Guitar Resto-Mod underway

[nuhobby]

The photo with the plane is absolutely gorgeous. Did you make the plane?

Thanks! Actually it's an ECE Emmerich plane that I had got used. It was very beat-up, so I dressed it up by laying thin strips of holm oak into the sides. Similarly, the decorative button is turned from holm oak.

[BuckeyeDennis]

The photo with the plane is absolutely gorgeous. Did you make the plane?

Thanks! Actually it's an ECE Emmerich plane that I had got used. It was very beat-up, so I dressed it up by laying thin strips of holm oak into the sides. Similarly, the decorative button is turned from holm oak.

Wow, I just learned two new things. Had never heard of Holm oak, and am still wondering how you got your hands on some.

The shape of the plane looked vaguely familiar, but the brand name didn’t ring a bell. But after seeing photos of both new and used ones from a Google search, I can honestly say that your inlays take it to a whole new level, aesthetically.

[nuhobby]

It's mind-bending! Pinholes! Halos!
A few moments in the shop before the Eclipse mania gets underway here:


Curling some 1/8" x 1/16" walnut strips:

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Three of those strips gluing in, concentrically:

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[nuhobby]

Well, the little pinhole scrap pieces maybe worked a little for the Eclipse viewing, but the dark special glasses were better.
Here were 2 pictures about 12 minutes apart in high daylight, Indianapolis area:

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I didn't show this in build #1 of the thread, but all the bracings are just slightly curved, and supported by a curved caul during clamping and glue-up. This is to make the flat surfaces a wee bit pre-defined as convex in the finished guitar. Otherwise they might flip in and out if the pieces were just dead flat, during seasonal humidity changes:

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Making progress -- I'm sort of tickled that the shop-build "rosette" walnut 3-ply inlay didn't turn out too bad:

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[nuhobby]

Just a bit more work to report lately:


Once the top and bottom boards became slightly "convex" via bracing, inspection shows it threw off the formerly good fit of the sides. I will progressively shave the sides until the air gaps all around the perimeter become uniform and vanish:

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The slowly assembled top bracing is just about done; getting weights on the last 2 glued pieces:

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Gradually applying kerfing to the corrected sides, a wee bit at a time, since I don't have 40 clamps to use all at once like the pros:

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Happy woodworking!

[BuckeyeDennis]

What are these things that look kinda like little curled handplane shavings?

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[nuhobby]

If you're asking about the yellow areas, it's gaps (for respective back braces) which are letting a lot of light through from a work lamp. After refining, the gaps get smaller, and also backed up with kerf strips. Then the edge will get routed away and replaced with some binding in the future.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Ah, so! I can see the gaps now, but couldn’t make visual sense of them before.

[algale]

Progressing nicely!

[nuhobby]

Continuing on to some tedious detail work...

The adapted hand-cutter I used 2 years ago is still with me. It was pretty cool for soft mahogany and spruce and walnut in those days...

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But, it is not really going to hold up for hard oak on the new guitar. So, after thinking about it all weekend, I have butchered the edge-guide attachment on my power trim router, and added a cylindrical piece of delrin / acetal to serve as the "follower" for the guitar sides:

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First testing task, just a flush cutting operation, to get the top and back to match the curved sides, is working pretty well:

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The guitar body is entire but very rough. In addition to needing routing for the applied binding borders, some parts need cosmetic covering. Similar to the first guitar shown earlier, I'm covering up the first glue joint in this whole project, some very ugly but nice and tacky and strong JB-Kwik epoxy:

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Happy woodworking!

Chris