What’s on My Workbench? A New Double/Composite Top Classical Guitar
…and the two outer struts pass underneath the lower transverse bar.
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…and the two outer struts pass underneath the lower transverse bar.
This is an introduction to my latest side project: the restoration of vintage mij Top Twenty bass guitar. In this video, I tell you what I know about the bass so far and look some the issues that need to be remedied.
Yes, I have an account on Substack.com. All you have to do is type my name, Wilson Burnham, into the search engine on Substack and you will find my first post.
I’m not leaving Blogger, I will post about my new guitars as they come available and maybe a post or two about woodworking. And to let you know when I sell some of my vintage tools on eBay.
The main reason for starting a Substack is to attract more classical guitarists, and those who are interested in guitars, maybe engage a few of them and gain a few more customers.
Enjoy your week working in your shop!
Cocobolo tonewood for sale
I’m thinning out my tonewood collection and offering two sets (back and sides) of wonderful Cocobolo for sale. I’ve made a number of great sounding mandolins from similar wood and I’m sure it would be suitable for other smaller instruments too.
I’ve had this wood in my humidity-controlled workshop for many years, so it’s ready to use.
I originally purchased it from Andy at Prime Timbers and if you know of him, you’ll know that you won’t find better quality or better prepared wood anywhere.
Beautiful, quarter sawn wood, ranging from warm orange to rich brown: can only be described as master grade!
Back (each piece) 380 x 165 tapering to 155mm. 4mm thickness
Sides (each piece) 610 x 100 tapering to 92mm. 4mm thickness
Set #2
Back (each piece) 380 x 155mm. 4mm thickness
Sides (each piece) 620 x 92mm. 4mm thickness
I’d like £100 per set or £180 for both, plus whatever the shipping is. I can only ship this within the UK.
If you’re interested, you can find my email address here and I can send you some more photos too.
Thanks Gary.
My 2021 European Spruce/Canada Cypress classical guitar is available again at Savage Classical Guitar!
European spruce top
Back and sides are triple laminated : cypress, birch, curly maple
654mm string length
52mm wide fretboard at nut
62mm at 12th fret
59mm string spacing at bridge
490mm body length
278mm upper bout
245mm waist
372mm lower bout
Ebony fretboard
East Indian rosewood bridge
Schaller GrandTune tuning machines with bearings
A beautiful instrument with a gorgeous voice that is loud and projects, classical guitarist Alfredo Muro declares “it is a marvelous guitar!”
Binding ledges routed this afternoon, bindings are thinned and BWBWB purfling is made.
These two photos garnered a lot of interest on my Instagram account this week, and I am a little baffled by the interest. I assume that it is because very few people get to see what a guitar looks like before the bindings are installed. This isn’t a guitar that I made, it was built by a very, very well known European guitar maker and was horribly mistreated by its previous owner. I purchased this guitar and now in the process of restoring it. It has an Italian spruce top and East Indian rosewood back and sides. I may make it available to purchase, if you are interested in learning more about it, please contact me at highcountrylutherie@gmail.com
First, I set the router bit to the depth and height to match the binding, in this case, some hard maple, and rout out the channels/ledges/rebates/rabbets, or whatever term you wish to use, on the guitar’s top and back. Once that is done I proceed to the next step.
Second, I set the height and depth of router bit to match the purfling which is .03mm thick black and white strips of veneer laminated together. Only the top on this guitar receives the purfling. It is much easier to glue up a lamination of veneers, when I first started making guitars I would have glued five separate strips of veneer and the binding at the same time. It was a very messy and nerve wracking way to the job.
The back binding is on…Books for sale on Ebay: I'm going though my book library and paring it down. The subject matter will vary, as my interests and studies have over the last 30 years - some are from my architectural studies, others deal with woodworking, gardening, or are either practical, whimsical, or reference books I have that I wish to part with. If you have any interest, please bid! This all goes to help pay for web site hosting (and gaining back some space!), More to come next week, to include back issues of some woodworking magazines.
A couple of these are high end classic books, worth well more than what I'm asking.
Thanks for looking!
With most of the construction on the e-mando now complete, it’s time to concentrate on the tailpiece and bridge and getting the mandolin set-up. And that’s exactly what I look at in this video!
Amanda and I have just heard the sad news that Phil Hare passed away last night.
He was so thoughtful and kind and we always enjoyed his visits to our home/workshop, not only to hear him play but also listen to his anecdotes. He will be sorely missed by all those who knew him and enjoyed his virtuoso playing.
If you don't know of Phil you should
RIP Phil, we’ll miss you.
Inspired by Andrés Segovia’s famous 1912 Manuel Ramirez guitar, I chose Western red cedar top and East Indian rosewood back and sides from my collection of tone wood once owned by the late John Weissenrieder, an American guitar maker who lived in Italy.