A Pair of Ditsons

[whitespruce]

Well, truth be told, all that stuff about cutting away from yourself is aimed at the fact that most folks can't and don't have good control over their body parts. I have a long history of woodcarving as some of you well know. The most precise, careful, controlled carving I do is a lot like Joe said, controlled, hand squeeze, limited possible motion of the tool, well anchored, etc., etc.. BUT, you gotta know what you are doing. And when one small slip can can totally wipe out a week's carving on a multi-thousand dollar piece, you learn real fast

Guess I don't dare show anybody here how I use my huge 12" blade drawknife

Back to Joe's build, and Joe, things are looking fine there.

G

[Joe Sustaire]

Hey thanks Grant,

Glad to have a little back-up here. Yeah, I was thinking later that night about the "always use sharp blades away from the body" rule, and was thinking, what about drawknives, which I also use a lot. Also, my brother worked for the railroad several years on the bridge crew and got very proficient with a foot adze. Which for those who don't know is a sharp edged adze that you swing toward your foot to flatten timbers. If you do it right it works beautifully and ends up right under your boot toe. Just don't do it wrong!

So there are many exceptions, and very controlled delicate work is one of them.
Just don't lose control.

Joe

[Joe Sustaire]

Back at it.

I got to noticing that when I would tap the ladder braced body that I was getting a slight wood buzzing sound. Like when a brace is loose or cracked. Whereas on the x braced on there was just a clean, clear bell like tone. I had actually noticed it before I glued the top to the sides, but had managed to ignore it.

I inspected closely and probed every brace with a pallet knife and couldn't find anything loose or cracked anywhere. But the thought of ending up with a buzz after the box was closed up was just to much. So, I first pulled the bridge plate/brace.



By heating with an iron, and carefully working the palette knife, it came off clean. Problem is, it still buzzed when thumped.



So, I heated the knife on the iron and proceeded to slowly work off the bottom cross brace. And good news, the buzz is gone, nice clean tones now when thumped.



Kind of a mess though. Both braces seemed to be glued down solid, the only thing is, in working off the bottom cross brace, it came off all at once at one end leaving a small piece still stuck to the top. All I can figure is, maybe the brace had a fracture in it there that I couldn't see. Anyway at least now it taps clean.



So here I'm gluing in a new cross brace, and bridge plate/brace.




Working the end blocks and kerfing down to shape on the dish.

And now in my tapping, thumping quest, I find the x brace body has a buzz. It had tapped cleanly before. I swear there is an infinite number of ways to screw up a guitar! What is wrong now? The only thing that has been done since it tapped cleanly, is glueing on the kerfing for the back. So, in looking it over closely, I see what might be the problem. In gluing on the kerfing on the more radically curved edge of the sides, you're supposed to cut shorter lengths of kerfing to follow the curve. Since the thin wood between kerfs breaks so easily, I had just been breaking it instead of cutting it. Sometimes it wouldn't break cleanly, but when you pushed it up to the other piece they would overlap and it didn't look to bad to me. And much easier than stopping to cut a piece each time.



This is what it looks like. But apparently that little overlap is where the buzz is coming from!



So I used an exacto knife and cut away the overlap.



All around, both top and back edges. And now it taps clean. There is just no end to the ways to screw up a guitar!




So now we have a clean, melodic tapping x braced body, ready to be notched for the back. I do have to say here, when I showed the x braced body before, nobody mentioned that I didn't have any bracing around the soundhole. Come on guys, I need all the help I can get. Luckily in the midst of all this tapping I caught it.




A clean tapping ladder braced body, awaiting the back. Note that both bodies also have side bracing. Something that slipped by me on the last two guitars I built. I tell you I neeeed a keeper!




And the pair together, whew!

I need a break,
Joe

[Dennis Leahy]

A very cool experiment getting closer, closer...

Way to go, Joe!

Dennis

[Josh Slaughter]

Man, these are turning out to be really nice guitars. I love the way you pay attention to detail. Keep it up.

Josh

[gilmoreguitars]

Joe
You will be so glad that you went back to the drawing board on that buzz. Good for you for sticking with it and figuring out what it was and how to fix it.
You are just as much a master at this stuff as anybody...time to give yourself some credit where credit is due my freind!
david

[D_H_G GUITARS]

Joe, I remember a guitar I built after I strung it up she had a buzz, could not find it. Bothered me greatly I started taping the top while holding down different areas until I found the culprit. Turns out it was the end block where it meets at the back, it had just enough gap when played it would vibrate, the cause (lack of glue).

If you use your hand to mute the top while you tap the top you can quickly find the general area to study. However the side kerfing might have been a harder one to find though!

Glad you found the problem, stoped and fixed it, then moved on towards having a great guitar to play soon.

Keep up the great work Joe, almost there.

Thxs
Hugh

[Raymond]

Joe,

I'm impressed with your building skills, your investigative technique and your tenacity. Good show.

Raymond