Acoustic Guitar

Alan Drummie

Member
Messages
4
Location
East Kilbride, Scotland
Hi all I'm just a newbie here and with my wood craft, but building my guitar has
certainly shown me that given time and a little help from a master luthier "Dave King" and his articles in Guitar and bass magazine the most difficult of tasks can be accomplished. Yes I made a few boboos along the way but managed to rise above them and now I look at the finished project and am amazed that I actually have a guitar to be proud of and it sounds as good as it looks. I have a Gibson J200 which I bought way back in 1965 it must be feeling a little put out hanging on it's rack as I ignore it for the younger kid on the block.
I'll put a few more pics in my album but here's one to be going on with.
 

Attachments

  • guitar16.jpg
    guitar16.jpg
    18.3 KB · Views: 56
  • guitar17.jpg
    guitar17.jpg
    17.5 KB · Views: 55
  • guitar18.jpg
    guitar18.jpg
    36.6 KB · Views: 55
  • guitar20.jpg
    guitar20.jpg
    54.4 KB · Views: 57
That's gorgeous, Alan. Whether it's number 1 or number 100, you did a beautiful job on it. :clap: I'm another of those "one of these days I'm gonna build a guitar" guys, too. :rolleyes: :p
 
If that is your first guitar, I got to ask if you are related to Drew, the guy that turns perfect eggs on his knees on his new lathe before he got a stand built :D

Very nice work Alan, I can't play the guitar to save my life, but I can appreciate a well made instrument.

Thanks for sharing the pics with us! :thumb:
 
Welcome Alan, that is a great guitar, especially for a first :thumb: I ditto the "one of these days I'll build a guitar" idea. Although I think I'll start with an electric because I heard it's easier :) So that being said too, really points out that you did an excellent job! Did you find it difficult to cut all of the frets in their proper places?
 
Well done Alan!!! great wood also. Thanks for sharing. I have a Gibson B45 from around the same time and it see's the back seat also, only due to I can't remember how to play it much :p
 
Hi Everyone who has posted here, it's great to hear your comments and many thanks for the welcome.To all of you who have said one of those days I might just build a guitar I can only say don't delay start today. For fifty years I dreamed about building a guitar and that's what I had for fifty odd years.....just dreams. It's strange how if you hadn't been in that certain place at that certain time things in your life would have been a whole lot different like.... the day I walked into my local shop picked up a guitar mag and there it was............................BUILD YOUR OWN GUITAR.............. and I'm hooked.
Next thing I do is tell my friends.......their always asking me what the latest project is............so tell them all I'm building a guitar. Can't back out of that one.
Westley ; many aspects of the construction worried me and fretting was one of them but the old adage of measure twice cut once is the best advice I ever took on board. I followed Dave King's instructions and he didn't let me down his division of the scale length for placement of the frets was spot on and the guitar plays perfectly in tune at each position. I hope to start another acoustic this spring as we now have two grandchildren and I'd like them both to have one.
Stuart; round work I'd love to make but you can't do it all.......so Drew's no kin of mine and the only eggs I can make are well and truly scrambled whilst if I do manage to get down on my knees I can't get back up.
Barry; the woods are Sycamore back and sides with spruce top, neck is a laminate of Walnut and Sycamore, headstock overlay is Walnut, bridge rosewood and edge binding Walnut oh! and the fingerboard is the same Walnut. I had the guitar all ready for the strings and went into my local music store for some lemon oil for the fingerboard the young lad in the store asked me was it a maple fingerboard and explained that you don't put lemon oil on maple to which I answered no it's a Walnut fingerboard. He stared at me and pointedly informed me it won't be walnut it'll be Rosewood. Ah the pleasure!! what a great way to get a gloat in.
When friends ask is it a kit I take great pleasure in telling them that this is a one off highly
personal instrument crafted from wood which grew mainly in Scotland.
I found a sawmill at Dalkeith Scotland with tone-woods for violin and cello at very reasonable prices. The Sycamore tree grew in Dunbar and was felled in 1996 to make way for a cement factory, the top is of Check Republic Spruce, the sawmill owner purchased the tree in 1985, local Walnut is nonexistant in Scotland so I had to make do with some German grown stock.
Humidity held me back from gluing up the guitars body. I had all the parts ready to go early July, but it was mid August before we had a stable few days humidity around 50%.
Bending the sides worried me as I had no means of bending wood and not much idea how it was done however my home made bending rig worked a treat..........hot air gun
married to a hollow metal tube kitchen table leg plus some nuts and bolts and sheet aluminium as a heat shield did the business. Perhaps I was lucky the side bending was relatively easy you just have to take your time and when the wood starts to give a little ease back and then come at it again.
Building the neck then carving it was another part which bothered me a bit and after making a mess of my first try I was lucky with my second it has a couple of boobs but I'm still happy with it.
Shooting the laquer finish had me really up tight as I had read so much hype about it and never sprayed anything before so much so that the project lay in the white for most part of a year before I finally made a stab at it. When the last coat was on and it was hanging there just looking at me, I thought......"you beaut I've cracked it and I felt absolutely great".
Sorry if this post is rather long.
 
Forgot to stick up some more pics
 

Attachments

  • guitarheel1.jpg
    guitarheel1.jpg
    91.6 KB · Views: 21
  • guitar9.jpg
    guitar9.jpg
    28.9 KB · Views: 22
  • guitar5.jpg
    guitar5.jpg
    40.7 KB · Views: 21
  • guitar4.jpg
    guitar4.jpg
    36 KB · Views: 21
  • guitar3.jpg
    guitar3.jpg
    16.3 KB · Views: 22
  • guitar2.jpg
    guitar2.jpg
    24.4 KB · Views: 20
  • guitar8.jpg
    guitar8.jpg
    21 KB · Views: 22
  • guitar7.jpg
    guitar7.jpg
    21.4 KB · Views: 22
  • guitar6.jpg
    guitar6.jpg
    49 KB · Views: 22
  • guitarheel2.jpg
    guitarheel2.jpg
    23.8 KB · Views: 22
...I had the guitar all ready for the strings and went into my local music store for some lemon oil for the fingerboard the young lad in the store asked me was it a maple fingerboard and explained that you don't put lemon oil on maple to which I answered no it's a Walnut fingerboard. He stared at me and pointedly informed me it won't be walnut it'll be Rosewood. Ah the pleasure!! what a great way to get a gloat in...

Isn't is funny that those young music store lads seem to know everything? :p I was one of them myself back in the day, so I know it to be true. :rofl:

Thanks for the extra pictures. You really did a beautiful job on the guitar.
 
Top