I am building with a bolt on as described by Fire and Gilet, Contemporary Acoustic Guitar Design and Build, ph 16-2.

My first jig worked great but the extension hole was too short. I built a new one with the hole 3/4″ longer so I could fit the bolt assembly underneath. There just wasn’t enough room for the under fretboard bolts. Now there is…

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Many thanks for your help Benjamin.

Now I need to find vulcanised fibre in the EU…

Cheers,

Charles (France)

Thank you! I can’t take credit for the creative design. This floral design is taken from the Benedetto Manhattan custom 2009. I know very little about using floral sound holes. There isn’t a lot of info regarding this type of design. I tried to copy these sound holes from the master Luthier. I’ll make note how these ones I’ve tried to…

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Fantastic job looks great!

Tom walks through his process for binding the side sound port in these two webinars:

• https://luthiersedge.com/qa-jam-session-dec-2024/ (starting at 00:44:00)
• https://luthiersedge.com/qa-jam-session-may-2024/ (starting at 00:02:56)
  You can find additional resources by searching “binding side sound port” in the search bar at the top right of the website.

This looks so good. Very creative, and I love the floral design. Keep it up!

Should read as “previous build”

Turns out that going back through pictures of old guitar builds I reversed the tonebars on my previous builds, as well. It’s, by far the most balanced and best tone on a guitar I’ve made. I think I’m going to stick with it and see what I get. I’m going to build a similar guitar next, out with a torrified spruce to and the right direction for tone bars.

Thank you!! I’ve seen a design like this on another Benedetto guitar years back and thought how much I would love to make an archtop with the floral design. I finished my first acoustic archtop in March of this year. I wasn’t a member of Luthier’s Edge and I wish I had been. I love the guitar I built. It plays well, I love the sound and…

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I zoomed in on the original design and made a tracing and when I enlarged it to the top plate, it appears to be very close if not bang on the size of the holes on the Manhattan. I couldn’t really make the holes much bigger because they left very little wood for support on the upper bout and the small openings were too close to each other…

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I fat fingered titebond original. Yeah, a bit of heat and steam should pop off.

Hi, I am in France and have searched for this elusuve paper with no luck. I have also tried the Norton website.

I have tried the finest (Gray) scotchbrite which worked ok but suggest taking the initial roughness off on another surface.

Cheers,

Charles (France)

Very nice. I love the fact you are stepping outside the box and repurposing materials. Do you think there is enough area in the sound holes? How di they compare to existing designs?

That is beautiful. I love the bold choices you are making. I can’t wait to see the rest of the project

Hi folks, as you can see from the picture I need help with binding a side sound port.

I started with an ambitious 3.5mm piece, tried including purfling, tried thinner and thinner with no purfling but ended up with this pile of broken Padauk.

I would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks,

Charles (France)

Same boat. I used Titebond, so should work

Here is the cut out of the floral design sound holes for my 2nd archtop. The design is taken from Benedetto’s Manhattan 2009 custom. 95% of the wood I use in building guitars is reclaimed wood. This top is at it’s rough carved stage ready for final graduations and bracing. The wood is North eastern cedar and was the shelving in one of…

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I used hide glue so it was pretty easy to remove them. Just heated them up and slid a very thin hot spatula under. They popped right off. Same works for aliphatic resin glue if it’s right on original that isn’t waterproof.

If you used another kind of glue that resists heat, I don’t know. Maybe shave them down and use new ones. Tom would…

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Kind of like this

How did you remove them? Did they come out intact or did you make new braces. I though of running two braces off of the current bottom tone bar to the pair and running it opposite, but parallel, but am not sure if that would make the top more muffled

Usually you convert to left handed by switching these tone bars.

I did the exact same thing on my current guitar because I read the plan wrong.

I took the bars off and reglued them for right handed.

It appears that I have invented a new bracing pattern, as my tone bars are installed in reverse. Instead of coming off of the bass side of the X-brace, they are coming off the treble side. Ugh. I still make two or three careless errors per build. I guess I could scrape them off, but since I’m not building this for anyone else, I think I’ll…

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One question for the group: finding center line on bent sides in the mold was hard for me. I felt like I wasn’t as precise when I trimmed the sides as I would have liked. Any tips there?

Before I do the walnut sides I decided to brace the tops. Then I’ll close up the zebrawood box, bend the walnut sides and close that box up shortly thereafter.

I am using this bracing template from TSC woodworks. They based it on the same 1937 plan I posted first and, thankfully, it has holes for locator pins.

The locator pins have been a…

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I’ve done one set of sides so far and they did not turn out great. They came out of the bending machine needing a bunch of refinement. I’m hoping it’s just a function of zebra wood being difficult but I have a feeling it’s my own inexperience.

In the end I’m hopeful it’ll be fine, that the wonkiness will iron itself out when I close the box…

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The first thing I did was the backs. It’s a strange technique that produces different geometry.

Instead of a spherical curve, the backs are braced with calls that have different radii as follows:

Back, longitudinal = 20 feet

Back, lower bout (wide braces) = 18 feet

Back, waist brace = 15 feet

Back, upper brace = 25 feet

Also, you’ll see the brace…

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I’m in the middle of my build but wanted to get this up ASAP and then I’ll keep adding to it.

I’m building two guitars at once. Both Dreadnoughts. My first and second acoustic guitars not made in a class.

I’m building two at the same time so one is a “practice” guitar. I’m definitely making mistakes and it’s good to have a messier one to make…

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No buzzing yet

I’ve decided to leave the bindings as is. Partially because I’m concerned that recutting to binding channel will create issues with the integrity of the top and back. Partially to remind me every time I play it to be ever so careful with bindings. It’s not a huge defect, most people likely won’t notice but to me it will always be a reminder…

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I’ve learned and continue to learn that acoustic guitar building has as much to do with sequencing steps as it does with making and crafting components

Hi everyone,

I am currently at the “body coat without oil” stage following the method of Tom, and I am a little unsure whether what I am seeing is normal.

My understanding is that this stage is kind of a transition between the pumice pore filling and a first intermediate sealing layer, so that the olive oil used later will not penetrate through…

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I used a Japanese pull saw to trim across the glued crack, which held well. Jigsaw had too much tear out on the redwood. I sawed it flat against a plywood board.

Thanks, Tom. My first attempt failed. I’m in the middle of trying again with fish glue. It definitely squeezed out on top and bottom. While it’s curing I put kerfed liner on the bottom of the sides and will do the top later. I left the back a little beefy with much lighter bracing. The top will be the opposite. I loves Somogyi’s advice to try…

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Hey Michael, I’m sorry that happened to you. I know how tough it is to lose sleep over something like that.

But I think you’re right. If you can get a good glue joint and fit the crack back together, it’ll often make it totally invisible. No one would ever know it was there. And being in the upper bout helps too, since there’s a lot more bracing…

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Thanks. I just noticed a four piece redwood top for sale, so I’m confident that I can figure this out

The glue is dry on the bindings. Took off the tape. Generally happy with the results.

However, if this was a customer guitar, I’d be redoing the bindings. There are a couple of places where the fiber paper didn’t go in quite smooth. See picture.

I used titebind original. Challenge with that is that you have to take it and it covers up parts of…

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I think so long as it’s in the upper bout you’re likely ok. One thing I’ve noticed however is that when you tap a top that has a crack in it, it will buzz. I recently received a Western red cedar top. There was a crack in it outside the final top area. I tapped it to get a sense of it’s tone. Had a beautiful bell like sound, but there was also…

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I lost some sleep over it, but, unless Tom tells me to forget it, I’m moving forward. It looked very good glued and tape clamped. Adding the wooden cam clamps is a backup. The x-brace and transverse brace should be helpful at preventing it from spreading. Once the bracing is on I’ll see if it needs cleats. If any of you have other ideas, I’m all ears.

Fortunately, it’s in the upper bout. @tom might say differently but wonder if it isn’t still salvageable sense it’s not in the lower bout?