Neck

Yesterday I spliced the neck. This process gives the head stock an angle which strengthens the neck. You start off with the neck blank:

The neck blank is then spliced across the diagonal line:

The wedge that has been cut off is then glued reversed to the back of the neck:

Clamped up:

The end result:

The next step will be cutting the neck to length. Part of the piece that comes off will be glued at the back at the end of neck to form the heel.

Neck, Back and Top

I have started up three jobs in parallel: The neck, back and top. To start with the neck. The piece of walnut that I got was a bit to wide and needed to be planed down. A good 20 minutes and a pile of wood curls later:

 With that done I took a sliding bevel and set its angle according the plans and traced the angle out onto the side of the neck.

Later I will cut of this wedge with a saw and glue it reversed to the back of the neck. That will form the tilted back head stock.
I left the neck for now since I finally bought myself a fretsaw.No not to cut in the frets in the fret board but a wood saw which can be used to cut out shapes. I need it to cut out my top and back since I do not have band saw. I used a paper template of the top (and back) to draw them on the plates:

After that I draw a line by hand about 1 cm around the shape.

At last I cut out the rough shapes of the top and back. They are still way to thick but that will be taken care off later:

Alternative Dulcimer

My wife found the pieces I cut out of the mold in the trash and gave them to my son. He created his own version of a stick dulcimer:

Internal matters

It is all about internals this week. I shaped and glued in the end block. I used a piece of waxed paper to prevent gluing the instrument to the mold.

Earlier I bent the linings in the same manner as I did with the sides. I clamped them up for a couple of days (all four of them at the same time).

Tonight I removed them from the mold and glued them in. This is where the multiple layers of the mold com into play. I removed the top layer of the mold to give room to clamps.

I use paper clamps for clamping the linings to the sides.

When dried I still have to cut the sides to length and after that I will make a start with the neck.

Shape

A quick update: The second side came out of the side mold. I placed it in the instrument mold together with its counterpart. They are supported by a piece of wood and a block in the neck area.

The next steps will be shaping and gluing the end block and bending and gluing in the linings.

Second Side

The side I bent last week has been clamped up for 7 days now so time to get it out and bent the second one. I removed the clamps and there was not much spring back.

It is now sitting in the instrument mold clamed up a little bit to settle more and waiting for its counterpart.

Speaking of which, it was in the process of being bent. I found a juice jar which I could use for this one.

After soaking in boiling water for about 15 minutes...

 ... it is clamped up. It will remain clamped for another 7 days.

Last week I bought a piece of Walnut which will serve as the neck. Also I bought wooden linings and cut them to size.

Plans and sides

The plans for this project form Michael J. King came in (that is the printed version). I worked from PDFs which I printed and glued together. But now I have it all on one big A0 sheet:

After making the molds it is now time to really start working on the instrument it self. The first task is to cut out the sides. The rough sizes are: 420x30. The thickness had to be brought down to about 1.5 mm (was 3 mm). 

The first side went smoothly but on the second one the plane caught to deep in the wood and snapped the side in two. On the replacing one I took a little bit more care and finally ended up with two sides that could be bend.

There are several ways to bend sides of an instrument. In the guitar making course I used a bending iron to do the job. Since I do not have one at home I have to go for a plan B. There are multiple examples on the internet on how to build a bending iron your self (much cheaper then buying one) but since this is such a small light instrument there is an other way to do it which is boiling the wood. This sounds a bit strange but this is how it goes: You need a jar with a wide enough opening to put the sides in it, a piece of aluminium foil, clamps and the mold I made for this purpose.

Boil water in a pan, kettle or cooker. Put the wood into the jar, poor the boiling water in and seal off the top with the foil so no steam can escape preventing the water to cool off to quickly.

Let it soak for about 10-15 minutes (some wood works after 10 minutes, in my case I had to go up to 15 minutes). Pull one of the sides out and place it in the mold. Then clamp it up in both directions (vertical and horizontal).

Leave it this way for a couple of days to fully dry the wood. After it is dry it will retain the form of the mold. I hoped to clamp both sides in the mold at the same time but that did not work. I will do it one at a time. Also I noticed that the second side is not as thin as it should be (it is still 2mm instead of 1.5mm) so I have to sand or plane down that one to the proper thickness before bending it. Other wise I am afraid to snap it.

Modifications

I made some modifications to the mold. Like I said the layers of chipboard are only 8 mm thick and one of them already cracked a bit. I decided to glue two layers together and the third one was strengthened with a layer of 4 mm MDF. That did the trick.

The bottom layer is still one layer but since it is solid it has more integrity from it's self.
In the top layer I added nut inserts all around the mold. Into these nuts I can screw bolts with pieces of wood which will act like clamps later on when the top and back will be glued on to the body.

And completely taken apart:

When the ribs (sides of the body) will be bend I will need another mold which will clamp the ribs for a period to let them settle in to there bend form. This mold was made out of two layers of 12 mm MDF glued together. The profile of half of the body is then cut out.

 To conclude this post a picture of the zebrano set which I will use for the top, back and sides:

New Start

It has been a while since I posted here. I just started a new project, a Stick Dulcimer. This a small bodied instrument with a diatonic scale. Below is a picture of the body:

I already got wood for the top, back and sides. They will be all made out of Zebrano. Probably the fretboard will be zebrano too. Still have to get wood for the neck though. I wend for a ukulele set which has plenty enough wood for this small instrument.
For this project I will use plans I purchased from Michael J. King. Work started already on the mold. The plans use 12 mm MDF layers (3 of them). I have some 8 mm chipboard left over from some past flooring project. I will use those in a couple of layers.

When cut to size with a jigsaw 4 holes where drilled all the way through. In these holes 4 dowels will keep the mold together. After that I traced out body and cut it out in 3 layers.

The 8 mm layers are a bit thin and I am afraid they will break pretty soon. I am thinking of gluing two together. This means the body will be slightly higher as the are in the plans but that is alright.

To wrap it all up

Well, I basically finished the guitar! I still had to do some leveling of frets. That part is not completely finished but the part of the fret board which I usually play on has the right action now and no rattles and such problems. On the part of the fret board which is above the body there is still an issue with some frets around fret 16. There some leveling is still needed. Maybe I tackle that sometime. For no I am going to enjoy the guitar. Below the end result pictures:

Front

Back

Head stock Front 

Head stock Back

Tailpiece 

Sound hole