MIMF

by **Beate Ritzert** » Mon Aug 14, 2017 6:43 pm

Well, i am going to use 0.095" flatwounds on that bass. Simply because i would like to have a real bass sound and not some guitar in a very low tuning.

I just checked: a .080" Daddario chrome string fits through the hole of a chinese copy of a Schaller guitar tuner. But nothing thicker - that's the limit.

by **Beate Ritzert** » Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:39 pm

Slow progress in carving the top... This irregularly grown wood is sometimes tricky to work on. Luckily this is "just" pear wood, roughly as hard and strong as maple but easier to cut with chisels and planes.

by **Beate Ritzert** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:51 am

Outer shape of the top roughly carved. My finger tips tell me there is still some symmetry. But it is really hard so see; the shape is about as "exact" as that of my first archtop. Well i think i'd mark some isolines with a (pencil) marker gauge and try to get it a bit better before i start with the inner arch.

by **Barry Daniels** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 9:39 pm

Bob Benedetto recommends a desk lamp set very low almost at bench top height which will show the arch much better. Turn off the overhead lights in the workshop to enhance the effect. I like to stand back and squint my eyes a bit so I am looking at general shapes instead of details.

by **Geoff St. Germaine** » Tue Dec 12, 2017 6:11 pm

I use a magnetic LED work light that I can move around to the different legs of the table I use for carving the tops on my guitars with the shop lights out as Barry describes. I wind up rotating the body around quite a lot when finalizing the arch to look from many different angles. When I first started making archtops I tried with pin gauges and templates and a few other methods and while they got me roughly in the ballpark of a symmetric carve, the low angle point source light worked far better and is honestly easier to work with.

by **Beate Ritzert** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 6:13 pm

Thanks for the hints. I'll try it. I put the top aside and started to carve the bottom. Same profile, again using my templates to get very rough orientation. This time i started with the horns - and i'm enjoying the speed and the ease of the progress (alder...).

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But progress will be slowly - i have to travel 50 km to that room, and i am there only occasionally, when i need to organize something for my new old house (i guess the small house in front is at least 150 years old):

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by **Greg Martin** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:05 pm

One thing i disliked on my first archtop was the bubble carve at the cutaway. I now must use the Gibson carve method on number two. Are there any tips for this , or any deadly pitfalls? Anyone have pics to share?

by **Beate Ritzert** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:06 pm

On my first build i decided to do it "Les Paul" like. I found it a bit cumbersome because the height of the binding material was insufficient and i needed to double it.

Maybe some compromise is preferable - lower the profile in the cutaway just strong enough that the height of Your binding material suffices.

Back to my guitar:
some work on the bottom plate - the last quarter of the coarse stuff

and then some refinement with my small planes and two scrapers

And now my arms and shoulders hurt...