Grand Concert for Freegift, Builder Swap

[Joe Sustaire]

Okay, finally get to put the binding on. Since this herringbone purf doesn't have any black lines around it I cut some out of fish paper. So that gives me tortoise binding, black fish, herringbone purf, and another black fish line. Four pieces to get lined up and glued. Luckily I found a tute at the OLF by Rod True showing how to tape them all in place dry, and them come back with thin CA which wicks into all the joints.

Only problem was my CA had gone bad, no stick! Had to order some more and now we're good to go.

Taping up the dry binding/purf combo,




This really works good. Makes it easy to get everything in place and tight, them come back and wick in the CA. I let it sit overnight, pulled off the tape and went back over with CA to hit the spots where the tape was and to make sure I didn't miss any place.

Then it's on to scraping.






And here's how it turned out.








If you notice, I went back and scraped the tint off the herringbone in the rosette, looks better I think. And so far, I've managed not to screw up the "prematurely" stained top, just a little touch up where the scraper got the edge a bit.

Looks like I'm going to have to start thinking about a neck.

Joe

[Dennis Leahy]

Awesome job, Joe! Can't believe you pulled that off.

Dennis

[stevens]

Hi Joe,

Yup - you did it. No patch up that I can see.

Now for the neck.

Steve

[Dean Kumbalek]

Mighty pretty~!

Dean

[D_H_G GUITARS]

Some lucky dude's gonna be freaking happy to get this one in their hands! Looking really nice and I am enjoying your work as usal Joe!

Thxs
Hugh

[Colin S]

Joe, really enjoying this one. There's Torres bracing, Martin bracing, Kasha bracing, now Sustaire bracing, you'll enter the pantheon of the gods with you're design. I think the open ladders are a great idea, I'm a big fan of opening cross braces on both classical and on my steel strings. I also think that the tortoise binding is a great compliment to the guitar, we don't use it enough, hand builders use wood bindings, right? But, tortoise is one of the best looking bindings for mahogany and walnut.

Great stuff Joe.

Colin

[Joe Sustaire]

Thanks for all the great comments guys, it really helps! I haven't been able to get to the shop much lately, life does get in the way, but hopefully I can make some progress soon.

Colin, your comments made my day as you're one of my favorite builders to study and learn from!

Now to pass on the credit, Nehemiah Covey first suggested adding the longitudinal bracing, as I had been having some structural problems on a straight ladder braced build. So I added that to my ladder bracing on a build and was very pleased with the results. Then Colin suggested I open up the ladders and let the tone bars function as they should, and about the same time Hanns Brentrup showed us his most elegant tone bar/ladder bracing on his magnificent 12 string.

So you see, I'm just paying attention to some extraordinary builders, and "stealing" all I can!

Thanks again everyone,
Joe

[gilmoreguitars]

Hey Joe
You know that you have become one of my favorite builders to watch.
Everytime I go over your posts I pick up one of those "why didn't I think of that" kind of ideas.
Cheers
David