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  • Home
  • About
  • Materials
  • Design
  • Gallery
    • Current Shop Happenings
    • 2018 – Present
    • 2014 – 2017
    • 2008 – 2013
  • Contact and Ordering
After months of festivals, adventures, airports an After months of festivals, adventures, airports and general nonsense, I finally got to string up this cedar and satinwood guitar. And somehow, after all these years, that first note still feels a little bit like magic.
One of the things I’m increasingly convinced of One of the things I’m increasingly convinced of with this finish is that there’s no good reason to ask one material to do everything. The system is deliberately stratified and chemically distinct, with each layer doing the job it’s best suited for. The protein layer seals and prepares the wood. The rosinate ground provides the optical and mechanical foundation. And the shellac gets to do what shellac is exceptionally good at: building a very thin, beautifully shiny surface that is relatively easy to repair. This is the second French polishing session after the rosinate ground, less than an hour of actual work in total …and zero sanding. There’s something deeply satisfying about letting each material do its job rather than asking one material to do them all.
It’s always interesting when a process you’ve It’s always interesting when a process you’ve done hundreds of times decides it still has something left to teach you. #frenchpolishfriday
First coat of RAO on the Narra. Still glad I too First coat of RAO on the Narra. Still glad I took the brief detour into insanity to develop it.
I suspect most of us have spent an unreasonable am I suspect most of us have spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find a pore-filling method we dislike the least. Pore filling is one of those jobs that almost nobody gets excited about. Over the years I’ve tried commercial fillers, slurry fills, traditional pumice fills, epoxy, and various combinations thereof. They all work. They all have advantages. They all have aspects that make me want to do literally anything else. Over the last few years I’ve gradually settled on a method that makes the most sense to me—largely because of how I think about what’s happening mechanically inside the pores. My current filler is a dry blend of: • 3 parts FFFF pumice • 1 part finely ground shellac Both components are sieved separately through a 100-mesh screen before combining. A trace of black pigment is added afterward and blended into the finished powder. The sieving step is more important than it might appear. From a composite materials standpoint, particle size distribution influences packing efficiency, binder distribution, and ultimately the consistency of the filled structure. The goal isn’t perfect uniformity, but rather the elimination of the coarse tail of the distribution. The mixture is worked into the pores using a wool pad with a coarse muslin cover, with alcohol added separately—no pre-dissolved shellac in the pad. That distinction matters more than it might appear. The conventional approach carries shellac dissolved in alcohol into the pores along with the pumice. It works, but the binder begins life as a liquid. As the alcohol evaporates, the system loses volume, and some degree of shrinkage is inevitable. The dry blend inverts that logic. The shellac is already present as a solid component before the alcohol arrives. The alcohol is simply a temporary carrier, allowing the mixture to be worked and compacted into the pore geometry before evaporating away. What remains is already much closer to its final solid volume before evaporation even begins. (continued in comments…)
I’ve asked this top about as many questions as I I’ve asked this top about as many questions as I know how to ask.
Back at the bench. The circadian rhythm remains u Back at the bench. The circadian rhythm remains unconvinced, but the guitar seems happy enough.
Realized this morning that I’ve now been buildin Realized this morning that I’ve now been building guitars for longer than I haven’t. After all this time, I seem to have accumulated more complicated questions than definitive answers. Feeling very lucky that this is what I get to spend my life learning about.
Always a slightly surreal moment watching a pile o Always a slightly surreal moment watching a pile of assumptions become an instrument.
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