Видео

i was at a school so they wanted us to get a grasp of multiple methods

cuz it was royalty free and not the focus of the video.

much appreciated but this guy was just a one-off. i built it while attending a luthier school in minnesota. since it’s one of my first guitars, i wont be selling it. too much sentimental value and faaar too many mistakes.

@@willehster But if you were to put a price on your work, how much would you ask? Just out of curiosity.

honestly i have no idea. raw materials ran about 7-800$ for everything and it probably took about 200 hours to build. again tho: it was all done in a school program and it was all a learning process as i went through it so that time frame isn’t accurate.

they’re not sized to dimensions really. every piece of wood is different so you have to size them according to the density, the stiffness, the tap tune (tapping and listening to it resonate), and a myriad of other requirements

So because I used a CNC on one single part of the build, all of the rest of my work doesn’t count? that’s an incredibly close-minded sentiment. Did you miss the part where the CNC only rough cut the arching? and i used finger planes and scrapers and hand tools to finalize the dimensions and voice the back? don’t really recall how well i showed that part but i thought i included it... I for sure didn’t include the hours and hours and hours i spent just getting proficient enough in 3d modeling software to be able to draw that back on the computer and plan the toolpaths and build the fixtures for the cnc and go through trial after trial after trial until it was finally ready to cut out the back i wanted. and not even to mention that i was doing all of this in a school, where the goal was to teach us a little bit about multiple different processes. there are countless ways to build a guitar, not one of them is right or wrong. the result is what matters. like it or not, a CNC is an incredibly valuable tool for any craftsperson. there’s no shame in using one to rough out material. planning everything on the CNC takes an incredible amount of knowledge and experience but the actual act of removing the raw stock doesn’t require intimate knowledge of the individual cut of wood or it’s correspondence with the rest of the guitar. basically? a CNC saves your hands and joints on wear and tear so you can continue enjoying the work for even longer. if you choose to be a traditionalist and keep things old school, that’s awesome. all the power to you. but don’t gatekeep others who are trying to learn viable processes.

Some people are just plain old stupid this is a work of art

Nope! The Interior is hollowed out to match the curves of the exterior

I don’t have any for sale at the moment and won’t have a shop of my own to make and sell them for quite some time.

www.stewmac.com/How-To/Blueprints_and_Plans/Benedetto_Archtop_Plans.html

No way! i bought a bunch of my tools and materials through you guys. you helped make this possible! thanks so much!

welcome to life

@@willehster you have great skills but i was hoping someone playing the guitar at the end :-(

haha sorry i was just making a bad joke. check out my channel! i’ve got another video of this guitar and it’s sister being played by professional flatpickers Chris Silver and Mike Cramer

Jep Hep as much as I wish I could take credit for the music I cant! It was some royalty free tunes that RUclips provided for me! I’ll try and find the artist when I’m not on mobile

my video editing skills are too good. all the mental breakdowns are off camera XD

Hey thanks so much for the feedback! And I appreciate the tip too it’s always important to learn how other people work. In this case though, I’m not sure it would work better to switch the steps. The spruce I used to carve the arch from were wedge shaped when I got it, so the center was thicker than the edges. I would’ve had to establish a flat along the bottom as reference and then flip it over and try to balance it on that thick center seam. What I did was instead was cut out a small support ring that the outside edge of the arch rested on. Then when it’s resting facedown, the arch itself was still up off the work table and it was all still held flat. I even put some wood shavings underneath it to help support the arching as I carved the interior. Still appreciate it though! You’ve given me a bit of new info to consider when it comes to archtop carving!

there’s a lutherie program in Red Wing, Minnesota that i attended!

You need about an inch thickness to carve out the arching.

Honestly I have no idea. I googled royalty free music and picked the first album that happened to be the right length for the video. Also it just so happened to be acoustic guitar. Unfortunately the computer I edited this on has since crashed so I have no better answer for you

Yeah I agree, hand carving of the arch top and then sawing out the F holes by hand. My God, this has to be about 5 times harder than a solid body guitar.

wholesalemonkeyfarm Not a naive question at all! I enjoyed the process of hand carving the top so much. You're right I did use a profile guide to lay out a general shape and that could be done on a CNC. In fact that's exactly what I did for the back in this video. We drew out the arch in CAD and used the CNC to get a rough shape, but it's not carved to the final thickness. That can't be done by the CNC. One of the parts that I didn't show in this video was voicing, where you measure the thicknesses around the arch and dial it all in within .001-.002". Then you tap the wood, listen to it resonate, flex it see how it feels with the grain and then across the grain, remove wood in incredibly specific areas to bring out a nice resonant tone in the wood itself. That's a lotta shit to do. And the videos 15 min long already. There were a lot of things glossed over in this video. Like the drawing that was done in CAD. Took me half a semester of learning our CAD programs basics just to barely be able to draw up an archtop toolpath and get 1 back cut out to within 1/16" of its final thickness. All the time I spent drawing up the program for the CNC could've been spent having a blast with a sharp plane and a big gouge. It really depends how many you plan to make. The more you're doing, the more worth it the CAD work becomes. Personally, though, I enjoy the woodwork a whole lot more.

Haji al Kidya I actually don't have a shop yet. I just earned my degree in lutherie from a tech school in Minnesota. This is one of the archtops I built in class this year.

@@willehster My home state! Take that Nashville.

Haji al Kidya I am using spruce for the top. The back, sides and neck are all maple and then the rest of it is ebony.