Patrick DeGreve's travel guitar

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here is a shot of the two travel guitars from the back, showing the different bracing patterns (steel srtring vs nylon string).

[Patrick DeGreve]

Just to give an idea of the size of the travel guitars, here is a shot of the travel guitars with the uke I am building for my other project.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Now to start the neck. I like a blocked up neck. I like the look, and it adds strength. I took a piece of the oak flooring that was flat sawn and planed off the finish. Then I cut it into two lengths 1" X 28". When I glue them up the grain will run vertical, making them the same as a quarter sawn blank. I also cut a center strip from some maple I had 1" X 3/8" X 28", and two strips from some walnut at 1/4" X 1" X 28". These will become the neck blank.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Before I glue them together I ran them all through the planer.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Then I glued them up to make a neck blank.

[Hans Bezemer]

Patrick,

Your making good progress. Your necks (all three) look great.

Hans

[Mark Swanson]

What scale length did you use, and how come the bridges are so far down on the top? That will greatly impede the response and volume on a top that is already small.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Thanks Hans. Mark I am using a 24.5" scale length, and the overall guitar length is 34". I based the travel guitars on a guitar made by a San Diego company called Go-Guitars. One of my co-workers brought a go-guitar to work, and we all played it and liked it overall. It sounded good for such a small guitar, and played very good. The one thing I didn't like was that it had no waist, and that made it lean forward in your lap. So when I designed the travel guitars I added a waist, and enlarged the lower bout slightly. I finished a travel guitar about two months ago and took it to work, and most everybody liked its playability, and sound. It does have a bright sound, not a lot of bass but very pleasant. I thought about moving the bridge more into the center of the soundboard, but I would have to shorten the scale or lengthen the guitar overall. That would take away from it's function as a travel guitar, small enough to take camping or backpacking etc.

[Warren May]

Starting to come together, Patrick. I like the simple look of your cutouts and the rosettes look really nice. We're all anxious to hear how they sound. I'd seen an acoustic travel guitar with bridge placement something like yours and after looking on Google I think it might have been a Washburn Rover. I wouldn't expect a big booming dreadnaught sound from it but travel guitars are always a little compromise to get the size down. Really great work and I doubt anyone would know it's reclaimed flooring

[Patrick DeGreve]

Thanks Warren, when I first started thinking about making guitars a few years ago, I read that Oak was not used for guitars because it was a "dead" wood. Now I see a few wood suppliers selling guitar sets with oak. This challenge has given me an chance to see what I it sounds like. Last week I cut braces from the pine for the backs, pre-shaped them, and glued the up using the go-bar press.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I decided to add a JJB Electronics transducer pickup in the oak steel string travel guitar. I am not going to put a pickup in the nylon string guitar. I used their 2 transducer standard unit $19.95. I have used a few of their three transducer units and they worked fine. I am not going to install a pre amp in this guitar, (they say you don't need one for this system), we will see. I have a very small Fender battery operated amp that is so light and small you could put it in your backpack easy.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I next glued the backs onto the travel guitars, again using the go-bar press.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here is a shot of the backs of the two travel guitars.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Using a jig I made, I routed the recess for the bindings I pre-bent with the fox style bender.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here is a close-up of the recess on the pine guitar.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I am using rosewood bwb binding I bought in bulk on Ebay for both guitars. I like the contrast of the dark binding on the light woods. Here I have glued and taped on the bindings.

[Patrick DeGreve]

After the bindings dried I scraped and sanded the two guitars. They are now ready for the necks.

[Jason Rodgers]

I like how these are turning out. Just an observation: I understand that they are travel instruments, and so need to withstand some knocks, not to mention climate swings, but these little guys look really heavily built. Maybe that's the point?

[David Ackley]

I too am really liking the looks of both of these guitars. Nice use of the wedge-shaped back strips.

[Samuel Hartpence]

How about some more details on the binding channel jig. I'm in need of something similar.