January 2, 2005: This picture shows the bracing that I cut for the back. The braces were cut from a billet of quarter-sawn Sitka spruce that I bought from Bob Tibbetts of GuitarWoods, another Ebay Seller whose Ebay ID is rct54. Also note that the back splice strip has already been glued into place to reinforce the back joint.

The braces are shaped so that the underside is curved to a 20-ft radius. I accomplished this shaping by using some adhesive-backed sandpaper (purchased in 4" wide rolls from LMII) on the 20-ft radius dish. The idea is to impart a curve to the back of the guitar.

 This picture shows the braces in place on the back, but not yet glued in place. I wanted to make sure of the fit before I do the gluing. Thes braces still need to be profiled - at this point, their cross section is still rectangular.

After the back braces were cut as shown above, the next step was to profile them. Once this was completed, the braces were glued to the back in the locations specified by the StewMac plan. The tool for this step is the Go-Bar deck, as shown in these two pictures:

The Go-Bar deck uses the fiberglass bars to apply pressure to the items being glued to the back. There are yellow soft plastic tips on the Go-bar rods to prevent damage to the wood.

January 8, 2005: The braces arrived from Stewart-MacDonald yesterday, so I laid out the pattern for the braces on the top last night. Here's the underside of the top with the pencil lies showing where the braces should go. 

This picture shows the bracing kit from StewMac. The two longest ones are the main cross braces, which need to be notched to cross each other. 

The main cross braces are shown being glued to the top in the GoBar clamping deck. The GoBar deck is a really ingenious way to apply pressure for gluing. I have been wondering if it can be used to glue curly maple tops on solid-body blanks as well.

This is the top with all the braces glued in place. Note the piece of 1/8" thick Indian rosewood that will the the reinforcing plate for the bridge.

January 9, 2005: The picture below shows the head and tail blocks (Honduras Mahogany) being glued into place to the sides of the guitar body. The whole assembly is being held in the body mold, which is cut from a stack of four layers of medium-density fiberboard (MDF). I used the full-size pattern of the guitar back that was included in the plans to make this mold.

This is a closeup of the Headblock portion of the body, showing how it's being held in place by a maple brace that I wedged between the head and tail blocks, plus a clamp to hold the bottom edges of the body sides to the face of the headblock.

This picture is a closeup of the tail block being glued in place. You can see the other end of the maple brace (cut from a 5-string bass neck last year) that I used to hold the two blocks in place.

The next step is to glue the kerfing into place on the edge of the body sides. This kerfing is what holds the back and top to the sides of the guitar.

This is a closeup shot of the kerfing showing the cute little clamps that are used to hold it in place while the glue dries.

The back is now glued in place, and I turned the entire mold over to get the next two pictures. The body is beginning to look like a real guitar now!

The next picture is of the head block area:

The next step is to glue on the kerfing for the top edge of the body. The kerfiing is made from 7/64" x 5/8" strips of basswood. They have slots cut in them every 1/4" inch or so that make them easy to bend to the shape of the body.

Over the weekend I've been installing the side wall bracing. I used 1/4" x 3/32" maple strips that I got from LMII. On each strip I added a decorative B/W purfling strip, also from LMII. Here's what the individual side braces look like:

And this is what the interior of the body looks like with the braces installed:

This picture shows the top being glued into place on the body:

Another view:

After the glue had dried, I dismantled the body mold and brought the body into the music room (actually the living room) for these pictures. It's actually beginning to look like a guitar body, don't you think?

This is the body from the back, showing the beauty of the Indian Rosewood back and sides. Pretty good looking for LMII's LOWEST grade of rosewood!

And this is a shot of the interior of the body through the soundhole. Looks almost like I know what I'm doing! Notice I said "Almost!"

This picture is a close-up of the back strip (Martin D35 style):

This is the where the neck attaches to the body. I've just started doing the adjustments to this area of the body as well as the dovetail portion of the neck so that the fit together properly.

 

The fitting is complete. The neck's dovetail fits the slot in the body correctly, and the neck is at the proper angle so that the fingerboard lines up properly on the neck and the top surface of the body. 

This picture shows the rabbets being cut in the top edge of the body for the binding and purfling that will decorate the edges of the guitar. The top edge will have a curly maple binding with black/white/black purfling at the bottom edge and a herringbone purfling on the top.

 

Another picture of the rabbets in the top edge of the body. These rabbets were done in two stages: 1) a .080 wide by 1/4" hight rabbet in the top side, followed by 2) A .060 deep by 1/8" wide rabbet in the top for the herringbone purfling.

The bindings and purfling being glued in place with a special vinyl adhesive I bought from Stewart-macDonald. The blue masking tape will hold it in place until the glue dries. This picture shows the binding for the bottom edge of the body:

 

This picture shows the binding and herringbone purfling being installed in the top edge of the body:

 

In order to install the curly maple dinding on this guitar, it had to be bent to the shape of the guitar. I don't have a bending iron, since the one Stwart-MacDonald sells is about $160. So after mulling over the problem for a while, I mentioned to my wife that I didn't know how I was going to get the bindings bent, and she suggested a curling iron. The one I bought cost me $7.00 at Walmart, and it worked like a charm!

In the video series "Handmade Music," shown on Do It Yourself Network, luthier Lynn Dudenbostel described a test for determining whether a guitar body will sound good in the finished instrument. The test is simple: place a lighted match in front of the soundhole, and tap the body firmly a little below where the bridge is supposed to go. If the air coming out of the sound hole blows out the match, the body's a good one. So I tried the test with my wife's cigarette lighter, and the body blew out the lighter. I guess that means it's gonna be a good guitar, yes?

 The bindings have been installed and sanded smooth. Here's a shot of the top of the guitar, showing the curly maple binding and the herringbone purfling around the edge of the top:

 

This picture shows the binding and purfling for the top of the guitar really well. Note that there is a Black/White/Black purfling on the side between the curly maple binding and the Indian rosewood side of the guitar, and the herringbone purfling between the curly maple and the sitka spruce top:

Finally, this picture shows the two herringbone elements on this guitar--the top purfling and the soundhole ring. While the top came from the Martin factory, and the herringbone purfling from Stewart MacDonald, they match perfectly.

These two pictures show the installation of the end graft that decorates the joint between the two sides of the guitar body. This graft consists of an inlay of "Ivoroid" material, an imitation ivory made from nitroceluloid plastic.

Note that there is a piece of black/white purfling along each side of the end graft to decorate it.

 

This next picture shows the heel cap that protects the heel of the neck from damage from bumping into things. It's made from the same Ivoroid material that the end graft is made from.

The truss rod arrived by FEDEX Ground yesterday, so I was able to glue it into the slot in the neck today. I thought I had one I could use, but in examining my stuff I found that the one I had was too long for this neck, so I ordered this one from LMII Monday morning:

 

The picture below shows the fingerboard I will be using on this guitar. It's Indian rosewood, and it was one of my Ebay purchases. It came slotted properly for the 25.4" scale, but was not radiused or profiled. So I spent last evening getting it prepared, and the side markers installed, as you can see in this picture. The side markers are installed by drilling 1/16" diameter holes in the edge of the fretboard, then gluing 1/16" round white plastic pieces into the holes with Cyanoacrylate glue (Super Glue). After the glue is dry, I sanded the edge with 180-grit sandpaper to make the dots flush with the wood.

The fingerboard has been marked for the diamond-shaped inlays I'll be installing, and this picture shows the Mother-of-Pearl diamonds that will be used. I got these from Andy DePaule, of DePaule Supply. Andy is making up the CYR logo that will be inlaid into the headstock. The logo will be Mother-of-Pearl and Paua Abalone.

This picture is a closeup of the markings for the two diamonds that will go at the 7th fret. I will use the Dremel tool with 1/16" and 1/32" router bits to cut out the wood for the inlays.

This picture is a closeup of the fingerboard after the inlays have been glued in place. Note that the side marker dot for the 19th fret has just been installed, but hasn't been sanded smooth yet.

This is the complete fingerboard with all of the MOP inlay diamonds glued in place. The next step will be to sand them down flush with the surface of the fingerboard. This will be done after the glue dries, which will take an hour or so. The glue is Stewart-MacDonald's Clear Instant Adhesive #20, which is a cyanoacrylate glue. It has the consistency of maple syrup, and dries quite a bit slower than the #10 stuff, which is really runny and dries almost instantly.

This picture shows the fretboard being glued to the neck, all clamped together, using the nylon clamps I got at Stewart-MacDonald for this purpose. I first used them on the Claro Walnut neck-through bass, and they work great when the back surface of the neck is no longer flat. When this is dry, I'll have to sand the whole assembly to get the neck to final shape, and to clean off the glue squeeze-out and fingerprints I got on things. After that, I'll install the frets, and the final step before finishing will be to do the headstock inlay when that arrives from DePaule Supply. And the nut has to be installed too.

The neck has been sanded, and is ready for fret installation. Still remaining: 1) Install the frets, 2) Drill holes for the tuning machines, and 3) Apply the finish. The finish will consist of four steps: 1) Apply vinyl filler, 2) stain with walnut stain to get a nice dark red color to the mahogany, and 3) apply pore filler to the mahogany, and 4) finish with high-gloss nitrocellulose lacquer.

These items were ordered from Andy DePaule of LuthierSupply.com -- a pair of mother-of-pearl and paua abalone inlays that he made up for the two acoustic instruments I'm working on:
Getting Ready For Finishing

This shows the neck dry-fit to the body after final adjustments have been made. Thsi project is (IMHO) turning out pretty well for a first effort. No major screw-ups so far. Afew small mistakes that have been turned into features (a time-honored technique in the software industry!).

 The neck joint and sound hole area:

The end graft after scraping and sanding it smooth with the body. Came out better than expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture above, the necks have been given a coat of Red Mahogany stain that I bought at Ace Hardware.

It's been a long time since I put up any pictures of the acoustic guitat project. But a lot has been done:

  • The neck has been fretted and finished with many coats of lacquer
  • The body has gotten (it seems like) a million coats of lacquer
  • The body has been level sanded with 400, 600, and 880-grit sandpaper
  • The body has been polished with StewMac's medium and fine polishing compound, then given a preliminary shine with StewMac's swirl remover.
  • The I recoated the four places I found where I had sanded through the lacquer into the vinyl sealer and polished those areas again

Here's the bridge being glued in place:

 

 

This is getting really exciting! My first acoustic guitar will be ready for strings soon. he neck & bridge have been glued on, and I'm waiting for the lacquer on the headstock to cure some more so I can give the final polish. Once that's done, I can mount the tuners, and (very nervously) put on a set of strings.

The tuners, by the way, are a set of Schaller vintage open-back tuning machines that are built like the ones Martin used back in the 20's and 30's on the D28 model guitar.

And now she finally has strings! Tonight (May 26, 2005) I polished the headstock, installed the tuning machines (Grover vintage butterbean style, gold plated), and put on a set of light guage bronze strings. Here's the first ever picture of a Cyr Guitars Dreadnaught acoustic guitar in playable condition:

The guitar still needs some action adjustment--it's too low right now, but a shim under the saddle (or a slightly taller one) will take care of that. Also, the neck is perhaps a little too straight, and needs a slight truss rod adjustment to give it a 1/2 credit card's worth of relief.

Initial impression on the guitar:

  • With some action adjustment, she'll play really nice!
  • The tone is a little less bassy than I like, but then I like heavier wound strings than the ones I put on her initially
  • The tone in the treble range is very nice--bright and crisp but not brassy or brash
  • From everything I've read, the tone will get even better over the next few weeks as I play her

 

 

As you can see, I haven't put on the pickguard yet. It will be a nice dark tortoise shell pickguard - very traditional!

Notice the area in the center of the lower bout where the spruce top has some figure in it. That's why Martin rejected this top. There's actually a little bit of Bearclaw figure in there, and I think it gives the guitar character.

A closeup of the headstock:

The body from the back:

In this picture you can see the color and grain of the neck--the red Mahogany stain I used really gave it a nice deep mahogany color--it really looks good, IMHO.

And a shot of the upper part of the body and the lower part of the fingerboard, from the 4th fret down (I LOVE the herrigbone purfling!):

  
   

 

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(c) Copyright 2005 by Stephen Cyr
Last updated May 13, 2005

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