MIMF

I know you said American Chestnut, but someone on another forum had a link to this guy, and he has a phenomenal piece of Italian Chestnut. He really likes everything about the wood. Not the least is its looks.

https://kenparkerarchtops.com/etude-applying-finish

Dude, that's nice advice for all of us! Don't procrastinate. That is surely a wake-up call.

Hoping you have a great recovery. You must be doing really well if you are already playing with toys! My dad had a bypass, and lived to be 93. That was probably before they had stents.

Cool! I thought I pushed boundaries. I have a couple oddballs to finish and string up. I don't play, but they all sound like violins. I think archimgs, wood characteristics, thicknesses, weght, and everything else makes more of a difference than species. But tradition? They are trying to get rid of ...

The back on the Stauffer has a very slight 2-4mm cross arch. 3 bars on the back and 4 on the belly. There does seem to be some thickness tuning on back and belly. The belly is thicker, 3-3.5mm at the bridge. I started the Stauffer simply because the wood was just wide enough for it. Sometimes violin...

I've never seen one, but I am building a guitar now from a plan of a 1828 Stauffer. Dimensions of an instrument in a museum. The back does have a 10mm longitudinal arch. The guy who made the plan said that he put in a 2mm or so arch below the sound hole, implying that the original was probably flat....

I have it glued together now. The body, sides, neck is a little over 300g. The air body mode? is a semi-tone lower than my lowest ones. There are some a note or even two higher. It is a bigger body, and the f holes are skinny, and the body is not real stiff. I checked with the guitar, and this one i...

I got a coat of varnish on the other day. I smoothed the first coat up with some horsetail I harvested in the back part of my yard. It works really well on varnish. I use it with a little water. It still hasn't gained any weight. The belly is even a gram less! Outside in the garage with 4 -20 watt l...

I'll see if I can get another coat of varnish on, or ready to go on today. The basement was down to 49 this morning, I try to avoid it in the winter. I plan stuff upstairs. It's sunny and 10 degrees today, so it's nice on the dining room table. I have to figure out how to cut the pieces for the adju...

Well we're about to find out; I never did it before. Christian Banyon? a maker in Portugal does it. I thought it would be easier to get the ribs nice, and you don't have to handle the entire instrument when it's wet. Another is that you shouldn't have glue ghosts on there either. The heel bottleneck...

I looked up mandolin strings, and now I see that they are metal, and have 4 times the string tension as violins. About 180 pounds. Almost double the tension on my nylon strung arch top. I found a nice article here: https://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/mandolins_001640.shtml I'm designing an arc...

Isn't a mandolin about the same size as a violin? The pitch is the same. So it seems that a mandolin would take half as much time as an arch top. Where time and fussiness might come in is if you start making it fancy. It seems like people really like fancy mandolins. If you make arch tops, a mandoli...

I finished up the neck, and cut the mortise for it, and set the projection at about 28 or so. I decided to make it like a late baroque instrument. It is based on one from 1630, so we'll suppose a hundred years on or so, they needed to play higher up more often, and took it to the local luthier, and ...

Yesterday I got the scroll roughed in. It needs cleaning up now. Counting the cutting out, roughing the mortise, and scoring the sides for the chisel, it is an 8 hour/one day scroll. I guess you could do several of them, and finish them when you needed one. I use fingernail chisels for the fluting. ...

I put on my new 1/4" band saw blade, and cut out my neck block the other day. Then I marked out the sides of the neck and pegbox, and the first spiral around the scroll. I marked in the mortise, and put it in the vise. Using the 3/8" palm gouge from Flexcut that I use for the eye of scroll...

I have the back about done. I need to put two small studs on; above and below the sap pocket patch. Then I'm still thinking about a pad over the sound post area. Would a linen patch sanded smooth work? The next step is the neck. When it is done, it can be glued together. I've been thinking about fin...

Happy New Year. I tried to finish up a couple instruments. A baroque guitar in G needed frets tied on. I got them on, and overnight the bridge popped off. Nice. I went to the violin that just needed to be set up. It takes longer than you think. At least for me. I've only done about a dozen, so it is...

Yesterday I trimmed the bass bar down, and drew out the scroll 2X's size. I used a technique that David Beard showed last week on maestro net. It worked pretty good for the main shape of the pegbox and first curve of the scroll, but the scroll is an odd ball with an extra half turn in it, and it loo...

Yesterday I had a productive day. In 3 hours or so, I got the bass bar fit and glued, and cut the back so I can patch those 2 spots. I had 6 clamps made for bass bars, but 2 snapped, I think it was when gluing the parallel bars on the guitar belly. I used a wood screw with a pink eraser behind it. I...

I replaced the small section of purfling where half of it was missing, and smoothed up the edges. It looks better, but you can tell that something was changed. I didn't know it until I finished the inside purfling on the back, but the last few pieces of purfling I had were not the same as the rest. ...

This is probably where I'd call it good before. I didn't have the 5X magnifier, and even after I got it, I wouldn't use it for cleaning up the finish, I was just glad to be done! Glue it up, put on varnish and strings and it's done. But the finish shows EVERYTHING. I found, after using the ground te...