In addition to the 1974 1111, I'll be rebuilding a 1985 Legend at the same time

I was alerted to this guitar by a friend on FB. As luck would have it, the guitar was being sold in the condition shown here by a fellow living close by me, so I was able to pick it up in person rather than having it shipped.

Even though the guitar came with no top I was able to test the OP24 preamp by plugging the pickup on my 1617 into it. Overall, the finish on the neck is in good shape, so it won't need refinishing. The fret board is also in good shape, though the frets are very worn and will need to be replaced. I'll be using EVO gold frets. The tuners are also in good shape.

I'm going to use an ebony Custom Legend carved bridge with a black pickup instead of the usual white one, which should look pretty cool. It will get the standard pearloid rosette.

As I've said before I'm going to use torrefied Sitka spruce for the top and I'm going to use A-braces on this one. I've got two examples of an A-brace top. The first one came off a 1976 1619, which was an engineering example. The A-braces are pretty simple.

The cross brace in the middle of the A is not notched. The fan braces below this are simple 1/8" thick pieces of wood with a tapered scallop. The sides of the A were joined with a single piece of spruce forming a lap joint.

The second came off my 1617 and are quite a bit more complicated. The cross-piece is almost twice as thick and is notched for the fan braces. The fan braces are also more complex. The have the same tapered scallop, but they're also milled so the cross-section is like one half of an I-beam, with the wider part forming the base that is glued to the top wood. The ends of the fan braces also have a dap of epoxy securing them to the top wood, no doubt to keep them from popping up if the guitar is bumped. Instead of a single scrap of spruce lap-jointed to connect the upper and lower parts of the A braces, it's got a molded fiberglass reinforcement.

The braces I'm going to use on this guitar will be a hybrid of the two styles. I'll use the wider, notched cross-brace with the fiberglass reinforcements. The fan braces will have the tapered scalloped profile, but without the milled cross-section. I could make a tool to mill the wood, but I suspect the cross-section had more to do with reducing warranty work than with sound quality.

Thanks. I already have the bridge and the pick-up.

Interestingly, the finger braces and tone bars on the LX bracing used on my 50th Anniversary CL were also made with the same milled cross-section. Here's a couple of pics I took of the braces in my 2077AV50.

Another example of A-braces:
Custom legend 1769:

2. old custom legend 1619 (looks awful, sounds better)

I forgot to tell you that I meanwhile carefully fine-sanded the braces, I cannot live with such a mess, and see the real big hole in the top where the cables come out. It was so big that the low E string had barely material under it. The stereo pickup was broken anyway so I decided to transform the guitar into an acoustic.I filled the drilling hole with top-wood,

and made an exact matching piece of ebony to replace the pickup

and cut a nut for a bone saddle.

The guitar now sounds better than ever.

But enough from me, now I`m eager to see upcoming sequels of your new guitar series, which I follow just like I did with "Breaking Bad"

I jointed the top wood for this guitar today. I've made an appointment with my sanding guy for Monday to thickness sand the top.

While the glue is drying I cut the brace stock. Here's the basic A-braces.

And here's what it looks like compared to the original braces. The angles on the fan braces are approximate. I'll measure them for exact angles once the top is thickness sanded the top and cut out the outline and the sound hole.

Here's the aluminum A-brace reinforcements. The braces will be glued to the top wood using OBG, and the reinforcements will be glued using epoxy.

I would also make all of the other brace wood 1/2" thick instead of the 3/8" it is now.

A while ago I read the patent description for Adamas quintaid bracing pattern. One of the things I remember is the description of how a guitar top vibrates. Basically, it twists in torsion. The quintaid braces allow more twisting and the lack of a center sound hole prevents the top from warping due to string tension.

The A-brace looks to me, like a quintaid brace pattern that allows for a center sound hole. It seems to me that using taller braces that are still 1/8" thick, like the fan braces would help prevent the top from warping due to extra string tension, but still allow it to twist.

Here are the braces on mine. The one on the left came off my 1976 1619. This was the factory engineering guitar. The one on the right came off my 1978 1617. There are several refinements to the 1617 braces, themselves, but the pattern of the fan braces are nearly identical to each other.

As you can see, they are not parallel. Also, they are not evenly spaced from each other. At the top where they meet the cross-brace, they are spaced from left to right: .625", .75", .75", .6875, .875", .875". (15.9mm, 19mm, 19mm, 17.5mm, 22.2mm, 22.2mm)

At the bottom, they measure from left to right, 1.125", 1", 1.375", 1", 1", 1". (32mm, 25.4mm, 35mm, 25.4mm, 25.4mm, 25.4mm)

Like I say, the two sets of braces from these two guitars measure pretty close to the same distances, top and bottom. Since they were built two years apart, I don't think the spacing was accidental.

But, it's interesting that the braces on your guitars look parallel. I wonder if it's an optical illusion from how close the camera is to the cross brace.

Yep. It's an optical illusion. Here's a pic I took of my braces that matches the angle and location of your pics.

As you can see, they look parallel even though we know they aren't. So, that means that your CLs also have this same asymmetrical pattern on the fan braces.

Nice guitar.

Back to building.

I was able to get the top wood thickness sanded. I also cut out the basic outline and drilled the holes for the bridge locating pins. I checked the neck angle and it's plenty good and won't need a neck reset. (Yay!)



I cut the sound hole and fitted the rosette.

Next job is to lay out the braces on the underside of the top and start gluing them down.

Normally I would wait to drill the hole for the pick-up wire until after the top is glued to the bowl, but because of the spacing of the fan braces I decided it would be best to do it now. This will be a cool-looking guitar. It's going to have an ebony CL bridge with a black pickup and a pearloid rosette.

Brace pattern is laid out on the underside of the top.

I used the 1619 top I had to confirm the brace pattern was correct. The mis-alignment seen in the pic below is due to parallax.

Braces glued, waiting to dry. I'll glue the aluminum reinforcements tomorrow after the OBG has dried.

Aluminum reinforcements glued into place.

Top being glued to bowl.

The glue joint between the top and bowl was cured enough that I was able to pull the weights off.

I used some of epoxy I mixed up for the fretboard extension of the 1111 to glue the binding that popped off the end of this fretboard extension.

I'll let the top/bowl glue joint cure until this afternoon, then I'll grind down the excess top material in preparation for routing the binding and purfling channels.

Top is glued and out of the clamping fixture.

I routed the binding and purfling channels.

And, glued the binding and purfling into place. I'll let the glue dry until tomorrow, then pull tape and start scraping.

Binding tape pulled up.

Binding and purfling scraped down. The top is ready for finishing. But, while I work on the headstock repair and finishing the neck on the 1111-4, I'll refret this guitar's neck with EVO gold frets.

Old frets are out, slots cleaned. New frets cut, tangs trimmed, ready for installation.

New frets are installed. I'll let the glue dry until tomorrow, then trim and bevel the ends. After that, they'll be ready for leveling and crowning.

Dan, I dont think it will exceed 485 in acoustic response...I just cannot see how that is possible. I am not sure if you remember, but we talked briefly about going the A route, but you convinced me otherwise....and I am glad you did. How much difference will the bowls play, do you think?  

New frets are done. I'm going to set this neck aside for the time being while I concentrate on fixing the 1111-4 headstock.

Incredible! So, a question from "Ignorant Arumako" over here...you pulled the frets withOUT removing the binding first? How did you ever do that without breaking the binding? Some kind of heat to soften things up or do you have some kind of mystical feather touch when pulling frets? Or is this standard procedure?

FlySig posted a BFLG thread that details the basic steps I went through. (See: EVO Gold frets on a Deacon) He also posted a step-by-step tutorial. (See: A beginners guide to re-fretting your guitar)

But, to answer your question, I heated up the fret using a soldering iron to soften the glue, then carefully pulled the frets up a little bit at a time. (See: Removing the frets on the Mike Bloomfield Tele)

Basically, yes, you have to be patient and let the heat of the soldering iron do the work. Once the glue softens, the frets come out pretty easy with the fret puller.

Dan

I decided to start finishing the top on this guitar while I'm finishing the neck of the 1111-4.

Here's the first sealer coats of clear. It's a nice looking piece of spruce that has lots of silking and character.

Top finishing is all done and polished.

Bridge masking removed.

Bridge being glued down.

Bridge masking removed while glue continues to cure.

Neck aligned and mounted. Waiting for fret board extension glue to cure. Then, it's time to glue rosette.

Rosette is mounted.

All done. I will say that it sounds every bit as good as it looks.

Here's a family portrait of the two stable-mates.

Yes, the top on the 1717 is noticeably darker than the 1111. Weird because both tops were bought at the same time, though it's obvious, to me, at least, that both were not in the same batch during the torrefaction process. It's clear that the 1717 is more 'well done.'

Gosh Dan...those are beautiful. Thank you for continuing to do these threads. Kind of wierd that your tops have such a different personality. I wish we could put up 485 beside them. Pat yourself on the back.