RE: Inside the box materials

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estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

I got curious and looked up my Brune' plan, the grain direction is indicated on the plan.

I can explain much more about how I think by making videos and it saves my back from 30 minutes of typing.....A video response:

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 15 2014 8:13:17

El Burdo

Posts: 632
Joined: Sep. 8 2011

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

Hi Stephen - thanks for the video. Excellent; apart from your intention, the subject matter, it shows your obvious love of wood.

Up to now I was planning to cut the wood blank as a whole into one long stick of blocks/tentellones/peones and saw them off like tiles for a rosette. Your method is nice in that it's just you, the rectangle of wood, a sharp chisel and, in my case lots of blood over the workbench. Quite meditative in terms of its repetition. Like Mishima's Martydom of Saint Sebastian.

In your last post you confirm what I was worrying about - that it's better to glue flat surfaces as opposed to variegated grain boundaries. Unfortunately, the blanks I have have been cut so precisely I can't expose enough flat surface. As it seems there is no well known justification for using either way, I'll just do it as I can.

I think to make sure the joint is good enough I'll nail them in too.

Seriously, thanks for your input.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 15 2014 11:12:07

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

Cool Burdo.

When I make lots of glue blocks I run them though the band saw and rip long triangular pieces and then saw the blocks out of those.

But here's why I like to distill it down to the least common denominator of craft- you can do anything and use any tool system once you know the most basic way of doing it.

The other fun thing about making instruments is that one teacher will show you one technical move, but you might not have a use for it yet. I learned the violin bow hair plug cutting move from an old timer who was a famous bow rehairer in San Francisco CA.

His name was Jim Furey and he knew my first teacher Mr. Tenney who was from So. California. I met Jim in 1991 and he helped me with some bowmaking and bow repair work. He said a funny thing, Mr. Tenney was a bowmaker who made very accurate bench copies of old French bows. Jim said Mr. Tenney showed him a Pecatte bow and said that Mr. Tenney claimed to have made it. Then Jim said to me Tenney was not telling the truth because he knew that was a real Pecatte bow. I did not contradict Mr. Furey as he was teaching me, but I knew the bow Mr. Tenney showed him was not a real Pecatte bow, because I watched Tenney make bench copies of old master bows for musicians. Tenney was an expert at making bows that were bench copies of the English bow maker John Dodd, and his Pecatte bows were not bad either.

Which is all to say if you soak up a technical move you may not know how to use it right away, but hold onto it and eventually a situation will come up where it fits perfectly. It's all timing and remembering to search for everything you know how to do. When I began to learn guitar maKing around 1997 I had that chisel pivot move already. Then when my guitar guru showed me how to make glue blocks I had the means to slice up the blocks by hand. He thought that was pretty neat.

Your glue blocks with probably be fine as long as you don't use end grain ( no brainer right?) and the blocks are not made from that crunchy wood I demonstrated with. I think Peter ran down the possible woods to build inside parts with and the saying goes: 'Brace wood is where you find it. " I get almost all my brace wood from old houses, it's already aged. You can find excellent wood in a 75 year old house.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 15 2014 13:32:42

jshelton5040

Posts: 1500
Joined: Jan. 17 2005

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

Cool Burdo.

When I make lots of glue blocks I run them though the band saw and rip long triangular pieces and then saw the blocks out of those.

Your glue blocks with probably be fine as long as you don't use end grain ( no brainer right?) and the blocks are not made from that crunchy wood I demonstrated with. I think Peter ran down the possible woods to build inside parts with and the saying goes: 'Brace wood is where you find it. " I get almost all my brace wood from old houses, it's already aged. You can find excellent wood in a 75 year old house.

Stephan,
I get my tentallones from some 40 year old billets of Engelmann spruce that are not suitable for tops. It's a lifetime supply of tentallones so why not use it? As to end grain on the top joint...with well cured wood and modern glue it strikes me as pretty much irrelevant. I make them much the same way you do except I route an ogee into the strips and put a 2 degree angle on the top before sawing them off. I use a very fine blade (about 1mm wide) on the table saw to cut them off the strips so as not to waste wood.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 15 2014 14:41:52

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

John,
I meant end grain not different sides of the long grain. I agree with when you say it does not matter much, but since I am an American I copied Barbero to the letter just to cover bases to make sure everyone knows I'm merely a blatant Yanquee copyist.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 15 2014 23:40:40

jshelton5040

Posts: 1500
Joined: Jan. 17 2005

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

John,
I meant end grain not different sides of the long grain. I agree with when you say it does not matter much, but since I am an American I copied Barbero to the letter just to cover bases to make sure everyone knows I'm merely a blatant Yanquee copyist.

In a drunken stupor I once sawed the strips of spruce the wrong way so that I had end grain instead of long grain, fortunately I realised my mistake the next day when I was sober and discarded the ruined strips. I of course would never copy anyone that's why my current top bracing resembles (completely by accident you understand) a Conde instead of the normal Ramirez copy. I have to copy the "masters" since I haven't had an original thought in 71 years.

Thought by the way is one of those things that is becoming much more difficult at my advanced age. I understand the reason is that the capacity of the brain is limited and there just isn't any more room for stuff in there once you're really old like me

.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Feb. 16 2014 0:00:26

Flamingrae

Posts: 220
Joined: May 19 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

I'm experimenting with a combo of Cedar and Balsa tentalones and pinching a bit of wood from the middle. Just another way of grabbing a bit more weight off but I decided to use a combo as I wasnt sure about balsa for the whole of it so I do a cedar followed by a few balsa's and just spread them around to make as good a combo as I can. The balsa hardens up quite a bit when its glued in place and you can further strengthen using other balsums (resins) at your leisure. Not had any problems so far....

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 10 2014 15:23:50

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

What kind of balsams are you using? From pine resin?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 10 2014 19:45:39

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

It looks impressive. A lot of work.

how much weight do you think you can save using 50% balsa over cedro?

Also, you tentellones look big, how many mm do they "enter" the soundboard from the sides?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 10 2014 21:28:33

constructordeguitarras

Posts: 1675
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

I use western red cedar or spruce for peones because they are light weight and strong enough for the job (spruce being stronger and WRC being lighter).

I noticed in a '70s Jose Ramirez III blanca that the solid back lining is beech, so I tried beech and I liked it and have been using it for years. It bends well and is strong, so that when I am carving mortises for back bar ends I don't accidentally plough through it.

I now make harmonic and back bars of spruce because it is strong and light weight. I sometimes use "Spanish cedar" for back bars.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 11 2014 5:32:29

constructordeguitarras

Posts: 1675
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to jshelton5040)

quote:

Thought by the way is one of those things that is becoming much more difficult at my advanced age. I understand the reason is that the capacity of the brain is limited and there just isn't any more room for stuff in there once you're really old like me .

I solved that problem by forgetting a lot of things I knew, such as long pieces of music.

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www.youtube.com/marioamayaflamenco
I always have flamenco guitars available for sale.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 11 2014 5:35:45

El Kiko

Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to constructordeguitarras)

quote:

I solved that problem by forgetting a lot of things I knew

good comment ... sounds like you ran a DEFRAG for your brain ,...

its under ...Brain Accessories ...

Intellectual tool .......>academic cleanup .......>highbrow derangement ......

dont overuse it though ....

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 11 2014 9:31:36

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to constructordeguitarras)

quote:

I noticed in a '70s Jose Ramirez III blanca that the solid back lining is beech, so I tried beech and I liked it and have been using it for years. It bends well and is strong, so that when I am carving mortises for back bar ends I don't accidentally plough through it.

Beech is one of the woods many Spanish builders used as liners, pretty common on pre 1950's instruments. I like it too.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 11 2014 9:46:57

Flamingrae

Posts: 220
Joined: May 19 2009

RE: Inside the box materials (in reply to estebanana)

quote:

What kind of balsams are you using? From pine resin?

At the mo a coat of red earth mixed with alchohol and some dammar - but you could use any of the soft resins like sanderac or mastic. It's soaked up by the balsa and dries well.

Anders - I probably save a tiny tiny amount, so it's maybe insignificant, but it's what I wanted to do to see what happened. They do look big in the photo - about 8mm contact with the soundboard. It's one reason I took the chunk out from the middle and that is not much more work by the time you do all the cleaning etc.

Ethan - I like the idea of WRC - might give that a go sometime - also spruce for the back crossbars.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 11 2014 15:39:34