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.