulley to provide the power.  I believe the engine was rated at 3/4 HP.  I have no idea the year of this one other than to say judging by the dust, grime and dirt it had to be about 50 years old give or take.  Being that it may be about the same age as me, I approached it with loving care.  My goal was simply to have a band saw that could perform some initial cuts for me.  Nothing high production.  So my intent was to clean everything, replace the blade and pulley, 'refresh' the motor and oil and lube where needed.  I did not want to get into re-finishing, i.e. sanding down to metal and repainting etc since I did not even know that it could run yet.

I decided to start with the engine.  I did some research on the Internet and discovered it was a Westinghouse 3 phase electrical induction engine.  The wiring looks to be all original with the cloth and fabric insulation which was extremely dry and frayed.  I decided to replace all external wiring.

It is obvious from this picture that base plate for the engine was very eroded.  It is made from a very heavy and thick metal which has oxidized over the years.  My initial plan was to knock the rust off, use Naptha as a solvent and see where I got.  Where ever I ran into a bolt or screw I would replace them.  Most of them had the square heads that you don't see anymore.

I was able to pop the front of the engine off after some gentle prying.  The entire engine was fairly well packed with sawdust and grime.  I do not know a lot about electrical engines, just that this was a brushless and enough to know not to mess around too much here, so I ended up using compressed air and removed as much of the 'sediment' as I could.

Here you can see the axle still looks good, I wanted to repack it in grease but only got to use some DW40.  Next time I crack it I can add some.  For now it was all sawdust removal and some external re-wiring.

Here is is after being scraped with a wire brush, naptha'd down and a little oil applied.  I tried to replace the thumb screws but they only had these in a much smaller size.  So I don't see me moving the motor much so I decided I would keep them.

So turning my attention upstairs I started to look at the main chasis.  All in all pretty good shape for a 50 year old piece of hardware.  Still a lot of sawdust stuck every where.  The wheels seemed to turn fairly well.  As long as the bearings don't go I should be good.  I took all the pieces off I could. 

I needed to pay particular attention to the band saw guides.  The guides were very rusted and had marks that they may have either been the originals or well used replacements.  I am thinking they are original.  The thrust bearing, which allows you to push the wood against the blade had a lot of gunk in it so it was not turning properly.

I let it sit in solvent, then wire brushed it and then let it dry.  After liberal amounts of oil it seemed to be responding much better.  I took out all the guide screws and repeated the procedure and oiled the screw holes to make adjustment easier.  I am amazed at how simplistic it is but seems to work.  The design has changed very little over the years.

 Here you can easily see the amount of rust and corrosion over the guide as well as the saw.

Here is the guide after 'treatment'.  Looks a little better but really works much better.  Once I am convinced that the saw is good and will be used, I can look at a replacement.

I had forgotten there was one under the saw table...  I had to remove and do the same process here as well.  Not difficult but it did take some time to really look at it and understand how it works so I could put it back together :-)

I also discovered that the table has a tilt mechanism underneath.  Once I removed the table I looked at the mechanism which was pretty much frozen in place.  The mechanism is a split wedge.

The metal is supposed to separate enough to move the tilt mechanism.  Know matter how I tried I could not get it to budge more than a couple millimeters.  So I will leave it as is for now.  Another component for a return trip if there is one...

Here she is all 'spruced' up, although the throat guard still needs to go on.  The engine drive belt and the saw blade are both on order and will be replaced when they arrive.  The saw blade was an odd size (77.5 inches) so I had to pick one up custom.  Cost me more in shipping then it did for the saw blade...

I fired it up for a test run just cutting a board.  It chugged and kind of wobbled to life.  This baby was pre-rubber lined wheels, it is a noisy.  It didn't seem to have any problem biting into the board.  It was fairly slow though, when I pushed I did get some burning.  But all in all, it did the work!  I thought it fitting that the first board it cut be installed on to it.  Be interesting to see how it cuts with the new blade...

add2 and add4 Pentatonic Scales

Pentatonic Major add4 - Pattern 1 - 5

Ibanez SA Series - Neck

Time to look at doing the neck.  I want to preserve the neck that came with it.  It is a Maple Neck with a rosewood fretboard.  I will do an inlay on an ebony fretboard and replace the rosewood one but the hard part about neck construction is already done...  I of course went to Andy Depaule's Website to look at his choices.  He by far has the greatest variety of pre-cut inlay that I have been able to find.

As usual I went through all different combination for weeks on end, but finally decided on the thorn vine.  I like vines because they can be somewhat free form.  You only have to really worry about the width and not if everything is square to the fret.  The difficult part is there are a lot of pieces and trying to get them all to line up the same way more than once is very challenging
.

I first soak the inlay in a bowl of hot water to melt the adhesive.  I now weight the cardboard down because if you don't the board will move as it absorbs water and the inlay falls off into a big pile which you get to sort out.  This of course is a lesson from experience :-)

Once pieces are removed from their backing I like to lay them out.  This serves as both practice and a check of the design.  The vine length can vary depending on the angles you put the vine together at.  You will want to pay attention to frets 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15 and at least 17 as those traditionally have a marker associated with them.  With a vine I try to make sure the leaves are in the right frets.   So I now draw out a fretboard on a board so I can ensure I am "in the lines".  I will refer back to this often.

Once that is all done I  then have to transfer the pattern to the ebony fretboard.  I first put whiteout on the fretboard and assemble the pieces as I go. Usually I will white out one fret at a time, placing the inlay down while it is still wet so that it sticks.  Care must be taken to pay attention to the angle of the vine or you could end up with a real problem towards the end.  Always remember, you could hand cut a piece or two for a transition if you were really stuck.

I then scribe around each of the pieces of inlay.  Scribing is to inlay, what sanding is to a supreme finish.  It will be the basis for the routing.  I try to scribe lightly the first time, in case the white out doesn't hold.  But with each pass I will press a little harder and deeper.  The idea is NOT to cut into the wood but clearly leave an outline within the white out. Any scratching of the wood is just a side effect, not the main intent.

 That's where the chisel comes in...  I usually will use a chisel and hammer to 'reinforce' the outline,  Now cutting into the wood is the main intent.  You don't have to go deep.  What you are doing is creating a stop line for the router.  It will sound and feel slightly different the closer you get to it.  It is a nuance but if you can develop it, a very handy one.

 All of the planning, measuring and scribing so that we can route!  I won't go into all the different bits and sizes, I use mainly a 1/8, 1/16 and 3/32 bit and assorted chisels and knives if needed.  I will say it takes time to develop the ability to inlay.  It is a skill and skills are learned.  So I am learning.

If you were accurate in your scribing, the routing is fairly straight forward.  I use a hand held dremel with a precision stand that works well for me.  You need to watch for "runs" where the bit grabs the wood and goes.  Split outs can happen depending on the type of wood.  I am not worried about fret lines at this point.  I just cut right through them.  When I am done gluing I just recut the frets.

I work my way slowly and methodically down the fretboard.  I always hold the piece up to the outline just as a double check, re-scribing when necessary.  Again as long as your scribing was spot on you should be good.  If not you will either need to redo the scribing and etching or go where it takes you.  Because once you are off your pattern it is very difficult to get back.  Again, scribing is the key.

Usually I will start with the big bit and do the leaves.  I will normally only route a 1-2 fret space at a time.  I want to make sure that the shell fits and if I need to do some small adjustments it doesn't have ramifications to something that is already cut.  So fret by fret I go. On average a fret area takes about 20-30 minutes to etch, route and fit the piece in.  But speed is not the goal here, accuracy is.  You get a feel for the bit and the way it bites the wood after a while.

I am going to try something a little different with this one in that I will stop around fret 5 and glue it in.  Then continue, stop and glue another 2 or 3 times until I am done.  Then I can do a second glue time to fill the small holes and crevices.

Here it is glued.  If I continue at my current pace of 2 frets a night I should be able to do my second glue and sand on Labor Day.  I will then pop the fretboard and sand the neck done and do the inlay on the headstock.  The body is drying... this one is starting to come together!

Continuing on down the fretboard.  Notice I tape the pieces I haven't glued in yet.  When I use my compressed air I frequently blow them out of their slots and onto the floor so now I tape them which works well.

Here is the lower half scribed.  I have a pretty good outline here.  I will then reinforce it with the chisel.  Depending on the width and the bits I have available I will decide where to start and end.  Changing the bits is a time consuming process if done frequently, so it is good to plan to maximize your time with a particular bit.

Here is the design.  I had to change it slightly from the original design.  Sometimes I get a little confused and can't get the pieces to line up properly, so I just throw them in a pile and start from scratch, which is what I did with the lower roots.  It did however come out fairly close anyways.

I have routed as much as I felt comfortable with the larger bit.  Now I am ready to start using the fine bit and shaving away the excess.  It is a slow process.  A lot of running the drill, blowing the sawdust out, stopping the drill, trying the piece, repeat...  Of course when you get impatient is exactly where you will make your mistake.

Here I have fitted the inlay into the routes.  I am not worried about the fret lines at this point.  Once everything is glued in I will have to re-cut the fret scores and then put frets in.  I am pretty happy with the overall fit.  I would say this one of my best fingerboards so far, but I still have a long way to go...

Here it is as I work down the fretboard.  I will do the inlay over a period of a few hours.  You kind of get in a zone and just groove along.  You have to be very focused and deliberate on your placement of pieces since the margin of error is really small.  Once I have completed routing process I will fit all the pieces in and evaluate, tweaking here and there.  Hopefully no big errors.  Then I will take all the pieces out and arrange them on my layout board and then fill the routes with black epoxy.  I then cover it with wax paper and clamp it and let it dry for at least 24 hours, 48 or more if I can.

 
While that is drying time to address the neck.  I am going to use the neck that came with the guitar.  So the first thing I need to do is remove the hardware, and pop the fretboard off the neck.  I do this with a iron, no steam.  I  put the iron on hot, put a folded old t-shirt between the fretboard and the iron and heat it up.  I then work a spatula like tool in between the fingerboard and neck.  It takes some time and patience but I have done this several times now and it is a pretty simple procedure.

I will also be putting a faceplate of mahogany with a trinity inlay over the face so I will sand this down to the wood.  I will remover the truss rod and scrape and sand the neck down to bare wood.  Then  I need to consider total thickness of the neck and fingerboard with what I want on the bridge.  The thicker the neck because I am adding height on the fingerboard, the higher the bridge will need to be adjusted.

I chose a sappalle (sp?) Mahogany blank from LMI.  I will glue this to the face and using a scroll saw trim it accordingly.  The piece was quite a bit a thicker than I thought, as an afterthought I would have been better served just doing a veneer.  I will do an inlay of a Trinity in it.

Using my scroll saw I was able to trim it to shape.  Then using my spindle sander on my drill press I will shape it to the design of the old face.  Then I need to decide what I want for tuning pegs and drill the appropriate diameter hole.  I checked on the body which is still drying and it is looking very good.  Still some issues in the pickup area, but we will see what polishing will do for it.  I will probably look at polishing the first week of October.  Finish the neck and decide on the type of bridge.  This one is starting to come together!

I need to drill the tuning peg hole before I get to choose where the inlay goes.  I can approach the drilling from the rear or from the front.  If I approach from the rear I already have the hole as a guide.  However it tends to break out this way.  I got some splintering around a couple of the holes which you will see later caused a minor issue which the tuning peg washer will cover up anyway.  Having done that I could now position the inlay.

As with any Inlay project I applied a liberal coating of white out and stuck the pieces.  The trinity is actually three inter locking pieces.  I stuck them and aligned them with the angle of the face plate and using a scribe created an outline of the shapes.  I felt like I got a very clear outline.

Then taking a chisel I provided a stop line for the outline.  Using my Dremel Router I routed the interior.  I had a bit that was almost perfect in size, perhaps a tad wide and used that for 80%.  I used my thin bit for the rest and clean up.

Once routed I then mixed up my black epoxy.  I applied that and filled the outline then pressed the pieces into place.

I then covered the area with wax paper and applied a caul, clamped and let dry for 24-48 hrs.   I am seeing a little longer dry times with this new epoxy.  Once it dried, I removed the caul, sanded and cut back the faceplate closer to the headstock.  I then finished up with the drill press sanding bit.  I then sanded the face to about 400 grit.  I had to trim the bottom of the faceplate where it meets the nut.  This was a bit a tricky and had to be perfectly square.  I then took the prepared fretboard and placed it on.

The work usually moves fairly quickly during this process and again I forgot to take detailed pictures.  Placing your fretboard on the neck is an exacting process.  Any deviation and there will be some type of consequence.  So it is measure once, measure twice, and why not a third time?  Once I have the placement to my satisfaction I clamp it and then drill three small holes through the fretboard and into the neck.  These will help keep the fretboard from drifting when I glue it.  Then I go ahead and glue and clamp it.

Then using a band saw or scroll saw I trim the excess of the fretboard away.  I then use the sanding bit on my drill press to bring it in close to the neck but still leaving a fraction of a mm for hand sanding where I can put a small radius on the lip.  I made a fretboard once and it was too sharp on the edges.  You can also get carried away and do too round also where the bottom and top string don't have a straight fingerboard under them.

Here's a peak at what she might look like when done.  Looking pretty nice in my opinion. 

Here's the headstock after a couple applications of shellac.   I will build up the coats and shine then let it dry for a month.  The grain has a great 3D look to it.

Next is fretting the neck.  Once the body is done I need hardware!