Since the Frankenvation is done, I'm moving onto my next project.

Patch approached me about using some components he has to build a custom Ovation Parlor guitar.

First, there's the bare bowl. More on this later.

Then, I'm going to remove the neck from this junked 1624 and convert it to a bolt-on neck.

It'll get a sinker redwood top. I strongly encouraged Patch to go with torrefied spruce, but he strongly resisted because he's a real fan of sinker redwood. Since it's his guitar I let him have his way.

I managed to find some honest-to-goodness hen's teeth. A NIB set of Schaller 541 gold tuners. These must be the last NIB set of these tuners in the world.

And, the guitar will get an Optima preamp.

We're still deciding on the bridge and rosette.

I can't thank Dan enough. When the market crash finally caught up with my, some would say out of control, guitar trading habit, I thought my custom build days were over. I wasn't all that bummed out as I had amassed a very satisfying collection of O's, but I did regret that I never got to move on to the next project I had in line at the time. I had discussed it with John Budny for years, but I wanted a Redwood parlor BAD!

Now, not only do I get the parlor, but it will be a nylon string, shiny bowl, wide-neck, SINKER redwood one as well! I have nothing against torrified spruce at all, and I may let Dan scratch his itch to get some in my hands down the road. But for now, I'm looking forward to following this build almost as much as I am to playing the final result!

Thanks again Dan!

Removed the neck from the 1624 yesterday.

I cleaned off the excess epoxy from the dovetail area. The square piece of metal between the fretboard extension and the dovetail is the truss rod anchor.

Interestingly, this is a dovetail (glue-on) neck on an SMC bowl meant for a K-Bar neck. The serial number dates the guitar to 1985/86. The neck looks to me like it was glued to the bowl at the factory.

Here's the 1624 bowl on top of the parlor bowl. From this shot you can get a good idea of how much black epoxy it took to set the dovetail neck into the bolt-on pcoket. As has been said before Ovation used whatever they had at hand to keep building guitars.

Here's a close-up of the neck pocket in the body.

Taking the neck off this guitar was interesting. I knew it was an SMC bowl and there was a single bolt hole on the inside. I figured the neck was a dovetail neck, but I wasn't sure what was lurking inside the pocket. And, to top it all off, the molded-in neck block is quite thick, so I wasn't really enamored with trying to cut the neck off the bowl.

When I did the bowl bend on Jay's 485 I used my trusty heat gun. It worked, but didn't keep every part of the bowl an even temperature. For this, I decided to try IR lamps like the kind you buy in the hardware store to warm up the bathroom when taking a shower. They did work, but because they are only 125W each, it takes a while to heat the wood. These would work well to do a bowl bend because they do heat up large areas. In the end, I used my trusty heat gun.

The trick to removing the necks, or any part on an Ovation is you've got get the epoxy up to a temperature where it'll soften and turn rubbery. For the most part, room-temperature cure epoxy will start to soften at around 170-180 degrees.

For a glue joint like the bridge, you can heat up the part pretty quickly. But, with a deep joint like the neck, you need to heat soak the external areas and let the heat sink down deep enough so it'll soften the glue.

Once the glue gets soft enough, you just need to start moving the neck back and forth to break loose the glue.

Thanks Samuel, and Dan's right, I'm gonna need it.

Dan, just let me know how to square up any costs.

It's been a while since my last update, hasn't it? Two months to be exact.

The time has come to prepare the bowl for splashing a mold from it. Normally, a male plug would be made from wood, or some other material which could be attached to a parting plate. Since this is a finished piece there's no way to attach the bowl to the parting plate.

So, I'm going to cut an insert that can be temporarily attached to the inside of the bowl. The first step is to trace the outline of the bowl onto 3/4" MDF. I'm using MDF that has a plastic laminated surface which is smoother than bare wood.

Way back when I bought my 1619, TJR included a bare bowl in the deal. I figured that as long as I was going through the process to splash parlor bowl, it wouldn't be too much work to splash a mold off this bowl, as well.

Tracing the outline of the deep bowl.

The 3/4" MDF is really heavy, which would make the finished mold too cumbersome to work with. So, I decided to cut out the inside. The side benefit is that the bowls will eventually need to be separated from the inserts and the parting plates, so cutting out the center will give me something to grab onto when the time comes.

I taped a marker to a piece of scrap wood so I could draw parallel lines to the outline.

Both inserts are ready to cut.

Parlor insert is cut out and ready to attach to the bowl.

Insert is fitted to to the parlor bowl.

Insert is fitted to the deep bowl.

Parlor insert is temporarily attached to the parting plate with screws.

Because I want the insert to remain attached to the bowl, but not to the parting plate, I taped a layer of visqueen to the parting plate, then re-attached the insert. I did the same thing to the deep bowl.

I ran a large bead of silicone around the insert(s), then pushed the bowl(s) onto the insert(s) so the top(s) were flush with the parting plate(s), then thew a sandbag(s) onto the bowl(s) to hold them in place while the silicone dries. I'll let the silicone dry for 24 hours, then pull the bowl(s) off the parting plate(s).

When we last met I had temporarily glued the bowls to the inserts. Now it's time to start prepping them for molding.

First step is to sand them in preparation for priming. As you can see, even though the parlor bowl looks smooth, it really has a fair amount of wrinkles that resulted from the compression molding of the SMC. Without preparation, these would have been transferred to the new molds.

The parlor bowl has been primed and sanded. It's ready for waxing and the mold release layer.

The deep bowl had a similar problem. The weave of the cloth needs to be filled to provide a smooth surface.

The deep bowl has also been primed and is ready for the waxing and applying the mold release layer.

The parlor bowl and deep bowls have had 3 layers of wax, then a layer of poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA) mold release. The basic idea is to prevent the molding epoxy from sticking to the molds. First the plug, in this case, the bowls are waxed. Then the PVA  mold release is applied.

The wax keeps the PVA from sticking to the plug. The PVA keeps the epoxy from eating through the wax and bonding to the plug. The PVA is an interesting compound. When dry, it forms a barrier that the epoxy can't penetrate, but can be dissolved with plain water.

The surface of the PVA is a lot smoother than it looks in the photos below. Next job is to start laying up the molds.

This is so cool!

The molding process has begun. Because I'm using a different brand of epoxy than I normally use I decided to mold my deep bowl first. This way, if there's any problems Patch's parlor bowl is still safe. (Made from unobtainium)

First step is to apply the surface coat. This is similar to a gel coat, but with thickened epoxy instead of polyester resin.

I'm sure you've noticed the difference in color between the treble and bass bouts. I'd originally planned to add some yellow dry artist pigment to the surface coat so that I could see the difference between the white surface coat and the parting plate. But, because the PVA is tinted green, this is really unnecessary. Also the surface coat is really thick, so blending in the pigment was a royal pain in the butt.

Next, a fillet of surface coat is laid into the joint of between the bowl and the parting plate. This is done for two reasons. First, it adds strength to this area of the mold. Second, the cloth doesn't really want to conform to a sharp angle, so this helps prevent voids from forming during the lay-up.

First layer(s) of 5-oz. cloth are laid-up.

Final layer(s) of 17-oz. bias knitted cloth are on the plug. I'll let the epoxy cure for 24 hours, then I'll separate the plug and mold.

Once a mold becomes seasoned (all the polymer chains are cross-linked) the PVA is unnecessary. The mold only needs a coat of wax between parts.

And now, the moment of truth...

The first step to de-molding the plug is to use a couple of plastic wedges to walk around the periphery to break loose the parting plate.

Normally the next step would be to pour water in the gap to start dissolving the PVA. While looking into the gap between the mold and the parting plate I saw that the parting plate was loose from the mold, but that the bowl was still stuck to the inside of the mold.

And, success! After some careful use of the wedges working my way around the bowl and pouring water into the gap I was able to get the bowl out of the mold with no damage to either one. (Woo hoo!)

This is why I built the plug to be disassembled and with the hole in the insert. I've had too many plugs stuck inside the mold. I unscrewed the parting plate from the bowl/insert which gave me access to the bowl/insert. I had to pretty much destroy the MDC insert to separate it from the bowl. This would allow the bowl to flex enough for me to pour water down in the gap between the bowl and the mold.

There are a couple of very minor flaws in the mold where some un-cured (poorly mixed?) surface coat were applied, but for the most part, I'm very happy with how it turned out and it can be used to lay up my own bowls. I'll use my Dremel and cutoff wheel to trim the excess mold flange in the next few days.

This bowl is still very usable. I've on;y been saving it so I could splash a mold from it. Now that this is done and because this is a very high quality molded piece, I'll use this to build a guitar, probably an Elite with quintad braces and definitely a torrefied top.

Next job is to lay up a mold over Patch's parlor.

Thanks LOF. The Jr. B Girls and I had a great run together, pun intended. Greta and Frannie were littermates and remembered each other from puppyhood. There were a couple of initial squabbles like any siblings who get back together after being apart, but they learned pretty quickly he who buys the food makes the rules. The first rule is everyone has to get along.

The Jr. B part comes from their racing names; Jr. B's Greta and Jr. B's Frannie. Here's video that I managed to get their first summer back together when they were still puppy enough to love running together. While they would occasionally run together at the bark park, they never ran like this again. Once we had a treat of 4 greys running together at the bark park-Yowza! It was like a canine tornado. The other dogs just watched saying to themselves, "WTFudge?!"

I don't have video of Frannie racing, but I was able to download Greta's first 16 races at Bluff's Run in Iowa. Here's a video of her winning her second Maiden (training) race.

Here's a video of Greta racing on 06/06/06. Seriously.

 Back on topic. My Custom Ultra means a lot to me on several levels; spiritually, brotherly, and musically. I appreciate your kind words. I don't have a parlor, unless you want to count my living room.

Ha ha! Enjoy the couch. I hope it's a comfy one.

So, it's been a couple of weeks.

I sanded the outside of the deep bowl mold so the fiberglass splinters don't cut up my hands while handling it and trimmed the flange.

Now, this is ready to mold deep bowls. I've got some 8.5-oz 2x2 twill cloth on order, so I will probably mold a test  bowl in the next couple of weeks or so.

I would have been done with the parlor bowl mold a few days ago, but I ran into a problem of my own making. Read on.

Since I'd planned to mold the parlor bowl and flange in two steps instead of one, I prepped the bowl and parting plate by waxing them and applying a fresh layer of PVA.

I mounted the bowl so it was about an inch off the parting plate, cut the cloth pieces I needed, mixed up the epoxy and laid up the bowl. Under normal circumstances the epoxy will start to gel, or what's known as the green state in a few hours. It's not gooey or tacky, but not yet fully cured. It's at this stage that it's easiest to trim.

After a few hours, the epoxy was still gooey. Given how slowly it was curing, I figured it would be a few more hours before it was green, so I turned on the heat lamps, then went to bed. When I got up in the morning, I checked it and it wasn't as gooey, but it was still was very soft and still very tacky. So, I carefully trimmed the edge of the bowl and left it under the heat lamps until I got home from work.

When I got home, I checked it and it was still very tacky. Weird. Since it hadn't been quite the full 24 hours for the epoxy to reach full cure, I left it for a couple more hours. I checked it again and still very tacky.

Hmmm... Normally, epoxy only acts like this when it's either very old, or not mixed properly. I knew I'd measured it carefully, so I checked the label on the can of hardener, which tells the proportion of mixing.

Whoopsie! I found the problem. The surface coat is mixed by weight to a ratio of 100:11. The epoxy is mixed by weight to a ratio of 100:27. I'd mixed the epoxy using the surface coat ratio, which means that I'd only put in less than half the amount of hardener than what was needed. No wonder it never cured.

Luckily, I'd put a layer of PVA on the bowl before I started, so I was able to carefully roll the epoxy and glass off the bowl leaving it pretty clean. I also cleaned the uncured epoxy off the parting plate using denatured alcohol.

Time to start over. I waxed the bowl and the parting plate and sprayed a fresh coat of PVA. (again) I cut new pieces of cloth while I waited for the PVA to dry. This time I carefully mixed up a new batch of epoxy using the correct ratio and started the lay-up again.

The 1-3/4 oz. and 5-oz cloth is on.

I added a strip of 17-oz tooling cloth to reinforce the center of the bowl, then another layer of 5-oz cloth on top of that.

I let this cure until it was green, then trimmed the lay-up so it was flush with the top of the bowl and let it cure for 24 hours.

Once it was cured, I separated the bowl from parting plate and fully sanded the outside while it was still on the plug so it was ready for building up the flange.

The bowl is separated from the plug and both are in good condition.

I cleaned up the parting plate, waxed it and added a fresh layer of PVA. I set the bowl onto the parting plate, then put a couple of small sand baggies on it to keep it from moving while I built up the flange.

Surface coat has been added to make the flange and to build up the fillet area between the bowl and flange.

Once the surface coat had kicked over to the green state, I removed the sand baggies and added tooling cloth to the sides and flange, then a final layer of tooling cloth to the bottom of the bowl. I turned on the heat lamps and left it to cure overnight.

Success! I removed the mold from the parting plate, trimmed the flange, sanded the outside so I don't cut up my hands and trimmed the flange.

I washed off the PVA and it is now ready to mold parlor bowls.

Phew! Finally I can get back to the process of building Patch's guitar.

I LOVE YA MAN!!!!

Moving right along.

I'm jointing the top. Once that's done, I'll route the groove for the rosette, then take it over to my sanding buddy for thicknessing.

I also rough cut the braces. This guitar will be getting an A-brace pattern using torrefied Adirondack spruce.

One change of plans is that I was going to make this a bolt-on neck. Because the dovetail is so thin, I'm afraid that it would split the heel when I drill it or try to screw in the threaded insert.

So, this is going to be a glue-on neck, with the neck glued to an SMC bowl, just like the 1624 the neck came from.

Ah, now I understand what you meant.

When comparing SMC bowl to a hand-laid bowl, the neck mount on the SMC bowl is quite a bit smaller. The trusses are necessary in the SMC bowl to spread the load of the string tension from the top of the bowl across the back of the bowl.

On the hand-laid bowl, the large wood block does the same thing. Another way to add strength to this area is to add another layer of cloth during the molding process.

Here's a pic of the inside of my 50th. This is a hybrid of the mahogany block and a bolt-on neck.

If you look at the bass bout where the strap mount is located you can see the extra layer of cloth. It wraps around the neck area down into the inner part of the cut-away.



Like I say, the bare hand-laid bowl is pretty flexible until the top gets glued to it. Once the top is joined, the bowl becomes a monocoque structure. I wrote cantilever before, but it's actually a monocoque structure.

Monocoque structures, also known as stressed skin structures, get their strength from the outer shell without any internal supports because they spread the load across the entire skin. (Think of an egg shell)

Just checked with Vegas...the over/under for the # of folks this provided clarity for is at 1...with some heavy hitters betting the under.

I thought a monocoque structure was the class of spaceship the Millennium Falcon belonged to. 

No. No need to look up words I can't pronounce

I had to acquire a couple of tools to route the rosette channel and cut and round the sound hole.

First step is to measure and drill the indexing hole. Even though it looks off center in the photo below, it's actually on-center for the glue joint. The glue line was caused by the masking tape I used when jointing the top.



The Dremel circle cutter is pretty crude. So I decided to splurge and buy the Stewmac circle cutter. It's pretty nice, but it only cuts to 6" and the rosette for this guitar is ~6-3/8". So, I had to use the old Dremel to route the outside of the groove, then use the Stewmac to route the inside of the groove, the sound hole and round the sound hole.

The sound board is clamped into the routing fixture.

The outside of the groove has been routed.

Now, switch to the fancy-schmancy Stewmac circle cutter. (All kidding aside, it is really nice)

Inside of the groove has been routed.

Routing off everything in-between.

Test-fit of the rosette --success!

Route open the sound hole.

Route a round corner into the sound hole. This will get fine-sanding after the sound board has been thicknessed.

Test-fit the rosette into groove.

Wet down with naptha to get an idea of how it will look. It's pwetty...

Put the top into the go-bar deck to glue the rosette.

Squirted a bunch of binding cement into the groove, then pushed the rosette in all around. Laid down a disc of visqueen, then a clamping disc made from a scrap test piece.

I'll let this dry for 24 hours, then it'll be ready for the thickness sander. Once that's done, things will start happening pretty quickly.

Nice job Dan.

Dan, these builds never get old.

It becomes clearly evident why they started slapping the rosette on top of the guitars back in the late 60s and continued the practice.

Tremendous effort! It is bound to be a stunning guitar. Congrats.

I pulled the top out of the gobar deck. I'm happy with how it turned out. It was easy to get very clean edges when routing the redwood. The spruce tends to fray a little bit which requires sanding to clean up the edges. The depth of the groove leaves the rosette just a little proud of the surface.

Here's a shot of the top and rosette wet with naptha.

I'll take the top to the sanders next week to surface sand the top, then thickness sand it. Then, it's time to rough cut the top and glue the braces.

Once the top is made, I'll glue the kerfed linings to the bowl. Things should start moving pretty quickly now.

Looking over the last posts in detail lifted my spirits a bit after a very tough December. Can't wait to see more!

Ha ha! For the tests, no. For Patch's top, yes. I did come away with a pretty cool drink coaster, though.

I got the top thickness sanded yesterday.

Bowl outline is traced onto the top.

Top is rough but to shape.

Time to start mating the top, bowl and neck. First job is to mock-up the bowl to the neck to fit the top.

Top is fitted to the bowl/neck. Bridge is in its approximate location.

This guitar will be getting the same under-saddle pick-up I used on my Frankenvation.

Bridge location has been measured and hole for pick-up lead drilled.

Matching hole in bridge.

Bridge and pick-up mocked-up.

Brace locations are marked onto the underside of the top.

Braces being glued. I'll let the OBG dry for 24 hours, then glue the aluminum reinforcements.

While that's drying, time to start prepping the bowl to get the top and neck glued to it. First step is to sand the periphery so the kerfed lining can be glued to it.

Soaking the mahogany reverse-kerfed lining in water to help minimize fractures.

After soaking for an hour or so, it's time to start clamping the lining to the bowl to help mold it to shape. Piece #1 is clamped and working my way around the bowl.

Filler piece made from scrap mahogany. I'll let the lining dry for 24 hours. Once it's dry, I'll remove each strip one at a time and glue it to the bowl.

I've been crazy-sick all weekend. Seeing this update made me feel a little better. Thanks Dan. (And Daren too apparently.)

Sorry to hear you've been under he weather, Patch.

Here's a little more of the same good medicine.

I glued the aluminum reinforcements this afternoon.

Once the aluminum reinforcements are cured, the top is pretty much done and can be set aside until it's time for final fitting.

Time to give the bowl some attention. The kerfed lining is dry. I added a strip of masking tape to the inside of the bowl underneath the lining.

This will do two things for me. First, it'll show me where to stop gluing and second, once I get the lining clamped, I can peel the tape away leaving a clean glue line.

The linings come off one at a time. I ran a bead of Hysol 0151 on the inside of the bowl, then painted it smooth with an acid brush. Once the glue was spread out, I clamped the lining back into place.

All the linings are glued and clamped. The filler piece is also glued into place.

Next job is to get the electronics installed, which means cutting and drilling holes in the bowl.

First I drew a template in CAD for the jacks. The photo is kind of blurry, but you get the idea.

Test fit of jacks.

I used spray glue to secure the printed template to the side of the bowl.

Jack holes all drilled and ready for installation.

The Optima needs a molded mount to be glued to the inside of the bowl and a hole cut for the face plate/outer mount.

Mount location is marked on the inside of the bowl.

I also marked the location of the hole for the battery box.

Holes for Optima and battery box are cut.

The area where the mount is glued to the bowl is masked off.

And, roughed up with 220-grit sandpaper, as was the underside of the mount.

Mount is glued with Hysol 0151 and clamped to cure for 24 hours. Then, it's time to start final fitting of the top in preparation to gluing it to the bowl.

The bowl is ready to be glued to the top. All the holes are cut and/or drilled, label has been printed and glued into place.

Here's a close-up of the label. The gold metallic toner really makes this look like gold foil.

Holes are masked from the inside. Time to glue the top to the bowl.

Visqueen is taped to the gluing board, just in case. Top is in place.

A bead of Hysol 0151 is run along the lining.

Top and bowl are joined and excess glue scraped off. I'll wait 24 hours, then pull the body off the board.

I pulled the body off the bench and sanded off the excess top overhang in preparation for routing.

I removed all the hardware from my Stewmac MacRostie binding trimmer to use it as a router table.

Purfling channel is routed.

Binding channel is routed. Next job is to glue in the zipflex abalone purfling, then bend the rosewood bindings to shape.

You mean I won't be the center of attention anymore?!!!

Well we can't have that can we? I might have to put on my thinking cap again.

It's time to glue the purfling. It's actually a pretty easy process. It's a little time-consuming, but not all that difficult. I thought everyone would find this interesting.

The basic process involves gluing the inner BWB purfling and zipflex abalone purfling using thin CA glue. This is done all the way around the guitar, one side at a time. Then, the outer BWB purfling is glued to the zipflex purfling.

First step is to locate the center line of the guitar. The inner BWB purfling and zipflex are tack-glued about an inch at a time to the purfling channel in the top.

The process continues all the way around the top.

The zipflex comes in 15" sections. When you get to the end of the section, you glue right up to the end, but leave the last inch or so free so it can be glued at the same time as the new section.

The next section is pushed into place so the end is flush with the end of the previous section, then both are tack-glued into place. Then, you just continue gluing.

Bass side is done. This took about 30 minutes to do. Time to move onto the treble side.

The treble side BWB purfling is matched up to the bass side and a new section of zipflex is butt-glued into place.

Both sides are done. Now, it's time to glue the outer BWB.

Outer BWB is glued on both sides.

The inner and outer BWB purfling needs to be scraped down so it's close to the surface of the top. I like to do this to get a tight glue joint between the binding and the purfling.

Inner and outer BWB purfling has been scraped close to the surface of the top and I'm ready to start bending the rosewood binding. I'll do the final scraping of the purfling/binding once the binding is glued to the top.

Patch asked for rosewood bindings. I've never done wood bindings before. I knew I needed to pre-bend the bindings, but I wasn't sure which method to use.

I tried the steam method first. I bought a steam box kit from Rockler's, then built a wood steam box. I steamed the bindings, then taped them to the body and left them overnight.

When I removed the tape, the bindings definitely took a bend, but there was quite a bit of spring-back.

Onto the next time-honored bending method, a propane torch-powered hot pipe.

Much nicer.

I removed the tape from the other side and bent it to shape using the hot pipe.

Binding is glued to the body. I'll let the glue dry until tomorrow, then take off the tape to see how it looks.

Thanks, everyone.

I pulled the tape off and scraped the binding/purfling flush with the top. I then used a flush-cut router bit to make the bindings flush with the sides.

I wiped the top down with naptha to get an idea of what the final finish would look like. Purty.

And a shot with the rosewood bridge, also wet down with naptha.

And, with that, the body is basically done. Next job is to verify the alignment/fit of the neck, then mask off the location of the bridge on the top. Once that's done, it's time to start the finishing process. (woo hoo!)

This is looking almost exactly like I pictured it in my mind. The bridge is just a little wider than I thought but with a bit of gloss it will really pop with that redwood behind it.

I'm also glad to have picked the rosewood binding for the same reason.

IT's looking GREAT Dan!

I'm already worried about having to ship it across the country.

Dan, you know I'm not in a hurry, so be sure to hang on to it until Moody gets a good look at it. Between the two of you, maybe you can post a sound clip or something. I'm playing the odds here and saying there's a good chance at least one of you can probably make it sound better than I can.

Final neck alignment/fitting is (finally) done. This part took a while because the neck angle was completely wrong for this guitar. Not only was it wrong, but it was too long. Instead of it being a 14-fret to the body neck, it was a 14.1-fret to the body. This mean that I had to take material off from the inside of the heel to bring the 14th fret into the proper position so it is right above the neck/body joint. It was about 1/8" too long. And, crooked, too.

Now it fits really nice.

Bridge location is being masked.

Mask off the bowl. Time to start the finishing process.

First coat of clear. I probably won't be posting too many pics while I apply the finish.

This is starting to look EXACTLY like I thought it would. Dan and I had similar concerns about the darkness of the SRW top having too much color, but it is shaping up (Get it? ) to be what I hoped both in shade and grain.

Just as importantly from an aesthetic perspective, the rosewood binding and bridge are going to have some serious POP when finished and glossed. With the abalone serving as a counterpoint, they will sum up to a striking, but elegant, juxtaposition from dark (top) to light (purfling) to darker (binding/bridge).

Me? Getting excited? Why would you think that?

BTW Dan, you had no way of knowing this, but I find it borderline providential that my birthday is in a few weeks. No pressure or anything......

Is the fret spacing on the neck not a function of scale? If so, then I assume that bridge placement is crucial to get the scale spot on. With a shortened neck, or this new body-neck match in general, what is your approach to get the position of the saddle right?

So that Patch can breathe easy, I'll say now that I carefully measured the bridge location relative to the neck so that the scale length (and, more importantly the intonation) is preserved. (I always align the bridge to the neck)

The problem wasn't that the fret board was too long. Rather, that the fret board was located in the wrong spot on the neck. Possibly. I can't really say what happened at the factory. Only that the 14th fret was not located at the neck/body joint. It was 1/8" away from it.

I don't have the top any more, so I can't measure whether the bridge was located in the correct spot relative to the neck, or if it was jigged in place on the top which would have made the scale on this guitar too long by about 3/32".

Here's a couple of pics that compares this neck (after alignment/fitting) to a CL neck. I lined up the nuts, and the frets are even with each other all the way up the fret board.

Here's my 1624 neck joint. Notice that the center of the 14th fret aligns with the neck/body joint, same as the CL neck above.

Here's a close-up of an early pic of this neck while it was still attached to the body. Notice that the lower edge of the 14th fret is pretty close to the neck/body joint, not the center of the fret.

This means that the heel of the neck is too long.

So, there were two things to do: relocate the fret board, or grind the heel down.

I didn't really have to do this work. In fact, unless I have to, I usually try to not mess with the heel.

I could have simply located the bridge so that it was in the right spot relative to the neck, but I needed to take material off the heel to align the neck and set the neck angle anyway, so I figured why not fix this at the same time.

I talked to Dan last weekend. He's been busy, but making steady progress. The top will be finished anytime now. After that, all that's left is to paint the bowl and check for finishing touches.

He passed on a little detail I didn't know: He had the top shaved just a bit thinner than Ovation would have. He thinks it will work well with the A-bracing, and so far, he says it rings like a bell when tapped.

It's just as well that it's taking a little longer though, considering it has to travel from California to NY. I would have worried myself into a hospital if it was traveling through all the weather we've had recently.

As Patch wrote, the top is mostly done. I'll probably polish once more before I glue on the neck and bridge.

Speaking of the bridge, that's done, too. I'll polish it up a little bit before I glue it on.

The bowl is textured. It's not an exact duplicate of the factory texture, but it's a close approximation.

There's a couple of minor dings on the back of the neck that I'm now ready to address. Once these are filled and leveled, I'll give the neck a quick polish, then it's time to align and glue the neck, then the bridge.

I had unbelievable luck. I was able to actually find another set of hen's teeth -- NOS Schaller 541 gold tuners. One goes onto Patch's parlor and the other goes into my stash for future use.

Moving right along...

I put a final polish on the top. I filled the dings in the neck and polished it. I also did a quick polish on the bridge.

Now it's time to start putting it all together. (Woo hoo!)

Neck and body are masked in preparation for joining. Neck is aligned and glued into place using Hysol 0151. I mixed in some West Systems 423 graphite powder to blacken the 0151.

Masking is removed. I'll let this cure until tomorrow, then I'll pull the guitar out and prepare for gluing the bridge. (You should be getting excited now, Patch. In a couple of days it's going to be a playable guitar)

"WOO HOO" INDEED!

Thanks, everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying the build.

I pulled the guitar out of the fixture and prepared to glue the fret board extension and bridge.

I masked the top around the fret board extension. Next, I carefully cut the bridge masking to expose the bare wood.

I masked around the bridge location.

Fret board extension and bridge are glued and clamped. I left these to cure overnight.

The construction of the guitar is basically done.

Now it's time to install the hardware and electronics, then make a saddle and new nut.

After that, the only thing left is to string it up and play it!!

This has one of my favorite pictures so far; the one where Dan has removed the tape covering the bridge area and exposing the bare wood beneath. It is a perfect detail; illustrating the bare wood versus the end result. As I told my son, it's a "start to finish picture"....literally! 

The title pretty much says it all. I'll glue the battery holder and pre-amp face plates on tomorrow, then take some proper beauty shots, either tomorrow or Saturday.

How does it sound? I like it. I think you're going to like it too, Patch.

It's a warm, pleasant sounding guitar. Acoustically, it's definitely a guitar for intimate settings. It wouldn't do well against a banjo, for example. I plugged it into my little practice amp and it sounds great.

Right now, I've got D'Addario EJ43, light tension strings on it. Because I've never built a guitar with a redwood top, I decided to start with light tension, then work my way up in tension until I find the guitar's sweet-spot.

It can definitely use some higher tension strings as the treble is a littel quieter than the bass. I'll leave these strings on for a day or so, then move up to the normal tension, etc.

Enjoy!

It's not the first time. My 1713-X from the factory is also A-braced backing redwood. It's wonderful, but Dan is right in that the bass can over-power the trebles. I have high-tension D'Addarios on mine, but am open to other ideas. I am curious about what he discovers with his string experiments.

Paul Moody came over to day to play with Patch's new toy.

Here's a clip. Enjoy!

Patch's Parlor Played by Paul Moody

All done.

I'll let the pics, and Paul's video speak for themselves. (I looked into my crystal ball and I know which guitar will be the BLFG entry for next year's calendar)