Patrick DeGreve's travel guitar

[Patrick DeGreve]

I'm in with two projects. This one is a travel guitar. I am going to use some oak flooring I have left over from 4 years ago, and some pine I pulled out of the trash at work. The carpenters at work toss out cutoffs of pine every day. I pulled three pieces out that are very tight grained, and almost quartersawn. I am going to try to use them as a soundboard.

[Patrick DeGreve]

The first step in this project is to trim off the tongue and grove from a piece of oak flooring that is close to quarter sawn.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Because the flooring is pre-finished, I ran it through the planer to remove the finish.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I next cut two 1/8" thick pieces on my band saw for the sides.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I taped the side pieces to a piece of 3/4" plywood and ran them through the planer. I planed them to .090 inch.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Next I bent one of the sides on my Fox style bending machine. I will bend the other side tomorrow.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Today I bent the other side. Then I ripped down a piece of pine to 5/8", and then ripped that down to 1/8" strips. I will use these as lining. I taped them to a piece of plywood and ran them through the planer. Tomorrow I will bend them in the Fox bender.

[Bryan Bear]

You are making much more progress than I am. Last night I made a mental list of all the chores Ihad to complete around the house before I'm allowed to go back in the workshoppe. . .

[Patrick DeGreve]

I had a busy weekend, but I still got quite a bit done. I made end blocks for the neck joint and the heel from a piece of the mahogany I am using for my other project, and glued them in place. Then I cut and glued in place the linings.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Now for the pine soundboard. I am using a piece of pine that is almost true quarter sawn. I riped a piece of pine to 3.5", then sliced it into four pieces. I thicknessed them to .140 thick in the planer.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I glued the four pieces together in two steps. First gluing the sides together in pairs. Then gluing the pairs together to form the complete soundboard.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here are the four pieces glued together to make a complete top.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Sorry about that, wrong picture. There I was thicknessing the pairs. Here is the shot of the soundboard.

[Warren May]

Great progress, Patrick. What type of pine are you using? I've not always had good luck sending thin wood through the planer but looks like it worked well for you. Taping it down might be the key...I used a sled with a stop on the rear side.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Hi Warren; I am not sure what type of pine I have here. I asked the carpenters, and they just said "clear" pine. It is very good quality pine compared to what you get at a Home Depot. It is straight grained, usually fairly tight, with very few knots. It almost never has any cupping or twist. I use clear doouble faced tape to tape the pieces down to my 3/4" plywood "sled". Sometimes 1" sometimes 2" tape, run the whole distance of the piece. This seems to work very well. I plane the pieces in VERY SMALL incriments, running it through 20 to 30 times if needed. If you try to take too much off at a time the wood can split or shatter.

[Hans Bezemer]

Patrick your on a roll.
I'm really looking forward to see it progress!
Hans

[Patrick DeGreve]

I decided to make a second travel guitar. I have so much pine that I am going to make a travel guitar with pine back and sides as well as the one I started with Oak back and sides. I am going to put nylon strings on the all pine travel guitar and steel strings on the oak and pine travel guitar. I will have to brace them differently, and I am not going to put a pickup in the pine, nylon string guitar. So I found a piece of pine that was very much quarter sawn, and repeated the process of resawing the sides, thicknessing them to .090", bending them, and gluing on the kerfing. I made them 1/2" taller to give a little more volume and bass than the oak, steel string guitar.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here I cut and glued in the neck block.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I glued in side braces. I was not sure if they were needed on such small sides, but I thought that because they were pine, it would be a good idea.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here are the two sides ready for the soundboards.