Renaissance Guitar Build part 1

Photo Tour of the Renaissance Guitar Build

There's still quite a way to go before it's complete, but I wanted to start this build blog now so that I didn't have to do it all at once. I'll add more as the project unfolds. 

Before I get into the build photos, I want to give some background and overview. I think it's important because it explains why I decided on this style and the custom changes I'm making.

One of the things that I've always wanted to do is build my own acoustic guitar. Building a guitar however, is an intimidating endeavor. I've worked with wood for many years, but the skills required to make a fine instrument are different then typical wood craft. Luthiers (which I am certainly not) are highly skilled craftsman in a very specialized craft. 

The last 10 years or so I've gained a good amount of experience in finer detailed woodworking with my wood art ,scroll saw, and wood intarsia work. With this experience I decided to give it a try. 

Building a guitar is a long process, especially since I'm limited on the time I can spend on it due to health issues. 

I looked around at various kits and plans and decided on the Renaissance Guitar from Musicmakers in Stillwater, MN. They have some wonderful harp kits along with lots of other old world instruments and kits. The renaissance guitar is shaped more like a lute, but with more modern construction techniques and, well, it's a guitar, not a lute.

I chose the renaissance guitar for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I'm a big fan of renaissance stuff. Another reason is that unlike traditional kits from places like Martin for example, the design and the way the renaissance guitar is constructed is quite a bit simpler than a standard dreadnought guitar. Another reason is, well, I already have a standard guitar. I figured if I'm going to take the time to build something, why not make it unique and something I can't pick up at the local music store.

Even though the Ren kit is already pretty unique, I still wanted to make it even more custom. Now, any changes in materials, building technique, etc, from here on is not a knock on Musicmakers or their kits. It's simply because I wanted something more than what the kit had to offer. Musicmakers is a great company and their customer service and assistance is absolutely top shelf. Jerry from Musicmakers has been very helpful with my numerous email questions and never once made me feel like I was being a pain with all my questions. I think Musicmakers goal with the Ren kit is to provide a kit that's easier to build, requires less specialty tools, and keeps cost down so that more people might be willing and able to build a guitar themselves.  

I ended up ordering a special custom kit without some of the wood parts and things. I did this because I wanted to use some different materials to make it truly custom. The biggest and most obvious change was to use Hawaiian Koa wood for the front and back. I love the look of some of the koa guitars that I've seen and wanted to use this opportunity to have a koa guitar. Apparently, koa trees are only native to Hawaii and grow at elevations of over 5000 feet. I also made a few changes in the construction. Before I started this project, I read many hours worth of stuff on guitar building and luthier tips and tricks. Some of the things I learned will be used in this build.

On with the build photo tour!

The project started around mid May with the arrival of the Koa wood.

As I said, I wanted Koa wood. Koa should be a more warm sounding wood, similar to mahogany. The most common wood for guitar tops is by far spruce.

These are the bookmatched pieces of Koa wood for the front and back. The wood is nicely figured! I got this from eBay along with some of the other parts I'm using. The wood was only rough bandsaw cut with little or no planing or sanding. It needed a lot of prep work before gluing up. However, it was much cheaper this way. I couldn't afford perfect prepared and ready to use koa tone wood. That stuff is expensive!

Top prepped and being glued.

Top tone wood all glued up and being sanded. Just look at that figuring!

This is the roughly shaped mahogany neck that came with the kit along with a rosewood fretboard. The neck will need some shaping and lots of sanding. Did I mention lots of sanding?

Here I'm doing some shaping of the neck. The neck came roughed out at 2" wide. That's pretty standard for a classical guitar, but this will be steel string. Plus, I wanted it to match what I'm used to which is 1 3/4" at the nut so I have to taper it down. It will be 1 3/4" at the nut and around 2 1/8" at the 20th fret.

The neck has been shaped and I added a rosewood overlay on the peghead. 

Cutting the custom maple inlays for the peghead on the scroll saw. At only about 3/32" thick it's difficult to cut something that thin so I first attached it to some 1/4" birch plywood before cutting.

The inlays all cut out. I went with a Celtic font letter M for my last name and a tri-knot. The guitar will have a Celtic theme.

Cutting the recesses for the inlays with my Dremel router and a carbide downcut spiral bit.

Gluing the first inlay with 5 minute epoxy that I mixed with black powder.

First Inlay complete and sanded down.

Here are both inlays complete. Looks pretty good!

While I was doing inlays I did the fret position markers. Keeping with the Celtic theme, these are laser cut Celtic knots in Boxwood. Picked these up on eBay for 75 cents each. What a bargain!

A larger shot of the fretboard inlaid and tapered down to size. It's narrower then the finished size will be because I'm binding it in contrasting maple wood. I love the look!

I decided to round over the edges of the peghead.

Gluing the tail block to the pre-bent walnut sides. I actually have koa side material that came with the koa top and back pieces, but I don't have have a good way to steam bend them so I'm going with the walnut from the kit.

Routing the rosette channel and cutting the sound hole with the dremel router. I made the adjustable circle cutting attachment my self out of some aluminum plate! Stewmac makes one similar, but it costs $79!! That's more than I can spend on a tool I won't use often so I made this one with stuff I had laying around. Hard to beat no cost!

Test fitting the maple and abalone rosette. Another eBay item for $8 Also, a bottom view of my homemade circle jig.

The sound hole cut out. 

Here, nothing is glued, but I loosely stacked the pieces roughly where the go to get an idea of the look. The angle of the picture makes it look larger than it is and out of proportion for some reason.

Here, I'm gluing in kerfed linings. The kit uses 1/8" flat plywood linings, but I decided to use these reverse kerfed mahogany linings instead. The mahogany linings are much nicer and give a much wider gluing surface than the 1/8" plywood. Plus, I didn't want plywood anywhere on this guitar.

The complete front side kerfed linings glued and clamped in place while the glue dries. I knew I'd find a use for the two tubes full of mini clamps I got last summer at the Odd Lot outlet! I think they were only like $2.99 per tube full and this is 2 tubes worth.

Bridge plate and X-bracing glued into place. I also got a little carried away "tap tuning" the soundboard and it ended up a little thinner than 3 mm. Since it's thinner, I cut out a ring of 3 mm wood to reinforce the sound hole. Many guitars use "popcicle" bracing around the sound hole anyway. 

Both sides kerfed lining strips complete and sanded smooth.Since this kerfing is wider than the kit kerfing, the X-bracing extends into the kerfing. That's a good thing though. I'll notch the lining so that the bracing sits on a ledge. That way instead of the bracing floating on nothing, it will be supported by the sides of the guitar. Should be much stronger that way.

 Shaping the bracing with a sharp chisel.

Bracing done. I also added two sound bars. This is one of the things I learned from reading. These two bars I made from spruce should help to carry the sound vibrations from the treble side of the soundboard over to the bass string side of the top to balance out the sound. Using online videos and sound clips I kept "tap tuning" the top by holding it up to my ear and tapping the other side. I kept doing this and trimming down the braces and sound bars until I got a bell like ring to the top when tapped.  Not sure how well I did, but it did "ring" better as I trimmed and shaped the braces.

The top being glued up. I wish I had more clamps. A shop can never have too many clamps!

Took a break from the guitar body to work on a sound hole rosette cover. Often, lutes have these decorative covers over the sound hole. The kit came with a very nice one that was laser cut, but since I like scroll saw work, I'm attempting my own. This Celtic knot is being cut out of 3/16" quilted maple. I'm not even sure if I'll use it, but I'm going to find a way to make it removable anyway. That way I can put it on or take it off whenever I like. I'll probably use some sort of rubber grips on the underside.

More to come as progress continues!