Goncalo Dread

[whitespruce]

Well, I expected to be farther along than this, but life happens

I was planning to do bindings, but forgot that I have to do end grafts first. So here it is ready to glue

No rocket science here. I just cut the edges with my trusty utility knife along a straightedge and chisel it out. Clean up with a file and shape the pieces. This is ebony with a bit of lighter streak and a couple of strips of holly - matches the back center seam.

Actually, what I do need to show is my new quick and dirty guitar body clamp. For years, I have been doing all of this type of work sitting in a chair with the guitar body held between my knees Ya, I know, kinda dumb.

So I took a half hour, a couple pieces of scrap plywood and 2 lengths of dowel and slapped this together

Not pretty, but it works great. Just screwed the back piece of plywood onto one of my benches. Used 2 pipe clamps just set into slots for clamping. Afout any kind of bar or similar clamp would work. The front plywood just slides on the dowels.

I found this old dense foam rubber pad over at the cabin to use for the padding

Again, I built this in less than half hour. Works fine.

So back to the end graft. here it is glued

I also did the coco and beng jumbos in the background.

NOW I am ready to do the binding channels

G

[whitespruce]

Between assembling orders today, I got in some build time. Routed binding and purfling channels on 3 guitar bodies.

I don't use any of the fancy jigs, just a laminate trim router with a special baseplate

This works fine for me and it is fast, with no real setup time.

Here's the results



Gotta do a Thanksgiving thing tomorrow, so will probably glue bindings on Sunday.

I will post the other 2 in their respective threads.

G

[whitespruce]

Bindings glued on

These are ebony with b/w veneer lines and I did b/w veneer purflings on the top and back.

I have the tape removed and will scrape these down tomorrow.

Still need to bind the coco jumbo.

G

[whitespruce]

Well, rather than post this in all three of my almost done builds, this one, my beng jumbo, and my coco jumbo, I will just post it here, even though the parts are for all three.

I have the peghead logos all installed for these

The neck with the most light striping in the peghead is for the goncalo dread , the blackest one is the coco jumbo. This also shows the matching bridge blanks which just need final shaping. The fingerboards are glued on all the necks.

Here are the fingerboards after radiusing

I do this the old fashioned way - rough it out with a block plane and sand with a radius block starting with 36 grit.

Another view


And here are the position marker dots installed


Nothing fancy, just simple shell dots that match the peghead logo shell inlay.

So I just need to clean out the fret slots and I will be ready to install the frets. Then finish carving the necks and these three will be close to done, except for the finish

G

[whitespruce]

Trying to catch up on my old build threads. Again, this one is done and we played at Stringfest last Summer. Actually, Matt used this on for his acoustic setup demo, and Scots friend glomed onto it and played it for the whole Stringfest and would not part with it.

I will take some photos and post them.

G

[Bilbert]

Geez, Grant - you're a man on fire!!

I gotta ask about the Goncalo though............

The stuff I see for sale and on the web, says it is also known as Tigerwood, is medium dense, but looks nothing like what you're building with.

I'm thinking there may be some significant differences between Astronium fraxinifolium and Astronium graveolens.

I've got a couple large billets, that are SUPER dense (even the sapwood sinks quickly in water), and is SUPER fine grained - finishes like glass. My stuff looks a lot like this: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sit ... B800%3B533" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What are the qualities of your Goncalo, as from what I'm reading, your's sound fantastic.

B

[whitespruce]

Geez, Grant - you're a man on fire!!

I gotta ask about the Goncalo though............

The stuff I see for sale and on the web, says it is also known as Tigerwood, is medium dense, but looks nothing like what you're building with.

I'm thinking there may be some significant differences between Astronium fraxinifolium and Astronium graveolens.

I've got a couple large billets, that are SUPER dense (even the sapwood sinks quickly in water), and is SUPER fine grained - finishes like glass. My stuff looks a lot like this: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sit ... B800%3B533" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What are the qualities of your Goncalo, as from what I'm reading, your's sound fantastic.

B

Bill, the photos on that link look like the real stuff, but most of those photos are Astronium graveolens which grows in Central America. My wood is from Costa Rica where it is known locally as Ron Ron. Astronium fraxinifolium is usually called Tigerwood and grows mostly in Brazil. It tends to be slightly less dense, but is still quite hard and heavy. I have a few billets of that, too, so I have actually hands-on compared the two. Like yours, the goncalo I have is very dense and hard, fine grained and finishes quite smoothly with only small pores. Very rosewood-like.

Now, I usually don't mention names, but I will make an exception because I think it is important. LMI lists Goncalo Alves sets and describes them as medium dense with a mahogany tone. The only photo they show does not look like any goncalo alves I have seen, and I have a couple thousand board feet of it. I have no idea what they are selling. I sent them a message asking them about their goncalo and they never. replied. Take that FWIW (BTW, when they first listed Monkeypod in their catalog, the gave it latin name that turned out to be for a shrub that grows in North Carolina!!) end of rant.

All I can say is that the wood I have, like yours, is beautiful and a joy to work with. Besides guitars, I have built cabinets and furniture from it. Over half of the countertops in our kitchen are made from thick slabs of it...it is virtually indestructable. Makes good cutting boards, too I have been buying goncalo directly from a sawmill since 1998, often in huge slabs over 2 feet wide. The grain and figure from two logs is never the same.

Hope this helps.

G

[Dennis Leahy]

You got me curious, so I just had to check and see what LMI is selling. I have never picked up a piece of Goncalo Alves that I would describe as "light" (density.) The wood I'm familiar with is very dense and resinous, like Bocote or Brazilian Rosewood. -that's the stuff that Grant has, and oh my god he has lots and lots of gorgeous quartersawn Goncalo Alves.

Dennis