The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Greetings all

    SAMPLE TUNE DEMO ADDED TO THE LAST POST FOR THOSE INTERESTED
    After doing up the 459 Hofner I decided to have ago at building a Benedetto Guitar . The book Making an archtop guitar by Robert Benedetto was a great guitar bible to follow to achieve that end.

    I decided to go with Figure Claro walnut for the Back and sides and Alaskan Sitka spruce for the top as this was supposed to be the best. Took me about 10 weeks working full time to complete the guitar.

    I made the body a half an inch deeper that the book said as I wanted to build a guitar with a mellow but rich full bodied sound with good sustain which was one of the reasons for going with walnut. Used Ebony for the Fretboard. It took 60 hours to hand carve the back and the top. The walnut was incredibly hard to cut. This was all done by hand.

    The inside of the body and the top was sealed with shellac to prevent our high humidity from creating issues with moisture absorption into the wood.

    The outer body was finished with Burchwood casey grain filler and Tru-oil.

    Another modification was to line the holes in the tailpiece with stainless steel inserts to prevent the strings biting into the wood as I have seen happen on quite a few of this type of tailpiece. It has worked a treat. The guitar holds its tune well even after a couple of hours playing with a lot of string bending going on. The grover tuners 18:1 ratio have been just fine.

    Wanted to make something a bit different so used humming birds as the theme for some artwork. Some carved from wood some made into neck inserts and 1 engraved in silver.

    I achieved what I set out to do so I'm very happy with the result. It was well worth the effort of having a go. So am now looking to build a D28 as the next project.

    Have attached some pictures of the process and the finished article as I thought this might be of interest to anyone looking to do a build.

    Cheers
    Glenn
    Attached Images Attached Images Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-web-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-001-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-013-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-014_edited-1-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-001-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-006-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-001-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-003-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-002-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-003-copy-2-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-001-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-001-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-002-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-003-copy-jpg Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-004-copy-jpg 
    Last edited by Glenn Jennings; 05-26-2020 at 12:19 AM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    That’s really beautiful. If you don’t want it I’ll reluctantly take it off your hands so you don’t have to be reminded of it.


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  4. #3

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    Fabulous job there!

  5. #4

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    Congrats! How's the sound? Do you have any video?

  6. #5

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    What an achievement! I used to sleep that book under my pillow but never got 'round to building anything. As I remember, Mr. Benedetto was less specific on carving and graduating the top than on the rest of the build. Could be wrong recollection.

  7. #6

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    Glenn:
    What is the center strip on the neck - bloodwood?

  8. #7

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    She looks real nice. How is the neck joined to the body? I see no mortise, no tenon, no dovetail and no dowels or bolts. What is holding it to the body. Glue maybe?
    Last edited by Matt Cushman; 05-24-2020 at 08:00 AM.

  9. #8

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    You made that? 1st try right out of the gate? Wow!
    That is amazing. I’d LOVE to hear the sound of this guitar with the walnut wood and the shallac sealing of the inside wood.
    You did a BEAUTIFUL job.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Joe D

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Cushman
    She looks real nice. How is the neck joined to the body? I see no mortise, no tenon, no dovetail and no dowels or bolts. What is holding it to the body. Glue maybe?
    I thought the OP said this book was his method: Making an archtop guitar by Robert Benedetto

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    I thought the OP said this book was his method: Making an archtop guitar by Robert Benedetto
    The Benedetto book uses a parallel walled dovetail joint. The neck photo shows a neck heel that lacks the wood for any type of tenon. The neck joint has many variations and screws are rare on archtops.

  12. #11

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    I guess you found out why walnut is not the usual wood for making necks.

  13. #12

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    Excellent!

    Congratulations.

  14. #13

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    Looks great, Glenn!

    Matt -- it's a 1/2" straight-walled dovetail.

    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    I guess you found out why walnut is not the usual wood for making necks.
    Walnut is actually the traditional choice for necks on Selmer-style guitars. (I think some of the old Epiphones also had walnut necks, too?)

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Cushman
    She looks real nice. How is the neck joined to the body? I see no mortise, no tenon, no dovetail and no dowels or bolts. What is holding it to the body. Glue maybe?
    ha ! I was just about to type the same thing . How is that neck fitted ?

    that back is too die for though, what beautiful patterned wood

    fantastic that you can make something that nice, superb

  16. #15

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    The Benedetto book has that weirdness. A half inch heel and a half inch tenon. Only one inch of material in the blank. It was the first thing I changed on my second guitar. It just seemed pointlessly delicate.


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  17. #16

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    Very pretty. The walnut is gorgeous. Great first short.

  18. #17

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    Wow I’m in awe...great work!

  19. #18

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    Aldino B
    Thanks for the nice comment. I'm an old guy that doesn'y get along that well with technology so haven't figured out how to do a sound clip to show you yet. I don't have a smart phone or anything like that. I do have a boss 1600 sound mixer that I might be able to do something with . I will look into it.

    Gitterbug
    Again thanks for the nice comments and drag the book out from under that pillow and have a go. I didn't know if I would be able to pull this project off but the trick is to adjust the mindset to do as good a job as you can. You then find you end up doing things you never thought you could.

    You are right about the top comment and to this end I watched a lot of YOUTUBE clips made by guys in the trade in how to go about it It is amazing how the top can come to life with just 10 to 15 thou of an inch being taken off the re-curve around the edge. The top will start out with a bit of a tone but as you gradually thin the edge it changes to where it starts to ring like a bell. Is a fun process.

    Hammertone
    The centre piece on the neck is kwila and I used this as it has very straight and very LONG grain with amazing strength. The Walnut wasn't quite wide enough for a single piece neck and I liked the idea of the laminate to stabilise the walnut which has a bit of figure to the grain. Looks to have worked as the neck hasn't budged from the time I originaly set it up.

    FWS6
    The Claro walnut came from Oregon USA from Northwest timber It was not cheap as it cost US$940.00 But I will get another 2 sets of backs out of it for a couple of flat back D28 type of guitars that I want to build which brings the unit cost down a bit Have a look at Northwest Timber | Quilted Maple Lumber | Hardwoods | Furniture & Musical Instruments they have stunning woods!!!!! I figured I would probably only build one archtop just to see if I could do it so threw the best of everything I could find into it to try and make it a bit special.

    rlrhett
    Hi . With regard to the neck I threw the book out the window on that in terms of the profile which was another modification I made to the original pattern. I have a Taylor T5 that suits me beautifully to play so I made the neck profile the same or as close as I could get to the T5.

    Thanks guys for all your nice comments. I'm glad that you liked getting to see her. cheers for now.

    Glenn

  20. #19

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    I still would like to know what type of neck joint you used for your guitar? There are no photos of the joint and no explanation of how the neck was joined to the body. I consider the neck body joint the most important joint in lutherie. I would like to see how it looks if you have any more photos.
    Last edited by Matt Cushman; 05-25-2020 at 07:59 AM.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Cushman
    I still would like to know what type of neck joint you used for your guitar? There are no photos of the joint and no explanation of how the neck was joined to the body. I consider the neck body joint the most important joint in lutherie. I would like to see how it looks if you have any more photos.
    Hey Matt -- it's a 1/2" straight-walled dovetail.

  22. #21

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    Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-002-copy-jpgHi Matt
    Didn't think to take a photo of the actual join as the dovetail is the method used for the archtops for the most part as I understand it. My friend Jay has a set of router jigs for cutting neck dovetails and was kind enough to come over and cut that for me. You can just see the edge of the dovetail in this photo. Took a couple of hours to fit the neck as the dovetail was really tight so it was a case of sanding off minute amounts to ease it in. When you pressed it in to the join the pressure made a shiny spot where it was tight. The shiny spot would be sanded off then tried again and the process repeated until the neck was all the way in. Was just about a press fit. There was no movement there for glue to have to take up any slop. When I finally got it all the way in it was that tight I had to apply quite a lot of force by hand to get it out in order to apply the glue. The glue used for the join was tightbond. Care was taken to make sure the angles were spot on.


    Built a Benedetto guitar from planks of wood-007-copy-jpg
    Last edited by Glenn Jennings; 05-25-2020 at 06:58 PM.

  23. #22

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    Hi. Guys,

    SEE ATTACHED MP3 TUNE CLIP

    Well I have managed to crank up the Boss 1600 and burn a CD which we managed to covert to MP3 and upload to the site. Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks!!!!

    There is 2 tunes on the track to give some idea of performance for different types of music. One is a slow irish Lullaby and the other a blues piece. There is about a 6 second delay between tracks.

    This is nothing fancy it has been recorded direct with a Shure mic, a bit of delay, reverb and gain and that's it. It hasn't been edited or messed with so the odd twang going on here and there.

    I think it gives a reasonable demo of the full bodied tone with depth I was going for in the build.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by Glenn Jennings; 05-26-2020 at 04:17 AM.

  24. #23

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    Fantastic work. Congrats!

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