MIMF

Hi Fred I know it was a few months ago that you were posting about this - so maybe you have settled on a method and done it already. I made an acoustic with a bent-top arm bevel following the method of Mike Doolin, as he outlined here: http://www.doolinguitars.com/articles/armbevel/ I found that I d...

Looks very good. I am sure the final effect with matching bindings and purfling and then under finish will be very classy!

Ladder braced guitars can sound great, with a tendency for more fundamentals and less complex overtones. A bit more of a bark. The best ladder braced guitars tend to be small bodied. It is not as strong as X-bracing, especially along the grain. To effectively brace a large soundboard like your jumbo...

Yep, having the wider saddle gives you options. But if you are going to optimize the result you want to determine the actual point, for each string separately, where the break point needs to be. In your other thread about bridge placement people offered advice about how to determine this. One way is...

Hi Eric That guitar looks really fine in the shot next to the Gibson. The top colour is especially nice. The wide saddle gives you lots of real estate to dial in the intonation. One comment - I think you could shape the back side of the saddle more, to slope it down towards the pin holes. Perhaps th...

Yes, I would agree with Bob that at this stage it you might as well just string it up and see how much of a problem you actually have - before you try to decide on the remedy. If it needs a remedy you could try to add some compensation at the nut. That could make you look very clever and prove that ...

You could adapt the concept of the “Guitarlift”, which is a Perspex plate that attaches by suction cups. It is primarily designed to be a rest for classical guitars that sits on your leg and holds the guitar in an elevated “classical” position. However, it also has the effect of holding it away from...

I think that SuperSoft or similar products do help - and sometimes you want to employ all the help you can get. There is no disadvantage to using it that I have experienced or heard about. If you find that you need to go to less than 2mm to get that wood to bend one option could be to do laminated s...

Yes - like Al Says you can do the bridge rotation test, or the top deflection test (both in the Gore/Gilet books, or we could describe it to you if you don't have the books). Both are tests of the structural performance of the braced top. It would be worth doing these to provide some objective evide...

Yep - switch glues. It is Titebond original for me, but many folks have success with epoxy and I have never tried it, so I can't argue with that choice. I just like to use something that I can later undo because, you know what, I stuff up some times. Another important question is how you are clampin...

You can certainly make your own from recycled metal, but you would need to be fairly well set up for metalwork, welding etc. Don Morrison is a guy in South Australia who makes great looking (and sounding) resonators out of old water tanks and roofing material. Great mojo. http://www.donmo.com/Guitar...

If it is not through the full thickness of the finish - and given that it is such a small area - you would probably get away with just sanding and buffing it out. Watch this video by Dan Erlewine to learn the strip sanding technique (at the end of the video). https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas/...

You have done well. You are good to go. Slight waviness or other irregularities will sand out. And anyway, nobody else will see the imperfections that you imagine are there. Bending by hand on an iron is a great way to work. You don't need anything else, unless you are a factory trying to crank out ...

I recently rebuilt an old HPL guitar to try out a few design ideas. It originally had a HPL top but it distorted under string pressure (badly - it was a 12-string) and the bridge came unglued, twice. I retopped it with redwood, and I painted the HPL back and sides a matt black (kind of Ovation-like)...

Hi Peter, thanks for showing off your latest creation. I must say that there is a noticeable increase in refinement of your builds over these four. Things like the headstock binding that matches the body purfling and rosette, the cutaway, the finer truss-rod opening. Very nice work. I am sorry that ...

Everything that people have said about joint preparation and clamping is important. Titebond is generally a good glue for luthiery but one thing you need to know is that Titebond and all similar glues have a limited lifespan. 1-2 years is the maximum recommended time, then it definitely deteriorates...

Dear Peter and other contributors. Thanks so much for sharing your designs and experiences with the adjustable neck joint - and the other innovations you have adopted in these builds. I have also recently been building with flying buttress CF rods, zero fret and various forms of bolt-on and bolt-dow...

As a wise man once said - "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need power tools"

Eric I have 3 different versions of OM plans - and I would say that the overall layout of the bracing is consistent with those Grellier plans. I agree that tapered bracing, not scalloping, is the way to go. Many people (myself included) would advise not to tuck the bracing into the rims in the lower...

It is always nice to add your own custom touches, and a boring black plastic cover is a good target for a makeover. I also like to get rid of the screws, if possible. In some of my builds the truss-rod is exposed in the slot and if you glue a small rare earth magnet onto the bottom of the truss-rod ...