I now have finished the application of finish. 12 sessions of french polish. I will let the finish cure for a week before I polish with rottenstone...another very old school method. Here is a picture of the headstock.
The top and the sides. It's hard to see in the photo, but this top has very nice figure in it!

This is a picture to show you the back and how the end graft brings it all together at the bottom.

I am very pleased with this guitar so far!

While I am letting the finish cure I will install the frets, make the bridge and glue it on. Then the nut and saddle.

Thanks for looking in!

Cheers

Now all of the parts are prepped and ready to finish. In this photo, I am glueing the fretboard extension to the top. Just a dab of glue, so that if, in the future the guitar needs a repair of some sort, the neck is easily removed.

Here are the ingredients for a shellac Fench Polish. The shellac flake comes from the shellac beatle, and has been used as a finish on wood for centuries. It is also the finish that I have had the best results. I have tried many different methods with varying results. I don't have a spray booth so nitro-cellulose is out of the question, so an old school hand applied finish it is.

The shellac is mixed with alcohol. To apply the finish, I use some balled up wool wrapped in cotton. It is a 2 part application. First I pour shellac onto the wool...

...and then I pour alcohol into the wool. Then I wrap the wool pad with the cotton and then begin to rub the surface of the guitar.

Here is a picture of the first few swipes onto the guitar top.

The first few sessions act as a sealer coat. Then I build up the finish. It will take 10 to 12 sessions to completely finish the guitar.

Each session lasts approximately and hour to an hour and a half. It is a time consuming affair, but with 2500 songs in the I-pod it is time well spent. It is one of my favorite parts of the guitar building journey. You get to see the raw wood come to life literally at your fingertips...it's very cool.

Cheers!

It's been a couple days! So the next step is to prepare the fretboard for slotting. Here you can see I am using a fret scale ruler. I am using a 25.5 inch scale length. I have always been a Fender Strat fan. Fender Strats all have a 25.5 inch scale length, and now so do all Gilmore Guitars.
After the slots are marked I draw the taper of the fretboard and then mark the lines with masking tape so they are easier to follow with band saw

Slots cut, mother of pearl fret markers installed and ebony shined up and ready to glue to the neck.

Before the fretboard is glued to the neck, the truss rod must be installed.

Here the fretboard is being glued onto the neck.

Now it's time to carve the neck. I would like to tell you that my necks are all indentical. But I do them by hand with hand tools. They are pretty close but not all identical. I just keep taking away wood until they feel good in my hands. Here is a picture of the tools that I use for carving necks.

Neck carved and on the body. Here's one from the back...

And here's one from the front.

I have all of the gaps filled on the entire guitar now. Next....French Polish.

Cheers!

Here are a couple pictures of the box. It is bound and awaiting the prep for the finish. The prep includes sanding to 220 grit. Tehn going over the entire box with a fine toothed comb to fill little gaps in the binding.

And here is a shot of the back.

I have done some fretboard work. My next post will cover that process.

Cheers!

Hello!
Now that the back is on, it's time to finish the box. The next step is to install an ebony wedge at the butt. The wedge is a decorative feature that ties the to sides together. Once the wedge is done, it is time to rout the binding channel. As I mentioned earlier the binding will also be ebony. I will not be using a decorative prufling, just a single ebony binding strip. I am a fan of simple understatement in my guitars. In this photo, I am routing the channel with a dremel tool.

Binding channels routed...next... glue in the binding. I use tape for this step, and a long clamp that brings the binding connection at the ends tight.

While the binding glue is drying, I move on to the headstock. I have to glue wings onto the headstock so that it is wide enough for the headstock pattern.

Then Icut out the headstock pattern. Then I drill the holes for the tuners.I have the box sanded through several grits of sandpaper. I will go through 220 grit. The next step will be prepping the fretboard and shaping the neck.

Until next time

Cheers!

Welcome back! In this post I will show the preparation for installing the back. In this picture you can see the sides are glued to the top. The blue tape shows the profile of the sides. I will use a small block plane to remove the material above the blue tape.
Next I glue the kerfing into the sides. The kerfing gives me some glueing area along the edges to glue the back on. You'd be surprised what you can use as a clamp. Here I am using wooden clothespins with elastic wrapped around them to create enough clamping pressure.
The guitar is now ready for the back. The kerfing is installed. In the background you can see a vaporisor. THe humidity in the shop has been down below 30%. With this vaporisor I can get the humidity up to 40% within an hour, and keep it there. $15 at Canadian Tire and I have a humidity controlled shop...very cool!

Again, I use a lot of old school methods in building. Here you can see the rope method of gluing the back onto the rest of the guitar. This method give even clamping pressure all the way around.

This is where I am at today. As you can probably tell, I have condensed many steps into a few short posts. I started this blog well into the process. Progress from here on will be in real time. The next step...binding channels.

Stay Tuned!

ps

I have adjusted some of the admin features here, and you can comment on the blog without having to join or sign up to anything. Hopefully it is a bit easier for you to comment or ask questions.

The next thing I do is put my mark on the guitar. I write my name and the date inside the guitar. I do it backwards. The reason for doing it backwards is so that down the road when a repair has to be done to the guitar, when the mirror goes into the soundhole the person holding the mirror will be able to read it in the mirror. At this point in my building carreer, because I do not use a serial number system, this is really the only way you can authenticate one of my guitars. If my signature is not inside, it is not one of mine. Every instrument I have built since 1995 has my backwards signature inside.



Now the sides have been thinned to a point that with a spritz of water the can be bent. Here you can see that I have taped the ebony binding to the sides so that they will bend at the same time.

I used to bend sides by hand on an electric pipe. I have built myself a bending machine several years ago. This takes much less time and is very easy. Very few broken sides! This machine uses 3 - 100 watt light bulbs as a heat source. The side is sandwhiched between 2 layers of thin stainless steel. I takes about 15 minutes to bend the side. Once the side has been bent, I will cycle the heat on and off a few times over a 24 hour period.

Time to attach the sides. First...glue the side to the heel block. The pattern is drawn onto the top and the side follows the line perfectly around the top. I love it when a plan comes together!

Now it's time to attach the rest of the side to the top. I use a very old school method. The little pieces of wood are called "tentalonis" Each tentaloni is applied individually by spreading glue onto it then pressing it into place. It is quite a lengthy process, but one the I enjoy, because an Ipod with 2500 songs on shuffle is a great way to spend an hour or 2. It is also at this point in the construction that your individual pieces of wood actually start look like a guitar.

After 15 years of building and over 20 instruments, I still get excited when the intitial end vision of what you are doing begins to come into sight.

Cheers!

The construction of a guitar always begins with a pile of wood. I like to start each guitar with the end result in mind. This means that the wood selection is made before any sawdust is created. This pile of wood includes East Indian Rosewood for the back and sides, Spruce for the soundboard and bracing, ebony for the fingerboard and bridge, as well as ebony for the binding. There is also a block of wood that consists of walnut/alder/maple/alder/walnut that will be the neck.

The next thing I do is join the top. It is a bookmatched piece of engleman spruce. I use a #4 jointing plane for this step. A few passed and it is ready to glue

Here is the glue setup for tops and backs. 4 Hockey sticks underneath and 4 wedges on top and rope to pull it all together

The next step is to add braces to the top. The idea is to allow the top to vibrate freely with the string vibration while not imploding under the 150 footpounds of pressure exerted on the front of the bridge when the guitar is tuned to pitch.

And here is a the top fully braced and cleaned up, ready for the sides.

The back braced and waiting to be installed.

In my next post...adding the sides to the top.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions here on the blog. I would love for this to be interactive!

Cheers!

In the Shop

Hello
I have started the guitar already. But will start posting the progress shortly.
I look forward to your thoughts, questions and comments.
Cheers!
David Gilmore