Today Eamon Doorley and his wife Julie Fowlis visited. Eamon is both accompanist to Julie and long time Danu band member. He was looking at guitar-bouzoukis and tried both flat-top and arch-top versions. Eventually both he and Julie settled on the flat-top model. Here they are in my workshop, Eamon playing it through the Highlander pickup I’d just fitted, and Julie singing.

And here are Eamon, guitar-bouzouki and guitar-bouzouki builder

Assembling the back and sides

With the finished back settling on the shelf, I was able to get on with bending the sides. When bending guitar sides, I use a Fox bending jig to start with and then move on to hand bending, but for the simpler mandolin sides I bend entirely by hand, on an electrically heated bending iron.

Sides are always bent exactly to shape, rather than bent approximately and forced to the shape of the mould when gluing to back and soundboard. This is to avoid internal stress, as mentioned in part 2

Here the sides are glued and clamped to the tail-block. I’ve left a space between the sides where the tail purfling will fit.


I don’t seem to have taken a photo of the heel-block clamped and glued to the sides, but here are the sides glued to both blocks with the bottom lining glued in place. The lining provides gluing area for gluing the back on; it has cut-outs ready to receive the ends of the back braces.

The sides have been scribed and cut down to receive the back so no pressure is required to pull the back onto the sides. Again, this is to avoid internal stress.

The serial number can be seen stamped into the heel-block.

Again, no photo of the back being glued to the sides, but here’s the finished result. I’ve also added the top lining, which gives the gluing area for gluing on the soundboard, and side re-inforcements.

I don’t see these as providing much in the way of strength, but they should limit the extent of cracks in the unfortunate event of an accident.

The back and sides are now ready to receive the sound board.

Now the back is joined and sanded to final thickness, I have to re-inforce the joins. I do this with thin and lightweight cross-grained spruce (taken from soundboard offcuts).

The centre three joins near to where the neck block will go are so close together that I re-inforce them with a single piece of spruce across all three joins. Below where the top brace will go all joins are individually re-inforced. The spruce will then have to be cut away from the areas where the braces will be glued.

The photos below show first the centre and outside spruce strips gluing (the others having been glued previously) and the back ready to receive the braces.

Now the back is ready for bracing. The braces are cut close to their final top shape and to the same curve as the mould the back sits in while gluing takes place.


The braces are clamped using the go-bar jig, that wonderful simple and effective idea from Japan via the US. Later they can be trimmed and sanded to their final shape.

It takes a week or so for the back to settle. At the same time as the back is being pulled to the curve of the braces, to some extent the braces are being flattened slightly by the pull of the back (even though the back is being bent across the grain, much easier than bending along the grain). So the finished back sits on the warm shelf in my shop for a week or so to settle into its final form.

Allowing instrument components to find their final form before being assembled is important. It avoids the stress that develops if they try to do this later, when other components (in this case the sides and later the soundboard) would limit the movement taking place. Everything would then look fine, but the whole assembly would be under tension; tension that can affect the resonance of the finished instrument.

This is one of several reasons why taking time to build an instrument results in building a better instrument.

Patrick de Broux is a generous man. He was unable to attend either of my talks in aid of Whitley Chapel Village hall (see item below) but on both occasions made a £50 donation.
I announced this to the audience, and after they had applauded his generosity, pointed out that Patrick perhaps knew something they didn’t; after all, he’d paid several times the ticket price NOT to come and hear me.

Patrick recently came to me with an interesting project. He asked me to build a Cuban Tres, a small guitar bodied instrument with three pairs of strings. This instrument is a long term project and is still under construction.

He also asked me to build a small bodied mandolin with an extended neck, tuned two and a half tones lower than standard. This would tune DAEB, but a capo on the fifth fret would give mandolin tuning and scale.
This project also really interests me, and I’m now well on with it. Andy Irvine played an extended neck mandolin of mine (but with two extra frets rather than five) for many years, and Patrick had this in mind when thinking of his mandolin.

Here is Andy (centre) with his small bodied long scale mandolin, pictured with his band Mozaik. On the right is Rens van der Zalm with his standard scale large bodied version.
I would have made the back and sides from the Birds-eye maple I love so much, but Patrick asked about my scantling Brazilian rosewood. I found a pretty and very resonant piece just wide enough to make mandolin sides (without having to join two pieces together to get the width, as on scantling guitars).
This scantling would cut into enough pieces to make not just the sides, but also a multi-piece back; it’s nice to have back and sides from the same piece. I later found there was enough left over to make the headstock veneer from it as well.

In the end I felt the back looked best with a dark strip from another scantling down the centre, between two strips from the original scantling on either side. This would have meant the back having four joins, with two purfling strips, one on either side of the dark centre strip.

The two photos below show the strips arranged this way, the second with the surround blacked out to give an idea of how the wood looks in mandolin shape.

But when I sent Patrick pictures, he suggested cutting the dark piece into two with purfling in between down the centre of the back. The dark centre would then blend with dark areas on either side.

While I wasn’t keen to add an extra unnecessary join just for cosmetic reasons, it wasn’t really important so I eventually agreed. The photo right shows the back joined and sanded to thickness (with the mould resting on it to show the final shape).

Patrick’s idea worked out just as he had wanted, in that the black centre strip (now cut into two) blends perfectly with the black edges of the strips on either side. Lacquering may show up a minor change at the join, but I’m sure it won’t be obvious.

The back now looks to be a two piece back (while in fact being a six piece back) instead of looking like a three piece back (while in fact being a five piece back).

Life can be interesting and complicated; Patrick and his ideas always add interest and usually add complication.

All these joins will require re-inforcing strips on the inside.

At 7.30 pm on Friday 17th May I shall be giving a talk on instrument building in Whitley Chapel village hall. Called ‘The Art and Craft of Guitar Building’, it will be an extended version of the talk I gave there nearly five years ago – I would never have believed it was so long ago before I checked.
I’ll be talking about how I became an instrument maker (quite by accident), some of the difficulties and set-backs I encountered, and some of my customers. I’ll be showing images of guitars in various stages of construction and bringing along completed instruments, together with examples of work in progress. At the end of the talk I’ll be happy to answer questions.

As before, all are welcome; for my last talk we had visitors from as far as London, Manchester and Aberdeen as well as a large local audience.

Ben

Tickets cost £10 for adults, £5 for under 16s, and are available on the bar or from Austin on 01434 673325
There will be a bar selling wine, beer and soft drinks.

As before, all profits will go towards the maintenance and improvement of our village hall, which is such an important part of local life.

A couple of weeks ago Rod Sinclair called in on his way from the Lake District back to Newcastle. He played several guitars, including a recent New World model and my original arch-top, built in 1981. He seems to have found a few hedges in the Lakes.


Today Mark Knopfler visited. He played a New World and two Martin Simpson models, eventually choosing one of the MS models. He said he plans to use it at home and for recording, so didn’t want a pickup fitted. And he wouldn’t let me fit strap buttons because he couldn’t bear to have holes drilled in the guitar.

On my recent trip to northern Italy I took the opportunity to visit Massimo Raccosta in Verona. Massimo recently bought a Model 4 Dreadnought from me (see news 27 March 2012) and plans to open a guitar museum in the near future.

He greeted me in his apartment with the sight of seven guitars lined up on stands. It took me a moment to realise they were all Sobells.

Massimo Raccosta with Parlour, New World, MS model, Model 1, 6 string Arch-top, MS D version and Model 4 Dreadnought guitars

Somewhat to my surprise, Massimo told me the one he plays most is the arch-top (third from right). ‘You can play anything on it’ he said.

Most of his collection is stored awaiting the completion of his museum premises, but I had the opportunity to look at and play some that weren’t buried too deep. My favourite was a Franklin built in the 90’s by Nick Kukuch for his brother, a straightforward OM model with little ornamentation but a great sound.

When the museum opens, Massimo also plans to use it as a centre for concerts and masterclasses.

Today Mark Taylor collected his Brazilian rosewood and Italian spruce New World model. This is my latest version with Wengé neck and modified back braces.

Here I am posing with it for him.

During a recent visit to my technical advisor in Melbourne Australia, I met up with a group of Australian guitar builders. They are fanatical about guitars and guitar design, and build a variety of instruments, from conventional to highly innovative. We got together last year for a social event, but this year made it a little more formal. I gave them my views on life, the universe and guitar building before we had a general discussion covering different aspects of guitar design and guitar building. I showed them a Martin Simpson model in Malaysian Blackwood, and looked at guitars they had brought with them.

The builders included Dan Robinson, Jack Spira, Bob Connor, Joe Gallacher, Trevor Phillips, and Dave Snelling. The convention was organised by Dan Robinson and took place at his lovely house in a lovely setting near Ballarat. I enjoyed the afternoon immensely, as I think did everyone there.

Talking to an audience that’s either spellbound or half asleep

Joe Gallacher playing my MS model, with wife Marge, Daniel Hoban (left) daydreaming and Jack Spira (right) paying close attention

Playing and discussing one of Joe Gallacher’s (I think) guitars

Massimo Raccosta received his Model 4 Dreadnought today at his office in Verona, Italy. He sent me this picture. I have talked and emailed with Mr. Raccosta many times, but only now do I realise he is in fact half man, half chair.

He has a very extensive collection of fine guitars, both old and new, and will be showing them in his private museum late this year or early next year. He had hoped the museum would be ready sooner but was delayed by the discovery of an ancient Roman thermal plant just below the location of the museum.

This is common in Verona, where there is an ancient Roman town two metres below the present town.