Maple Guitar Project (Stratocaster)

This guitar actually started it's life as a Fender Squire.  I found it in a Guitar Center, and it had a ding in the front about 2-3 mm in diameter.  I struck a deal with the salesman and brought it home and immediately dismantled it.   Here is the original body before stripping it down.

 

In order to do this I had to route out some wood to accomodate the veneer.  I carefully measured the strip so that it would 'follow the necks trajectory".   I used a  chisel to put in a stop line for the router and then very carefully routed the wood.  I then went in with a block of wood and sandpaper to clean it up.  I did the same on the front.
 

 

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I ended up doing initial 'little circles' and figure eights, then using the 'brushing technique' explained in the Millburn Guitars Web Tutorial.  Then I would go back to the little circles then the brushing.  I could usually do this with recharging the muncea once.  I would do 4-6 layers then level.  Leveling is simply taking a felt block and wrapping it with wet/dry sandpaper and sanding the surface level, taking care not to hit the wood.  I had a fair amount of shellac down before I leveled.  I would say at least a good 20 layers.  The goal of leveling is to have the entire surface look dull which means that the sandpaper was able to hit the surface at a consistent level.  If there are depressions than they will remain shiny.  You have two main choices, continue bodying and eventually after several levels you will obtain a flat surface (which is what I did), or you could sand until you the areas are no longer shiny.  This in my opinion is a fairly risky solution.

Also don't forget about the sides.  When I would do a surface say the front, I would do both sides down to the bottom but not the heel so I could stand it up.  When I did the back I would again do the sides but do the bottom and stand it on it's top.  That way the sides got a very liberal application of shellac.  this guitar has absolutely beautiful grain on the sides to begin with.  In this picture I think I had level for the first time.  You can see the shellac build up and a shine starting.  The shine took a while to develop.  Definately starts as a matte finish and then with each leveling and reapplication the shine seemed to pick up a notch.

Heres another shot of the end grain.  This had been leveled 2 times.

When I got to the 4th leveling, I only had a couple of shiny spots, one near where the veneer meets the body, so I doubted I would be able to make that meet and it was only noticeable on leveling.  Probably should have fixed that during the sanding process...  But barring that, it was pretty consistent in it's dullness across the body.  At this point I could have moved on to glazing.  That is the same as bodying but you use the brushing technique 80% of the time and only use circles to fix up areas.  Since I thought I had a fairly consistent surface I decided to move to the automotive polishes.  I have a medium, fine and swirl remover.  I had just purchased an air driven polisher so was excited to give that a try.  Above is the result using the medium and fine.  I think there can be a fair amount of hand rubbing to get it to where I will then use the swirl remover.  The hand rubbing does seem to put more of a sheen to it but the polisher was definably a god send for the brute force.

Here is a picture of the back.  You can notce a fairly detailed sheen starting to develop by the outline of the lamp.  I am going after a high gloss but want to stop short of the mirror effect.  I would say I am about 70-80% there...  You will also notice that I used honey amber flakes which definitely added a nice rich amber color but not so dark that it obscures any of the grain.  It is a little more red than I intended which could have been the cherry stain...

I got to the point where I thought I had enough base coat to finalize polishing.  I had no idea how long I needed to polish.  I ended up polishing through the base coat in an area about the size of a dime.  It slowly increased to about the size of a quarter and I knew I needed to start over.  

I had a test board I did some polishing on and I think that the polishing needs to be brief.  It is not sanding.  It is knocking the very fine ridges down.  So when polishing with medium grit the goal is to go from fine lines going up and down to fine swirls.  Then fine is to bring it down to almost clear.  Again, very brief polishing is needed.  Then swirl remover.  I ended up doing the swirl remover mostly by hand.  On the test board I followed up with some paste wax just to provide an extra protective cover.

In summary, I thought the advantages of using a french polish to be:

1. Ecologically Friendly (If you used grain alcohol you could sip the polish :-)
2. Fairly easy to work with (epecially liked the quick drying aspect)
3. Fairly easy to repair.  Was able to fix issue with elbow grease instead of abrasives
4. High shine and nice amber color (though you can choose darker tints).
5. Inexpensive.  I bought about $50 worth, and I would say could easily do 3-4 guitars.

Disadvantages

1. It is a fairly slow process.  You also need to provide significant (2 days) gass off periods for drying.
2. It is not as hard as some other finishes.  I am thinking that this would be fairly vulnerable to fluids and alcohol.

Thursday and Saturday Class Week 7

Hard to believe we are already in week 7.  I think the biggest difference is that we feel more comfortable with the tools and working with wood.  Before when we had a very easy task, say cut a peice of wood to a specific dimension it was difficult for us to visualize the steps to get there and choose the right tools.  Of course there are a lot of different ways to approach a single problem, we are coming up with them instead of having to constantly ask a resource.

This week was dedicated to the creation and installation of the bracing.  Then "voicing" the top.  This voicing takes a lot of patience and detail work.  The basic theory is that if you have a stiff top the tone will not have the resonance nor the low tones available to it.  By removing wood from the bracing you are allowing the top to be much more flexible, increasing resonance and projection and higher tones.  This requires a good ear to hear these sounds as you are removing the wood.

Typically as you remove wood and approach the 'sweet spot', the trick is knowing when to stop since once you go beyond this point you are structurally at risk and your tone could get muddy very quickly.  None of us had the experience or developed ear at this point so we were very dependent on Robbie's guidance.  But going through this experience has definately increased my "library" of tones as well starting to learn what a guitar top should sound like.


This is a picture of the bacing on the back of the top being adjusted.  Using a chisel we begin to remove wood being carefull to keep the same general shape.  The brace Cian is working on has two humps.  The first one on the inside needs to be about 2.5 inches from the X Brace it is connected to.  The outside hump needs to be about 3 inches from the edge of the guitar.  This positioning gives you optimal spacing for both tone and support.

This is a closeup of the brace being worked on.  It is a slow process where you carve a little, tap the guitar, listen and begin removing more wood.  Now is a good time to mention that your chisel is an important tool in this process.  The ones at school were very dull.  We did not really comprehend the issue until I purchased a set and sharpened them.  WHAT A DIFFERENCE.

The main issue with reducing the bracing is that you are absolutely effecting the structure and support of the guitar.  You must also be careful because a slip and the chisel will go through the top.  This is also a good time to identify any gaps or issue with the bracing and repair if appropriate.  We were pretty good to go but had to take quite a bit of wood off.

Once we were satisfied with the tone we started our sanding process.  Event through no one would really ever see the bracing unless they used a mirror or took the top off, Robbie has installed a sense of pride in us.  We are not simply building a guitar, we are learning a craft.  As with every craft it is important to know how it will be judged.  As I have heard many times before, the difference between a good guitar and a great guitar is attention to subtleties.  We will always know what the inside looks so we want to have that "positive image".  It took us a good hour or more to sand it.  We started with 120 grit to reduce and blend some of the joints together than sanded the entire bracing and inside of the top with 240 grit.  All that sanding in turn reduces the amount of wood and effects tone, so you need to be careful with that as well.

]Here's a picture of Cian taking a well deserved break.  It was nice that we had two people so that we could switch off.  Although once you get going you do get into a rhythm and feel for the particular brace you are working with.  Since braces are quarter sawn they can be obnoxious at times, splintering or developing runs.  You just need to be patient working in one direction than switching to another.  All in all though it does teach you a lot about the properties of wood.

Here is a picture of the back of the top with all the carving and sanding complete.  This is more or less what it will look like when it is glued on.  What we should have is a strong top but flexible.

This picture show the bracing around the sound hole.  Obviously when you cut a hole into the middle of the top this produces some structural weakness in a top where the strings are pulling at it with approximately 180lbs of pressure.  Notice at the top we have our access hole to the truss rod when we put our neck on.  Also the Indian rosewood reinforcement piece for the bridge.

Close up of the bracing now fully carved and sanded.  You can see some of pencil circles which indicate where the brace should be.  We taper the ends off to blend in with the top.

A last check for the tone and we are good to go.  Next Thursday we will start to attach the front to the back, then route for your channel bindings and install them.

And finally we did have time for a little fun and a group picture of everyone there on Saturday.

Week 6 - Thursday and Saturday Class

This week, and probably next week, will be spent mainly on constructing and finishing the front braces.  The theory behind it is fairly complicated but really revolves around two main points. 

1. Support: The strings will exert about 180lbs of force on the middle of a spruce top which is 2.4mm thick.  To give you some perspective, I could easily snap the guitar top with my two hands and minimal force.  The entire top weighs perhaps a couple of ounces.
2. Sound: The top basically operates as an air pump.  As the strings are picked or strummed, the energy will be transferred to the bridge and then to the bracing which in turn will transfer the energy to the top of the guitar.

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