21 January 2008

W.I. Talk

I recently talked to the local Whitley Chapel Women’s Institute about guitar building. They were thoroughly involved, asking questions throughout the talk and many more at the end.
I’d taken some side bending photos to use as part of my presentation, and while they’re not strictly news, here they are.

I start by quickly bending a side to approximately the correct shape on the electrically heated bending pipe. Then it goes into the Fox bender (old version, heated perfectly satisfactorily by three light bulbs) for around 30 mins, before the power is switched off and the side left in place overnight. The next day the side should be close to the correct shape but I take it back to the bending pipe to get it exactly right, so the slightest pressure holds it snug against the mould.

The wood is damped for the first two stages (though not soaked) and if necessary, also damped for the final stage.



Here are the sides joined at the heel and tail, and then in the mould ready for fitting the back.

Audition

Whilst Rens and Martin Simpson seem not to be following on up their musical collaboration (news item 30 September 2007), Martin fell in love with and bought the New World guitar. He plans to use it at home and for writing songs rather than playing on stage.

Martin playing New World guitar

Rens walking above Devilswater

Neck shaping

Again, not really news, but here are pictures showing how I shape a guitar neck.

Neck marked out, shaped first with spokeshave, then with rasps

Shoulders taken off with rasp

Neck taken to final shape with fine file

Neck sanded smooth, working down through the grades

Looking at these pictures brings home to me how time consuming a method this is, when all factory and many luthier made guitars are shaped by (sometimes CNC controlled) routers. Along with most other aspects of my guitar building, this system can appear unnecessarily slow and painstaking.

But there are distinct advantages to building this way. I can easily adapt each process to give the specification asked for by the customer. Also, I’m watching the wood and how it works so I can make allowances for, and adapt to, different wood characteristics.

There’s another less direct benefit. The time spent working with and looking at the wood, and concentrating on the instrument I’m building is often the time when I have ideas and insights into construction and design.

Martin Simpson can be seen this coming Friday on ‘Later with Jools Holland’. He will be singing ‘Duncan and Brady’ and playing his Mk 1 Sobell Martin Simpson Signature model.

And after the program has gone out, he can be seen on the ‘Later’ website singing ‘Never any good’.

Brian Miller from Edinburgh had a hotel chair collapse under him while playing in an Edinburgh hotel. The Model 1 he bought new in 1987 suffered soundboard and purfling damage. The repair was complicated by the dark colour of the soundboard; any mismatch in levels when joining the cracks would show up as a sudden colour change.
The repair went well, so not only is there no colour change, but also the cracks themselves (on either side of the lower bout, a couple of inches in) are not visible from more than a foot or so. Here is Brian with the repaired guitar.

New World guitar and Hayseed Dixie

The Madagascan rosewood necked New World model (news item 1 Oct 07) worked out really well and John Wheeler (of Hayseed Dixie) has taken delivery. It’s fitted with a Highlander under saddle pickup; John plans to use it on live gigs as well as for recording. ‘It really rings’ he said as soon as he picked it up.

All these months after injuring my hand (news item 5 June), it is now almost back to normal. While I’ve been able to work at a reduced pace, the one procedure I’ve not been able to manage is carving arch-top soundboards. This means I’ve been concentrating on flat-top guitars and have built no mandolin family instruments or arch-top guitars. My apologies to those kept waiting as a result.

Different woods

As well as the Brazilian rosewood neck fitted to a recent MS Signature model, I’ve built two New World guitars with European spruce sound boards. They made an interesting comparison with the Adirondack topped NWs I’ve built before, having a more subtle sound but not quite the same punch. Both good, but clearly different.

The Brazilian rosewood necked MS has a remarkable sound, with a bright treble and a smooth bass. I like it a lot.

As a follow up, I’m building a New World model with a Madagascan rosewood neck and a Carpathian spruce soundboard.

Madagascan rosewood is stiffer than mahogany and has much of the ring of Brazilian rosewood. Carpathian spruce is an Eastern European red spruce, related to Adirondack (North American red spruce). The Carpathian has an unfashionably wide grain but is stiff and light and has a deep, musical tap-tone.
I aim to combine the bright smooth sound of the rosewood neck with the punch and warmth of red spruce. I’m hoping for great results, but the proof of the pudding is of course in the eating. And the eating will have to wait a few weeks until the guitar comes out of the spray booth.

I’ve been talking to John Wheeler of Hayseed Dixie about this guitar, and I’m building it with him in mind.

After many years I have finally built my jig for preparing soundboards and backs for joining. It consists of a metal straight-edge, a shelf for a router to run along, and a simple system for locating the wood to be straight-edged.

The photos show how holding the router guide against the straight-edge and moving it along its shelf straightens the side of the wood clamped in position. The two halves of the soundboard are clamped down together and machined in one pass; smaller pieces (as used for scantling or four piece backs) must be straightened individually and are held by a low clamps fastened into the board. They are low enough that the router base can pass over them.

The router cutter used is a large diameter straight sided cutter.

This replaces my previous system of passing the timber over a jointer – not always easy to control with such thin wood.

Brazilian rosewood neck

At the moment I’m stringing up two octave mandolins and a Martin Simpson model guitar. This guitar is unusual in that it has a dark old Brazilian rosewood neck, built from the same stock as the Brazilian used on scantling guitars. Below is the neck both before and after carving.

Minor Injury

While playing tennis a few weeks ago I fell and hurt my hand. While not a serious injury, it kept me off work for a week or two and is still hampering me. I can only apologise to those of you waiting for instruments.

Tailpieces

The tailpiece hold-up is over at last. Here are the first to arrive, two each of mandolin (still to have pins fitted), cittern (also octave mandolin and bouzouki) and guitar.

The guitar tailpieces are made up of the anchor plate (attached to the tail of the guitar) and the string plate hooking onto the anchor plate.

Spring weather

This was the view from my office window at around 7am

The same view a few minutes later

Bill Flatman built my mandolin and cittern cases in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He died unexpectedly on 3rd March. He was just sixty-five years old.

Bill was a farmer who lived and grew up on a hill farm close to Whitley Chapel. When I was looking for fibre-glass cittern and mandolin cases to replace my primitive wooden ones, Bill volunteered and made them in his small garden shed. He had no previous knowledge of fibre-glass but went round the canoe building classes in the North East of England, learning how to lay up fibre-glass and where to find the required components. He rewarded his informants with heather honey combs from his own bee hives. He was an ingenious and enterprising man.  I and many others will miss him greatly.

The Fretboard Journal

Many people already know of the Fretboard Journal. For those who don’t, it’s a beautifully produced quarterly publication of serious in-depth articles on all subjects concerning fretted instruments.

Last summer Brad Warren visited and stayed a few days, talking, asking questions and taking photographs. The picture at the head of my ‘Wood and Materials’ webpage is one of his photographs.

The current issue of the Fretboard Journal includes the article he wrote about me and my instruments. Brad is a good interviewer; his conversation and questions made me think really hard about what I feel and believe is important to instrument building. Brad is also a good writer, his article presents my views well. The article includes an interview he did with Martin Simpson, concentrating on Martin’s use of my guitars and how he views them.

Usually I build two instruments together; this allows me to move from one to the other, working on each instrument while the other is glueing up.

However last week, having bent the sides for a Simpson model and a New World model, I carried on and bent sides for a Parlour guitar simply because I was enjoying bending. Because the three guitars are different sizes, there is no competion for moulds.

Here are all three sets of sides joined at the heel and at the tail. You can see the relative sizes of these guitars; the MS (top) is the same length as the NW but wider, while the Parlour guitar (bottom) is both shorter and narrower than the NW.

Cittern cases

At last I have cases available to fit large bodied citterns and bouzoukis. These are plywood cases with strap pockets, a two piece rucksack type strap and a rather garish yellow interior. They are basic but relatively inexpensive.

I hope to have Calton cases available for this size instrument in the future, but in the meantime I’m happy to offer these as pictured. The alternative option of using guitar cases lined out to accept citterns and bouzoukis is bulky and expensive.

On the shelf: MS D guitar, Model 1 soundboard and body, two cittern bodies, arch-top guitar

[two_third]

Cittern tailpieces

In my news item of 1st October I asked for help finding a source for brass tailpieces. I had half a dozen responses all making useful suggestions; I’m grateful for these.

I am now expecting to receive samples in the next couple of weeks, and hope to fit them to completed instruments straight away.

My apologies to all those who are waiting so long for their mandolin family instruments; not only have I had no tailpieces available, I’ve also not found a source of cases suitable for mandolins and large bodied citterns. This problem isn’t yet resolved, but a solution may be on the horizon.

Cutaway arch-top guitar and Second MS D guitar

I have just built a 6 string arch-top guitar along with a second Martin Simpson Signature D guitar.

The MS D uses the back (shown in my news item of 15 December 2006) on which I replaced the red/gold/green trim with the MS red/white and ebony. Here it is after final sanding.


The arch-top is built with the very colourful Brazilian similar to that used on some New World model guitars.




When the citterns currently under construction are finished, I will be building a New World model and a Martin Simpson Signature model.
Finally, even though it’s early February, last weekend was sunny and spring-like (though the week following we had frost and snow). Here are a friend and his son walking into the sunset. We’re far enough north here that sunset is shortly after sunrise at this time of year; the picture was taken at 3 pm.