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I would say from my experience with mahogany and from what I have heard from past teachers no. I don't actually soak anything, but I used a lot of water on my first mahogany sides as a student, tried to bend them in a fox style bender and they just exploded. Mahogany seems to do better with less water involved in bending. I would still spritz it with a little water and not work it totally dry and try to work quickly (but not fast or you will break it). It always seems to me that there is a sweet spot where it bends easy, but take to long and it gets brittle. Also of note is how much runout you have, as that will only exacerbate the difficulty.

Thanks so much! There’s very little I can online find about bending mahogany sides, this advice is very useful 👍

Thanks!

Thanks! I think I have one more, maybe two for this guitar and then I will put up a sound demonstartion/wrap up video when I get the finish done and strings on. The Gal article is great, though I personally just could not wrap my head around making the twisted portion of the design, some day I will hopefully get to see one of her guitars in person and then it will maybe click. I will say that there are a couple things about the design I want to tweak and while I have confidence in it, and so I hesitate to 100% sign off on it till I have had strings on it for a bit, but I am just about to start putting shellac on it and I am liking how it has come together so far.

@@QueenCityGuitars When it comes to adjusting intonation with these necks and it shows flat on some strings would that mean the bridge saddle has to be altered where if it was sharp a simple readjustment of the neck angle would do it which i can adjust on my guitar but the other way would be more complicated?

I am! I will be back with an actually informative video soon as well...

@@QueenCityGuitars that is great. Happy you are now on the East Coast, I would love to visit the shop at some point now that you are not 3000 miles away

@ClockworkKeaney definitely come by the shop sometime, I think my email is in my profile, shoot me a message and lets figure out a time.

I greatly appreciate return viewers like yourself, Mr. Morello and I am glad that you can find relaxation in these stressful times through my videos.

I can’t believe there are still people who build guitars, you can just buy them at the store! a router can be quite accurate and a gramil can be quite accurate. I disagree that one is hands down more accurate than the other, but personally I find the gramil more accurate (having done it multiple ways), though it certainly takes longer. I suggest you don’t delve into violin making though, for your own sanity and peace of mind.

That's great, glad to hear it was helpful!

Glad to hear it is useful, thanks for watching!

Well Rickey, I am a man on mystery. I'd say take it or leave it, but sounds like you already sorted that out. Happy building!

The ones I am working with I bought through Luthiers Mercantile International, Inc or lmii.com I saw that Michael Bashkin also appears to sell his own version, though they are not listed on his site.

That would be a good video topic... The short of it is that I get them most of the way there with a saw, since I leave a lot of extra material normally, then I take them down the rest of the way with a combo of chisels, scrapers and spokeshaves. Paying a lot of attention to the way the grain is running on the top so as not to catch and chip into the body.

Thanks! that would make a good subject, I have been thinking about it in the past, but not with any real serious plan in mind. keep an eye out, I will start getting some thought in order towards that.

Thanks! It is so nice to be back!

Happy to hear you've found the video useful! I definitely have the same feeling around routing the channels, and getting more familiar with using the gramils has paid off in other areas of the building process. By skinny binding I assume you mean having an inconsistent depth of the channels in plane with the sides, so that when you level off the binding it appears thinner in places when viewed from the back ( or front)? When you cut with the router you are making both cuts at the same time, and registering off of both the sides and back/top at the same time and so as that edge leaves square due to the back radius it gives an opportunity to cant along with the angle and not cutting deep enough into the sides at the top and everything happens so fast it cant be hard to compensate smoothly. the fix is to use a binding jig and/or to have a very small registration surface on the back/top With the gramils each interior face is cut separate, with the depth being fully controlled by registration off the side so generally skinny binding is not an issue except possibly in the waist where you have to use the curved surface for registration. The radius of the back/top comes into play dealing with the angle of the bottom face of the channel. I don't get to carried away dealing with this. Ideally that inner corner of the channel would be perfectly square, in reality the clamping force of the glue up method I use does a pretty good job of pressing everything together and a bit of tape on the gramil where it registers against the guitar back edge can help to cant the gramil up enough to compensate. At the very end you an see the tape (44:53). Alternately you could make two of those wooded faces I have in the video and angle them to approximate the angles of the top and back.

Thanks for replying to me with all the tips. The video is great and once my 2nd gramil turns up here in Australia I will be following it very closely! Yes, that is exactly the skinny binding issue I'm talking about, as you said, with a router it all happens so fast. I actually have a stew mac jig but I've never used it, It terrifies me (as do routers generally). As a classical builder, the way I like to think about power tools in general is "what would Antonio De Torres have used?" I'm pretty sure he would/could not have used a router!

Thanks, happy to hear that you are enjoying them!

Thanks, it is so important for quality work.

Hey, I'd like to help ya out! I know whats its like to get started and have no tools or money. I have a couple tools I'd be willing to donate to a fellow (aspiring) Luthier/woodworker. Shoot me a DM on Instagram (see below) and well go from there :) ~Beauty & Peace~ Kyle @thewabisabicollective

yes, i do this to annoy lower case people @charlesrichter3854

I have never heard of that trick, homemade double stick tape? I really like the toothpick method, it gives a firm hold, full plate access and you can pick up the plate and replace it many times for measuring without a lot of fuss.

@@QueenCityGuitars I got it from Ben Crowe at Crimson guitars. Masking tape on each surface and then super glue them together. Very strong and easy clean up. The only issue is that the 2 surfaces can be difficult to peel apart. So I believe your method would be excellent for thin materials.

Twist the pieces sideways instead of trying to just peel up. Also a drywall/putty knife works great to slide under the work piece.

@@QueenCityGuitars masking tape trick is where its at for so many things. I prefer green frog tape, Med/thick CA(just a small dot on one side and spray activator on the other and apply pressure for 5 secs and done. For plate thicknessing though, I'm gonna try this toothpick magic, awesome idea!!!! working figured and very hard woods can be annoying with tape trick sometimes.(keep coming off etc)

The veritas plane is great for this, and the toothed blade is a real game changer for working difficult grain. The only disappointment I have with it is that the sides do not work well to use with a shooting board. I did not think to mention wax, probably because it often slips my mind, but it amazing how much difference it can make. I have blocks of canning wax next to my bench and find it can be a great help for resawing as well.

@@QueenCityGuitars Guess I’ll be getting a toothed blade. And I didn’t even know waxing saws was a thing! Sweet. Thx

Good plane to start is a Woodriver 62-1/2 low angle. It is affordable, Really nice quality, multiple blade options available, fits Lie Nielsen toothed blade too(i have this setup). Its nice cause its got some length to it, but way lighter than #6(cheaper too!) . I have a #1, 4-1/2, 6, 62-1/2 for bench planes and 62.5 is my go to for most every task.

Thanks and that is a great question! I just do it that way, so I have never given any reasonable thought to why before now, haha. Thinking about it I can say that I do just that on most headstocks (at least most the last couple years) because they just get purfling with no binding, and doing it that way one has to chisel out the waste. Removing the binding channel wood first and then the purfling wood allows one to simply cut out the wood from the channel with very little if any chisel work. I am not positive, but my gut says it is faster to do in the order I do, and easier to get a clean shelf for the purfling(also less chance of screwing up the inner joint edge with a chisel. Also even with tall binding stacks I do not find it compromises the stability of the gramil enough to be a real issue.

Glad to hear, thanks for watching

Thanks for watching!

I'm glad to hear the video is helpful, thanks for watching! Binding can be a real nail bitter of a time, such a long glue joint that needs to be just right. I definitely prefer to take it slow and steady with the gramils.

cantilever & CAT-ilever

Great explanation, btw, and your jointed neck block extension and upper transverse braces look great. I wanted to do that as well.

I am not sure I understand your first procedure and why you need a raised extension for the correct geometry? Setting the neck angle as I have known it to be done involves cutting the neck heel so that the top of the neck (where the fretboard lies) and the upper bout of the top are more or less in plane accounting for a rise as you move back to the saddle to accommodate the rise needed in the strings. Doing it that way one just has a small amount of flattening to do to remove the radius under the fretboard extension. I normally find the natural curve lies in the correct angle and just need to flatten down the middle high spot.

@@QueenCityGuitars I got instructions from another builder, and I was under the impression from him that because of the entire top being domed instead of what many other builders do, which is take out the dome from the upper bout, flattening in an angle for the fretboard trajectory, that one would have to sand too much of the top out to get the right trajectory with the uninterrupted dome. The builder I got the instructions from is a very high end builder using a 25’ dome. I was just surprised I easily got to the correct angle with what I thought was just a little sanding. Perhaps it just takes that much less sanding on a 30’ vs 25’. I’m pretty sure that was his explanation for why he uses a raised extension, to preserve the dome all around.

I've never built a 25' top, so its possible. I learned the method of using a flat upper bout first and used it for a while, but I have found that everything goes together a lot easier and cleaner with the radius in the upper bout.

I am actually going to be thicknessing an Indian rosewood back here shortly. I will see if I can get something about that recorded when I do it. Thanks for your suggestion!

Thanks! I make laminated linings, so I have two layers of spruce that are generally about 2.3-2.5 mm thick. So about 5mm when all is said and done. Sometimes I feel that is on the thin side, but I suppose the solid linings do gain a little bit of surface area without all the kerf slots (and its only about a mm thinner than a standard kerfed lining that you might buy), and I can say from having to remove a top from one the day after glue up that they end up stuck down pretty firmly.

Thanks again! I do not thin my sides at the waist any more than the rest of the side. If you are bending by hand I think you are bound to lose some of the waist as you work on the bouts. I will generally check back on the waist periodically, say after the lower and again after the upper. Sometimes in the middle of bending a bout, the upper especially. Holding the waist post bending for 30 seconds, even using a bit of water or damp towel to cool it off can help hold it, but it seems to stay somewhat plastic for a while even after it has cooled. That can be frustrating, but also advantageous in getting a good fit for the form.