BRW back and side set with bonus Mahogany neck?

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Jim the CA will fix one of the cracks on the waist. The cracks on the butt is where the rosewood as shrunk over the years and goes through to the spruce tail block and is about 2 mm wide. The other crack although stable has also wide and I think needs filling.

I suppose if I sand it back to wood and do a normal shellac finish on it that would be of great benefit to the guitar for it's future life.

Thanks for your comments Jim

Cheers

Alan

[auscab]

Hi Allan,
The decorative strip looks like it was once filled on it's sides when new and some has come loose, back when it was made the fillers of choice were ones made with your glue and saw dust + colour . If yours has had that and it's crumbled out , it may have been a glue mix.

Shellac melted in with a knife and shaved back , Cumpiano describes it in his book . colour can be added as well .

Or Beeswax, coloured melted or knifed in and shaved back then polished over.
I cant think of any other old ones .

If you dont want to re finish over them the most subtle would be the wax. keeping it as original as possible with cracks less noticeable.

One thing with BRW is if you sand through finish into the wood , quite often the BRW is so much darker under its faded surface. nothing brings it back. you would have to do the whole thing . it does not bleach well at all . we get furniture in built around 1820 ,the BRW has faded to light orange, it is it's original dark brown just under that. Yours does look dark though and probably has not faded back much.

Maybe you could wick in the CA then wax . possibly any harder fillers would need flattening back and with this the finish would be damaged.

It possibly has a spirit varnish type finish ? for 1905? I don't know with guitars but I see it a lot with furniture of the period , which can be lightly french polished over with varying levels of success .

[auscab]

Allen I have taken some pictures of the restorers hard wax technique , I will fix a crack in my BRW stubbie holder

Not really , it holds pencils on my desk .

I make up my own wax from Beeswax mixed with oxide colours , sometinmes I add Carnauba wax for an extra hard mix.

The chisel used to apply it has to be ground and polished like the front of a snow ski.

[auscab]

I heat up the chisel by holding it hard on my buff , the coloured wax is held to the chisel and runs down to drip and fill the crack as I move it along, I used two colours doing this.
Once again the chisel grind is important , I suppose it's like a ski from both sides, I can lift the handle high and not get anywhere near its dull edge . I use it like an iron on the soft wax to press it in then shave it back, what you see hear was done in two minutes from start to end.

The good bit about it is you can do it as many times as you like till it's right and as long as your chisel is not to hot or digs in you are not affecting the finish. it's just not as hard as modern glues or fillers.

[auscab]

After a few minutes to let it cool I gave this a quick few swipes with some old 280 grit ,then I turn the paper over to rub it with the back side of the sand paper, the wax gets a bit of a shine . then I gave it a quick wipe with a rubber with a little linseed oil. You have to take care and only go lightly with the sanding or you will quickly go under the level you want it at. you can see where I went under on the high point of the turning. I hope this helps .

[colburge]

Very interesting Rob, I enjoyed looking at those pics. I will keep it in my memory bank; I may need it one day.


Cheers

Col

[auscab]

Hi Col , It is a good one to know .
The other one with shellac sticks is good too . I came across a frank ford doing a demo on it .

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... klac1.html

I melt it in with the same chisel and shave it off with a sharp chisel.
To get it hot enough to drip in I heat the chisel over a flame or stick it on an electric hot plate. In my wax collection in the picture is the button shellac I use. I have bought coloured ones , and tried making my own with limited success.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Rob for the crack repair suggestions. I have decided to sand back to wood, fill the cracks with rosewood dust and ca glue and do a complete French Polish shellac finish like I usually do to my new guitars.

The bridge turned up yesterday along with the four bridge pins. The pins look like Brazilian Rosewood too a is the bridges. Except for two very small cracks the bridge looks in excellent condition. It weighs in at 20 gram.

[ozziebluesman]

I have been able to source a Euro Spruce top from Tim Spittle in WA. Thanks you to Tim, it is a very special top. Tap sound is great! I have worked out a X brace design for the new top which is really a copy of a old Martin 017 brace design that Bob Connor posted on the forum some years ago. It is about the same size as the Lyon and Healy and should make a nice finger picker brace design.

I am going to try and copy the top binding and the rosette of the original top. They have used coloured veneer strips for both the rosette and the binding.

How do I go about installing this? I usually use HHG for binding but with many layers to contend with it may get real messy. I thought maybe I'd make up a mould and build the rosette in that installing the whole rosette in the top later!

I would appreciate some advice here please?

Cheers

Alan

[DarwinStrings]

G'day Alan, you might make that purfling easier if you install the binding first using Teflon strips in the purfling channel then pull the Teflon, do a dry run of the purfling in the channel, cut your lengths then glue it in, I reckon you could still use the HHG, bit at a time cleaning and taping as you go.

Jim

[ozziebluesman]

Thank Jim for your suggestions.

Long weekend and some spare time so got stuck into the rosette today.

The outside and inside channels of the rosette, black, natural maple black 1/2 mm coloured maple strips was pretty straight forward. I shellaced the top first and also all the 1/2 mm wide colour dyed maple strips of veneer to help stop bleed. The veneer strips come from Stew Mac and are 2.5 mm high x 1/2 mm thick and I bought six each of the colour dyed maple strips available. The middle part of the rosette I cut the channel 5 mm exact then cut the pieces of coloured veneer and dry fitted them. There where nine strips in all so that gave me 1/2 mm wriggle room to get the strips fitted into the channel. Strips where 2 black, 1 natural maple, 3 red, 1 natural maple and 2 black. Once the strips where all fitted in nicely I flooded the rosette with thin superglue. I think it is going to turn out good.

I plan to do the purfling with nine strips of maple veneer as well but I will glue the binding layers in one at a time and use HHG as I have used this technique before. Not with nine strips though

I will take some pics soon of the finished rosette.

Cheers

Al

[ozziebluesman]

The top has been braced, voiced and glued to the rims. All good so far. No fancy brace design just a light Xbrace using red spruce for the braces and the top is form Tim in WA and is European Spruce. Very nice indeed!

Here are a few pics:

Cheers

Alan

[DarwinStrings]

Looking good Alan, I reckon those braces are plenty fancy for a 1905 parlour

Jim

[DarwinStrings]

Oh! another thought on the bracing, I assume from that you are going steel string. Is there anything in the neck? maybe whip a rod in there or take full advantage of John's (Tippie) recent thread on compression fretting?

Jim

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Jim. Yes I have though about a truss rod. I am going to use Dr Thomastic Silk and Steel strings the light 11 to 50s gauge. The mahogany neck has a very thick profile so it should take the tension of those type of strings. Still undecided about what to do. The binding is going to be tricky and I was thinking of cutting the 6 mm channel for the maple coloured strips and gluing the plastic binding in first. That way I will have a sort of mould to inlay the strips into. Not sure what to do there as well!

Any suggestions greatly received.

Cheers

Alan

[Kim]

Thomastics or not Alan I would still be routing a truss rod in while the opportunity presents itself.

Considering there is practically no visual impact associated with installing one and the amount of time that will be invested in getting things just so, going back later to attend an 'if' that didn't quite work would be a complete PIA for the sake of a few bucks and the little time required to get it done now while its apart.

Cheers

Kim

[ozziebluesman]

I have decided to not fit a truss rod. I realise how much of an advantge it would be but the fingerboard is Brazilian Rose and not even 3 mm thick. I do not want to open up a can of worms by trying to take the fingerboard off and breaking it. I have already caused a crack myself on the side while clamping up a crack repair. Fixed one and caused another. The guitar is very brittle and I don't have enough restoration experience. Looking at the guitar fingerboard and frets it has very little use and the neck angle is still good in my opinion so out with the HHG and glue her up after I get the top binding sorted.

The top channel has been cut for the plastic outside binding and 5 mm inside channel for the coloured strip binding. I am going to try and match the rosette design which is not like the original but the same style of trim.

Here are a few progress pics and thanks again for your interest:

[colburge]

Looking good, cant wait to see the finished product.

Col

[ernieman]

Looking good indeed!
I have the exact same guitar! Bought it on ebay quite a few years ago and had no problems with Customs bringing it in Australia.
Mine has a few large cracks on the back and the neck is loose with a broken fretboard on the 12th. otherwise its in quite a good state. it still had the remains of gut-strings on it. Do you reckon that the endpin and bridgepins are real ivory?
-edit-
I see that you have ebony/rosewood pins...

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Col.

Yes my bridge pins are rosewood Ernie but there where only three unfortunately. The bridge is in good nick but not very wide. I am going to make another bridge from some Brazilian Rosewood Tim Spittle had in his stash but make this one a little wider for a bigger footprint to help accommodate the silk and steel strings.

I reckon there is a good chance the Lyon Healy you have is older than this one and the pins and endpin are indeed ivory.

If the chance arises I would like to buy another Lyon Healy parlor with he Braz back and sides on the bay.

Cheers

Alan

[ernieman]

Mine was dated 1905-1906 so sort of the same. I'll post a pick when i find the time.

[ozziebluesman]

Hi there, its been a while.
I have been able to get some more progress on the parlour.
The purfling is six thin coloured maple strips to match the rosette with a plastic binding.
I used HHG for the purfling and tarzans grip for the plastic binding.
I am very happy with the result here are some pics:

[ozziebluesman]

Hello to you all,
Its been a while since I posted any progress on the Lyon and Healy restoration. I have been working away and hve the neck glued back on and a new bridge has been made.
My problem is the 14th fret. It is about 2 mm higher than the 12th and 16th fret. When the neck was glued back on I had to be very careful not to crack the fingerboard as it is only 4 mm thick. So it is the fingerboard that has raised a little.
I thought maybe take the 14th fret out, scrape the fingerboard down a little, make the fret slot a little deeper and replace the fret. If I dress th fret there will be no fret left.
I would appreciate some discussion and any thoughts you may have to fix the problem.
Thank you for looking.
Cheers
Alan

[kiwigeo]

I'd do what you suggested....ie pull the fret, dress the fretboard and re-fret. It shouldn't be too tricky a job.

Nice work BTW.....especially that bridge.

[DarwinStrings]

Nice to see it pop back up again Alan, sounds like you have it sorted out.