The Luthier Community

This thread will fully document my first attempt to build a complete guitar from thermally modified wood. Only a few parts, such as fingerboard, bridge, bindings, linings and other minor appointments will be unmodified wood. I will attempt to show enough detail so that any of you should be able to follow and duplicate the process, and will do my best to answer any and all questions that anybody may have.

Since I have not done this before, it will be somewhat of a learning process for me, too, and there may be times when I will need to backtrack and make another attempt at some things. But that is one of the reasons for this thread...so we can all learn.

This will basically use the same woods as are in the thermally modified package in this month's (September) drawing, with the following exceptions: I am not using a sister side set since I am building a small body (OM) guitar, so picked a narrower, but similar side set. I will be using a one-piece rather than scarfed peghead and stacked heel neck. I will be using my own bracing patterns and my adjustable neck joint.

As I noted, this will be an OM size guitar and will have a ribbon stripe African mahogany back and sides and a white spruce top.

Here is the top I will be using

This top has a few sap stains. Handling it reminds me of working with a pane of glass. I will be using a segmented end grain white oak bark rosette.

Here is the neck blank, back plates, and sides

Note that the sides have not been thermally modified. This will be done after bending and I will fully detail and describe the process.

Stay tuned, I hope to be able to keep this build moving. Jump in at any time with questions, comments, and suggestions.

G

Moving on a bit. we were at a friend's house most of the day helping pick grapes, but I managed a bit of shop time today.

As most of you know, my top bracing pattern uses 3 curved braces that are laminated from 2 pieces of 1/8" thick spruce. Since I will be using thermally modified wood, I needed to make thermally modified curved brace stock. I usually soak the 1/8" spruce for a few hours and clamp it in a 2-piece mold after heating it with a mini heating blanket. Then glue up in the same mold. I did basically the same thing except after I let the curved pieces dry overnight, I replaced the heating blanket and gave it a 10 minute cycle at 190 degrees C, like this



After the heating cycle


The dark lines are not wood grain...the heating elements in the blanket left the darker lines. Next time I will add a layer of aluminum foil to spread the heat.

Another one being heat treated


The piece sitting on the clamps is a thermally modified Osage Orange bridge plate

I then spread glue and clamped these up (no photos)

Next I will work on the rosette.

G

Baked rosette? Just kidding, actually thought of doing some wood just to get different colors. Cherry turns a nice shade and really brings out the flame in Maple as we saw in the other thread. Looking forward to the bark rosette, heck the whole build. We need to do a few more builds with this stuff to get a handle on the process. Can't wait till you get to carving the neck. Curious to here how it goes.

Looking forward to this one, Grant. thanks!

Pat

Moving on to the rosette. This will be a segmented ring of end grain white oak bark with an inner and outer b/w/b veneer line sequence.

I first made a pile of 1/8" thick bark slices from the end of a thick bark chunk. Then I drew a rough layout pattern on paper and started cutting and gluing bark segments

Glued them to each other and to the paper pattern.

A closer look

Just cut to rough shape and sanded the edges for a good fit

The last segment ready to glue


All glued up


Next, I trimmed the paper and taped it to a piece of 1/4" plywood and ran it through my thickness sander to even up the surface


And then, gave it a good coat of shellac


Then taped it down to a board with a pivot pin and routed the ring


Here is the finished ring


Then I routed the channel in the top and glued it in....

....paper side up. Tomorrow I will sand it almost flush and route channels for the b/w/b rings and glue them in

Thanks for looking,

G

Looking excellent. You make it look easy, Grant.

Thanks for the step by step on your bark rosette Grant!
Can't wait to see it sanded....

I also appreciate the step by step.

Thanks for that Grant.

Dean