Okay, day two and little more work done today. There really wasn't much to be done, just needed to make the other cover plate for the electronics panel. If you remember from yesterday, there was a glue-up done last night on some quartersawn white oak. If you're not sure what quartersawn means, it's a way of milling the wood in relation to the grain pattern. I stole a diagram from Ed Roman's guitar site, check it out:


So you can see that if you look at the end of a quartersawn board, the rings all look parallel. So what does this mean? Well, for one thing, it's tons more expensive to get quartersawn lumber because you recover far less total lumber from the same stock compared to flatsawn wood. Secondly, having the rings run parallel to each other exposes the pretty grain patterns. In quartersawn white oak, this is commonly referred to as "medullary ray fleck pattern". Yeah, it means pretty grain. The other difference is in the strength and stability. 1/4 sawn is stronger and will not warp or cup like flatsawn. 1/4 sawn white oak was used extensively at the turn of the century during the arts&crafts, craftsman and prarie architecture movements. I tend to love this period in american design, so I use 1/4 sawn oak for lots of things. If you like Frank Lloyd Wright-designed furniture, then you like 1/4 sawn white oak. Anyway-

Here's the glue-up before we start working. Notice I traced the shape of the cover plate. You can also see the difference between the 2 pieces, which will probably show up after it's done, but that's ok.

The burn marks are from the initial cuts made on the table saw. They should sand out just fine. Ok, I thought I might describe a little better the process for cranking out the new cover using the band saw, stationary belt sander and the router table. Here you can see that I've rough-cut the pattern close to the line on the bandsaw, and then used doublesided tape to affix the original cover-


The next step here is to use the original cover as a guide in cutting the new cover. This is done on the router table, using a flush-trim laminate bit. Here's a shot of the router table with the bit in it. If you squint you can see that there's a roller bearing on the top of the bit, and the blue part below has a straight blade for cutting. The idea is that you turn on your router, and the original cover rides along the bearing as the blade cuts the new cover below. That way, you get a pretty exact copy of the old cover.


Okay, the new cover is cut to size, but it is still a bit too thick and a little rough around the edges. The router is tricky, because if you run the piece across it too fast, it will tear out the grain and splinter, but too slow simply burns the wood. I have a tendency to do it too fast, and of course on one of the rounded corners of the plate I did indeed tear out the grain. Luckily, it only happened on one side, so that becomes the inside-facing side! Duh. A few seconds on the belt sander flattens the cover to the right thickness, and few minutes with the random-orbit sander gets it down to 320 grit. Some final hand sanding takes care of the edges and it's ready to finish. The finish here is a bit different than last night. The lacewood we used on the first cover really just needed an oil finish to bring out the grain. The 1/4 sawn oak really benefits from some color, as it helps really highlight the beautiful grain pattern better than just oil. So I'm using a colored Danish oil, Watco's medium walnut colored oil. (weird part: it smells like walnuts. What's with paints smelling like the food they're named after?) It shows the grain and gives it the same look as the craftsman furniture from the 20's that I was talking about. If you're wondering about the purpose of the oil at all, it shows the grain and helps protect the wood. Here's a comparison from last night. The first pic is the first cover with no oil, the second is after two coats of Seal-a-Cell oil blend.




Okay. The danish oil has dried after two coats, and I put both covers on the guitar to show the difference. Notice that you can tell the difference between the two halves of the white oak plate, but not the lacewood plate. Reason: the lacewood halves came from the same piece of wood, the oak halves are from different pieces. That's one of the killers with woodworking, each piece is different and will react differently to stains. But I don't really mind, it looks like it was actually made, not manufactured, and I like that. Besides, they were the only 2 pieces of white oak I had laying around that would work, so it's all academic anyway!


(You can click on a picture for a zoomed version, which shows the covers better than the thumbnail shot). Notice the 2 different colors of the body as well. You can see exactly where the 2 parts of the body were joined. Notice too how the bottom part almost looks greenish/gray. What the hell is that wood? It's bugging me, because it looks like green poplar, but I know that can't be right. Ash doesn't do that, and I've never seen maple do that either. Besides, the grain doesn't look quite right for maple. Although I remember initially hearing that the body was rock maple, so I'm not entirely clear. Anyway. Curious about what the veneer is going to look like? Me too. I haven't seen it in person yet, but here's the shot that I based my purchase on-

Sweet! That quilting on the right side is amazing. Notice the half-moon shaped cutouts on the right side, and how the grain around there is quite wavy- I'll bet a million dollars that section was cut from around a branch on the tree. Many times, the best grain is found where the branches meet. The sheets are 14"x19", and I ordered two, which should allow me to do a nice, bookmatched top. The killer part is the price. Those 2 sheets together cost me $17. Seriously. That's nothing at all. It makes me mad when I see an unfinished guitar body for sale that is mahogany with a maple top for $200 or more. That kind of body can be built for waaaaay less than $50 around here. Note too that I'm not using a maple "cap" for the guitar, which is usually 3/8 - 3/4" thick. The good builders will do this, and it will certainly affect the tone of the guitar. Why? Well, each type of wood has a different "velocity of sound." In other words, each wood type resonates differently, and that resonance affects the overall tone of a guitar. For example, mahogany produces a very bass-heavy tone, while maple tends to give a really bright, trebly tone. That's why you see tons of custom-built guitars out there that are mahogany bodies with maple caps on top- they utilize both woods to produce a great tone. As one builder told me, mahogany and maple are a "bombastic combination" for guitar tone. Now, a veneer like the one I'm going to use is almost paper-thin, and doesn't affect the tone at all. Okay, enough ranting for now, the next time we chat, I should be getting prepped to start painting-

-Jeff