Varnish making

Last year I began to think about how I could give my instruments an individual touch. A unique feature. I like doing things myself and wanted to eliminate my use of petrochemicals as much as possible. I knew that violin makers usually made their own varnish from "natural" ingredients and knew of the famous 1704 varnish formula. I'd read that Grass Tree resin was used at before World War 2 as an ingredient in varnish. I sourced some Grass Tree resin balls (aka gum acaroid) from a licensed dealer. The resin balls vary in size from the size of a pea to the size of a small tennis ball. I came up with a recipe based on the 1704 varnish. Here it is: 50g shellac (I use garnet shellac) 200ml alcohol 5g gum sandarac 50g Grass Tree resin (gum acaroid) 7ml eucalyptus oil All these ingredients are inexpensive. Put the ingredients in a glass jar and seal it and leave it for a few days. Once the ingredients have dissolved completely strain the mixture through cheesecloth. You'll need a good quality artist's brush to apply the varnish. I use a Camel-hair brush I bought from an art store. I've also tried padding on the varnish French Polish-style but I got mixed results. The gum acaroid doesn't dry as quickly as shellac and can cause problems. You need good technique to brush it on. It's a lot harder than brushing on something like polyurethane and takes practice. This varnish is still experimental so I can't offer any guarantee on it. It does however give a glorious transparent red color to wood and buffs to a nice gloss. Here are the results I got after about ten thin coats on a She-oak guitar and buffing using rubbing compounds: So today I walked down to my local park in suburban Perth to look for some mature Grass

Not quite a mirror finish but getting there. There is a lot of work involved in varnishing a guitar in this way including the time it takes to collect the ingredients and make the mixture, but I enjoyed the process. The varnish also takes a week or so to cure before you can buff it, depending on the weather. Straight French Polishing with Shellac is easier!

Becoming a part time luthier part 4

I decided to build another arch-top guitar according to Benedetto's book. I purchased a Western Red Cedar one-inch-thick quarter-sawn slab to use as a soundboard. I made up the rest of it from slavaged timber. I took about a year on this guitar, fitting building in between other work activities and commitments. I ended up with a lovely guitar and I still have this one too and I love playing it. I poured myself into this instrument wanting it to be as best as I could make it. I'm still fussing around with this instrument trying to make it better. Recently I worked on lowering the action as it was a bit high making it much more playable on the higher frets. I may refinish this guitar at some stage. I'd like to try giving it a sunburst finish or something similar. Around this time I also built a mandolin that I think back on as a fine instrument. It had a hand-cut dovetail neck joint that I was very proud of. The soundboard was King William Pine, a lovely Tasmanian soundboard timber that is hard to come by nowadays. I sold it to my local Music store to sell on and I assume it's still out there somewhere. If the owner reads this I love to find out where it is now. I also around this time built an electric guitar, a Les Paul Jr style guitar fitted with a Gibson p90 that I purchased from Gerard Gilet. It sounded lovely through my Guyatone amp, ballsy and vintage-sounding. I also sold this one to a music store. I assume this guitar is also out there somewhere hopefully giving good times and good service. I kept building all sorts of guitars and mandolins and sold a few more. Many of the instruments I have made give me a bittersweet feeling as I think about how I could improve on them. I always remember them and how it was building them and wonder where they are now. I know this sounds romantic and sentimental but they are much more than just numbers to me. Each instrument is a journey of discovery and I feel that they are never really finished as I'm always looking at ways of making them look, sound and play better. Having said that, I don't strive for perfection, not in the conventional sense. A couple of years ago I bought Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet's two volume tome Contemporary Acoustic Guitar: Design and Build. I was overwhelmed by it. There is so much information in these two volumes that I couldn't take it all in. I consult it frequently and am still making sense of it. I also thought that some of what it describes is not the direction I want to go in. I don't want to reinvent the guitar. I like my instruments to have rustic look and sound. The book, however does emphasis the importance of craftsmanship in the traditional sense and this is so important in today's world where guitars are mostly made with CAD and computer-controlled machinery. I have little interest in building this way, having to see an instrument as a product. For this reason I like to things with hand tools as much as possible and I like researching old-world methods. I don't claim to be an expert and realize there are probably others that know more than I. While I'd love to make more money from what I do I've yet to work out how. I suspect that to do so would turn it into a business and I think this may spoil it for me, with the focus on efficiency and meeting deadlines. More soon...

The parlor guitar

So this blog has turned into Zen and the Art of Building a Parlor Guitar! It's as much about my internal process as it is about building techniques. Oh well, I'll continue...

I had another go at planing the Australian Cedar soundboard. I found a better work surface, this time one that was properly flat and true and it made a big difference. I used my home-made jack plane. I spent a little time setting the iron for a fine cut. I also found that I was putting too much downward force on the handle. I put more pressure on the front and it made a difference. Much less wooliness to the surface and I got nice shavings. What a relief that it was now working well. I suspect that if I do more work on properly sharpening the iron that it will work even more smoothly. I haven't used this plane much in the past and I think it needs a bit more tuning but I'm pleased that it actually works. I'm also going to try and smooth out some of the rough edges on the body of the plane as I was getting blisters. Probably needs some fine shaping, sanding and buffing.