How I build a guitar body using hand tools only 2/2 - GGBO 2021 - Part 3
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- Опубликовано: 14 июн 2021
- In this part of my Great Guitar Build Off series, I’ll show you how I complete the body.
I believe that player comfort is an important factor to consider in guitar making, which is why I planned to have a generous arm contour and belly carve on the guitar from the start. I also planned to have a top and a back on the guitar, which made things a bit more interesting.
The guitar has a beautiful book matched ovangkol top to go with the black limba body. I decided to bend the arm contour before joining the top, since I didn’t want to risk the glue joint softening.
To bend the top, I applied steam to it using (and ruining) our household clothes iron. I sprayed water and applied heat for a good 45 minutes, before clamping the top to the body using wedge shaped blocks I made specifically for this task.
After letting everything dry out for a day, I removed the clamps. There was a fair bit of spring-back, so I repeated the process off-camera a few more times until the fit was close enough to press flat by hand.
Once I was happy with the bend, I joined the top together and glued it using my portable work bench. By using the vise mechanism of the workbench I’m able to apply sideways pressure easily, and a few clamps hold the top down nice and flat.
For the back I followed a similar process, although the thickness had some variation between the two pieces. I used two offcuts from the neck to clamp them down onto another piece of wood. This worked well, leaving me with only one side that needed a bit more attention with the planes.
When I pictured this build in my head, I always planned to have guide pins as part of the body, to allow me to work on the top and back accurately before the glue-up. Naturally I forgot all about that when I shaped the body. I glued some offcuts onto the body and used those with dowels to create a guide pin system for the top and the back.
Once the pins were in place, I started cutting the back to rough shape. I used my antique hand-cranked pillar drill for the tight curves. As much as I love using that drill, this was quite inefficient, and a saw would have been faster and cleaner.
I cut out a piece of the back to create the control cavity cover. After spending an hour or so sanding the straight edges and the curve, the fit was nearly perfect! The grain also matched beautifully.
Once that was done, I moved on to the top. Here I cut the curves with a coping saw. This proved to be efficient and clean, which means less work afterwards. After doing some outline shaping, I focused my attention on the sound hole.
I wanted to cut the bulk of the pickup cavities with the coping saw, but to do that I needed to know where exactly they were. This proved to be quite an interesting problem to solve. I finally settled on transferring the outline to the top using paint on masking tape.
Once I had the paint markings and the paint had dried, I was able to cut the pickup shape out, then use those outlines to draw the pickup shapes. I was finally able to cut them out with fairly little extra material.
Overall, the guide pins worked really well while doing the sound hole, pickup cavities and control cavity cover. While trying to work on the outline though, they were in the way. For future builds I’ll leave them in better places though where they won’t be in the way.
The next step was to glue everything together - I started with the back. Before gluing on the top, I applied a few coats of shellac to the sound hole cavity, as well as the inside of the top. Since I wouldn’t be able to get inside the guitar again, I had to do this before closing it up completely.
Once the top was on as well, I started the final body shape. Here I used my saws, chisels, gouges, rasps, files, spokeshave, scrapers and more to trim the top and back, as well as refine the comfort carves.
Finally, I had to clean up the pickup cavities. Since this means working across the grain for a good portion of the time, I mainly used files to get the top flush with the cavities. This was a painstakingly slow process that I’ll need to optimize in future.
Stay tuned for the next part where I glue the neck together, take care of the fretwork and complete the headstock.
Timestamps:
0:30 - Bending wood with a clothes iron
2:35 - Joining the top
4:25 - Joining the back
6:35 - Guide pins for the top and back
8:00 - Cutting the rough back shape
9:05 - Making the cavity cover
10:22 - Cutting the top shape
11:30 - Working on the sound hole
13:00 - Cutting neck and pickup cavities in the top
15:20 - Glue it all together
16:45 - Finalise the body shape
18:35 - Refining the pickup cavities
If you have any question about the process, the press itself or the materials used, please leave a comment. Also please add any suggestions on improvements or better workflows!
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#greatguitarbuildoff #greatguitarbuildoff2021#ggbo2021 #handtoolsonly
Turn on subtitles (closed captioning) for info on the process!
I’ve seen many great guitar build off designs,technics,and beautiful accomplished guitars but your work ethic alone should win first prize.Inspirational and encouraging.
Thank you for the compliments Nelson!
Great job! Also your comments in the subtitles, very helpful!
Ovangkol is truly such a beautiful wood. I ran into some veneer when building my own speakers. Never knew it existed. The almost glowing radii when it catches the light is just magnificent!
I'm currently building an acoustic with ovangkol back and sides, it's absolutely beautiful! Even though the grain direction can be a pain sometimes, I really like it.
@HandToolBuilds is it difficult to plane etc? I'm just in the process of restoring my first handplane and want to buy some ovangkol boards to create a deskshelf / monitor stand type of deal. Will that be a case that it will just take a beginner more time and effort? I don't plan to do an extreme amount of shaping to be fair, not anything like your guitars haha. I don't mind spending the time to create sharp tools either. It will be done when it's done type of project
@@danielh12345 I would not call ovangkol easy to work with. At least on the stuff I worked with so far, the grain was quite wavy and somehow went in every direction at the same time. Taking very thin shavings with a very sharp blade makes it better, but it's still a challenge, especially if you need to remove a lot of material.
Gorgeous. I appreciate the time you put into your art man. Love it. Inspiring.
Thanks Ryan! I love when others are inspired by my work - it's not really work though, more like meditation.
Beautiful work.
Amazing..just amazing!!! A true craftsman
Thank you
This is so inspirational! Maybe some method and way are different from one to each other but the passion patients and determination is what makes us same. I just finished my 1st ever guitar made and all done by hand and very limited of hand tools. Looking forward to get the second build after watching your vidoes! Keep it up mate!!! Cheers
That's so awesome! My methods are definitely not always the most efficient, but they what makes sense to me. Keep on building, it stays challenging and fun!
So enjoyable...thanks.
Thank you for watching!
Nothing like a razor sharp chisel and an eye for 90.
Oh yes! Sharp tools are such a pleasure
@@rauschguitars Especially lawn mower blades.
Just gorgeous...how long did you take to finish this
The complete guitar (body with neck) took about 120 hours, spread over 5 months or so. The body was probably around 70-80 hours of that.
I like those white pencils you're using! What are they?
Look at your arts supply store, they should have white drawing pencils.
@@rauschguitars thanks!
First time that i get a feel of how long all of this took from a montage video like this
That particular build was well over 100 hours, however I can definitely streamline my process.
Wow now i kinda know what im in for. At least a got a bandsaw ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Im gonna make a cigarbox ukulele from scratch first, make a nkce dovetailed box, get some practice first.
@@thebeast88_ it's such a rewarding hobby, enjoy it!
How did you make the holes to run the wires?
Just some really long drill bits and a hand-cranked drill.
Buy an electrical saw
I did. It's noisy.