A very wonderful friend had given me an incredible birthday gift some months back of a guitar building class. Our merry group of four students and two instructors have been meeting every other Saturday from 9-5 to individually construct a nylon string instrument. We cook together vegan lunches (our head instructor is vegan) and have formed nice friendships along the way. I'm the baby of the group at 63, LOL.

The woods I've chosen are...

Spruce top
Walnut sides and back
Plum fretboard
Plum bridge with walnut and spruce lamination
The necks are all the same (Linden) and were prepared with carbon reinforcement though I still of course needed to carve it to my liking as well as creating and cutting the headstock design (same lamination as the bridge)
I'm hoping to use that nice plum as the binding for the top. I'm not binding the back.
The woods are all Swiss and local.
We're using bone nuts and saddles.

I hope that it will sound OK in the end. I've never worked in wood as a medium and am scared to cut or damage my fingers on the machines we are using, but so far have only filed down a nail on a circular sander.

I am not very conservative most times in my creative outlets, always needing to do something a little off kilter, and so I have created a different kind of rosette as well as a unique shape to the headstock. I think designwise it all ties together.

I'll wait until after it's finished to post more and write a musical piece to post after all is said and done.

I'm calling her Balbina after my friend who was so thoughtful in gift and deed. I'll create an inside piece of paper to see through the soundhole.



It's been a great learning process and experience.

Here are a few photos of my progress.

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Great job, i wouldn t be able to do that although i d love to, you received a great gift.My only concern is about the the headstock cavities that would force you insertt the machine heads slightly inclined and maybe this would affect the stability of the tuning.I may be wrong though

 

Last edited: Feb 16, 2023

She is beautiful and doing something like that is something I've been contemplating.

I had a mentor who used to build instruments that has passed and I got his hand-tools.

I have some cuts of ash and maple from trees that fell in my backyard that I have been thinking about turning into a something.

Very inspiring, can't wait to see it done.

 

Great Design on that headstock,
and very interesting choice of woods

I don't know how plum may sound like irl, but it will surely be interesting to try it out..


-As for the inclination of the tuners,
I think it may not be a problem cause:
On regular guitars with rather straight tuners, the strings are actually set at an angle in order to reach the nut..

So as long as the tuners are in the favorable direction, / \
and not counter-angled I guess it will be fine.. or even positive


It's true tho that having unnecessary odd tensions can affect tuning/intonation,
and that includes vertical inclination of the strings/headstock etc.

I had one classical guitar with severe D-string intonation problems,
which I managed to ease by increasing the tension on that string by raising it with a little piece of wood..
(kinda the opposite on an electric guitar..)

That helped.
However I manually made some Bone nuts later on,
and even tho it was the first time, and I didn't angle or round them in any way,
they somehow fixed the issue.. (and improved the guitar!)

 

Last edited: Feb 16, 2023

Wow! I think your guitar is turning out great!

Just make sure to be extra careful with the bridge and bracings.

You want as little mass as possible on the bridge and the bracings should be tuned very carefully too.

I really like the neck block design. Very unusual. Is this an elevated fingerboard setup?

Oh, by the way, you may want to consider a side port. It makes a lot of difference for the player.

I'm looking forward to hearing it in action.

 

That looks AWESOME.

Congrats. I really hope you keep it in the end. Regardless of how it turns out, self-crafted stuff just hits different imo.

 

@duskwings I'm a potter and am used to being able to add to as well as if not a total mash, fix a mistake fairly easily. With wood in this instance it too can be done though not quite so easily. Carving the top exactly to insert the abstractly designed walnut as well as the partial rosette was quite nerve wracking. The chisel is really quite sharp on the right angled points of the blade and I went through a little bit if the spruce twice not realizing that the top is thinner towards the edge as it is in the central part of the top. It was also time consuming to get the rosette to fit in the routed area for it as I did something weird, but in the end it fit snugly into place.

The headstock angle is good and is the tried and true design of build. The nut slots are more an issue for me and will be cut and adjusted in the last step. I really hope that the intonation will be OK. I guess that I could always start from scratch with a new bone nut which is easy to deal with as I sanded it just enough to fit tightly without being glued.

@JMOUTTON I've always liked wood though never used it as a medium. I had visions of turning wood to make things with a lathe (and maybe still might) like bowls and/or strange constructions. As much though as I want to, the issue that I always have had is the inherent noise of the machines in a wood shop...the sound for me is akin to nails scratching a blackboard and winces my body as if I chewed on a piece of aluminum foil on top of a tooth filling. I'm also petrified to cut off a finger which I nearly did once while trimming hedges. I'm no good around sharp objects.

Ash and maple...go for it and see what happens! I'm sure that whatever you create will be a work of art.

@ᑕ⊕ֆᗰIᑢ... Bone to me sounds the best to my ear. I've used fossilized walrus tusk, different plastics and even brass on my old ESP Telecaster. On this case I started to file at an angle back toward the headstock and will try my best to follow the angle. I rounded the rear on a circular table sander. It isn't perfect but it is what it is. I bought nice not cheap Hauser styler Schaller machines so they should be good to go.

@RMorgan The carving of bracing I'm sure is an art form unto itself. What was relayed to me in this regard is that it wise to let the bass braces be a tad less massive compared to the treble side to balance the sound. We'll see how the sum of the parts translates in the end. I'm sure that if I made more guitars I'd have a better sense through trial and error and gathering toward me the wisdom of past and present masters. This might just be a one-off so I'll need be let the chips fall where they might. I hope it sounds good though.

Good eye, it is most certainly an elevated fingerboard design which is an odd look to my eye. The neck in this build lays atop the soundboard and afixed by two screws solidly through the spruce into that odd block with another centered in regard to the fretboard lower down that can adjust the neck angle. A soft gig bag is the only way to transport it as it won't fit in a regular hard case.

@mk_96 Thanks. I'm most definately keeping it even if it sucks. I'll most certainly find a use for it one way or another. I have a 1/4 size violin with a crack running up the entire treble side held tight by duct tape with only one string remaining, the bow no longer able to be tightened and have a squash ball between the hair and the wood of the bow to keep it tight enough to play. If that's a keeper so too will be this guitar. If nothing else it is pretty enough to hang on a wall as decoration, LOL.

@phloopy Thanks, and yes, this is an incredible gift that keeps on giving.

 

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet

 

Well, it's finally finished and it came out better than expected. I'll try to record a little something in the next day or two, but here's fotos of my new friend.

 

Nice Job

 

Fantastic job, yea. You're a talented carpenter, too. I wonder what it sounds like. Cheers!

 

Just beautiful and inspiring. My man, well done

 

Lois Lane, having just read the title, I was going to say don't do it. Then I read the post...
Great job! Hope it sounds as good as it looks. Very nice

 

Dude!

 

lovely, just lovely
exited to hear that baby!

 

Looks really great, You should be proud of yourself for this accomplishment.

 

What wonderful looking instrument, I hope it brings you joy.

I really like the three piece saddles and inlays on the non-traditional bridge. Beautiful.

 

Balbina looks gorgeous <3....how does she play and sound?
What an amazing birthday gift that was!

 

looks like a guitar Kandinsky would like!