here is my #2

[Mark McLean]

Last week I finished my number 2 build. I learned lots more making this one and I think it is a much better guitar than my first effort. I still have a long way to go, but this is becoming a lot of fun. Thanks so much to everyone on this forum for sharing your hard-earned knowledge.

It is a 13-fret Nick Lucas style L-00. I especially want to thank Hesh because he gave me some really helpful PM advice on the bracing for this one, and I took some hints from Allen's Norman Blake style 000 because it has some of the same ideas with forward shifting of the bracing and a slightly smaller sound-hole.

Back and sides are Mahogany (Brazillian) that I got from Gerard Gilet. I bought 2 sets and, because this was my first time bending sides myself, I used the less attractive of the sets. But they worked out first time and still look pretty good. The top is Adirondack from Tim Spittle. Bindings are cocobolo and I tried a cocobolo soundhole binding also (but hard to photograph it well).







The scale length is 24.7 inch. I used those new 'Heritage' tuners from Stew-Mac and I really like them. The sound is quite well balanced and pretty powerful for a small bodied guitar.

I want to ask the opinion of anyone who cares to comment. I bought a Gibson-style firestripe pickguard that I thought might look cool on this guitar and go with the old-time Gibson vibe. I haven't installed it yet, and a few people that I have shown it to really don't like it. Here is a final picture with it temporarily held in place (the plastic covering is still on it and looks bad, but just ignore that - I am sure you get the general idea). What do you all think - should I go with it?


Thanks for looking, and thanks again for all of the all of the advice and inspiration.
Mark

[Nick]

Niiiiiiiiiice
Good job Mark, it all looks very clean and well executed to this pleb's eyeballs. I don't think I've seen an L-00 before,they have a very narrow waist obviously, like the shape. Looks like it would have a good bass register for such a small bodied guitar, would that be right?
Jury's out on the pickguard, I guess if it's a strummer and needs something then that one you have, looks the part. If it doesn't need one then I'm in the "look of wood" camp, shame to cover up a nice piece of Adi.

[Hesh1956]

Wow Mark my friend your guitar looks fantastic!!! You should be very, very proud of your accomplishments - she's beautiful!

Regarding the pick guard I would not use it. Why? Because the fire stripe does not match the graceful curves that I see in your bridge design and the guitar overall. Just because Gibson once used fire strip on some of the L-OOs does not mean that we have to... If you must go with a pick guard Gurian had some a few years back for the L-OO that included ones that were not fire stripe.

Great job!!!

[Hesh1956]

Borat you beat me to it...

[Nick]

Borat you beat me to it...

Hehe. It was that one or a Mankini thumbs up?

[ozziebluesman]

Very nice Mark. Love the fingerboard inlay and the bridge design. I think the scratch plate looks very classy too.

Congratulations on #2, be proud of your achievement.

Cheers

Alan

[Taffy Evans]

Yep what most of the others have said, great looking guitar, and real nice for only your second attempt, well done mate. The pick guard... when I got to the picture my eye went straight to the pick guard, and not the guitar as a whole.

I have three ways I might look at this: 1. no scratch plate, 2 a clear plate, or 3 trim the one shown so that it is in more balance with the guitar shape and size. Nice work though, thanks for showing.

[Joe Sustaire]

Great looking guitar Mark!
I love that shape, combined with the 13 fret slot-head neck, great vintage look to it!

And yeah, somehow that pick-guard isn't working for me either, and I'm not against pick-guards. It's another design opportunity, which of course can work for or against you.

Play with other materials and/or the shape and see if you can find a combo that really works for you. But don't forget the well played/broken in look is great also if the pick-guard just won't work.

Joe

[Ricardo]

Mark Guitar look s really good, I know how proud you must feel because i 2 have just finished my second one. I have alwats wanted to make one similar to the shape you havedone, if you can let me know where you got the plans that would be great. I would love to start sharing advice on sound quality we are getting from our instruments and commenting on if we actually get the sound we were expecting. My second one was a lot brighter than i was hoping for.
Any ways Well done

[Bob Connor]

Nice work Mark. It really has that vintage thing going on.

No pickguard for me either.

[matthew]

Noyce. Very noyce. Bridge is reeeely noyce!

But pickguard = not noyce

I think i'm going to have to come over and have a play on that one!

Matthew

[Rod True]

Nice looking guitar. I too am a no go on the pick guard, but than, I don't like pick guards at all. If you do need one, either clear or trim the sucker down.

Now, I did notice one thing that worries me a little bit. the saddle slot is very, dangerously close to the front of the bridge on the high e side. I'm a bit concerned that it will crack (the bridge) from the force applied to it by the saddle. Might want to keep an eye on it.

[sebastiaan56]

ooooohhh thats purdy!

[bunker]

Hi Mark,
Well done on finishing your second. It looks great. My last one was based on the LOO and I decided not to go with a pickguard after making paper mockups as the tight waist just made it all a bit crowded. If I was working with this one I may put a clear one on but for picking at home it's fine. I also noticed what Rod mentioned with the saddle being pretty close to the front of the bridge, unless it's just some weird photo angle thing. All in all, looks very vintage with the machine head/tuner combo and you have every reason to be well satisfied.
Archie

[Allen]

That's just a head turner Matt. I think you did a great job in building old style guitar that is not going to ever go out of style. Great design, execution and choice of materials.

I say no to that pick guard too, but after all the no's it's probably already in the trash.

I've been eyeing those restoration tuners as well. Have a bunch of ideas that they would look good on. Just got to find the time to build them.

[liam_fnq]

big fan of that vintage style

stylish shape, slotted headstock. the whole shabang.

very nice.

[Dominic]

Nice work Matt. The 13 frets clear of the body looks like it belongs on this body shape. I like the slotted headstock as well. I'm a no for the pickguard. I like the clean look so if I have to use something I use clear.

I also like the soundhole binding. Can you tell us how you went about bending/fitting it?

Cheers
Dom

[Mark McLean]

Thanks for the encouragement folks. I will definitely lose the pickguard. I play fingerstyle anyway so I don't really need one.

Nick - the L-00 is a great classic Gibson small body style that has been around since the 1920s in various guises. I think the shape is nice but some of them sound a bit weak and tinny. From 1929 to 1940 they made a version called the Nick Lucas model (named after a popular singer of the day - he did the original version of "Tiptoe through the tulips") it was deeper and had better bass response. This one follows that design.

Ricardo - I got plans for a 14-fret L-00 from the MIMF website. There are a few others available on the net too if you Google it. I adapted that plan in a couple of important ways. Firstly I made the body deeper. The neck block is 100mm tall and the tail block is 110mm, which is about the same as a dreadnought. The plan was for a 14-fret neck join and I wanted a 13-fret (some of the Gibsons were 13-fretters in the 1930 and there is a great version made by Santa Cruz Guitar Company called the H-13 which is a recreation of that). I moved the bridge, bridgeplate, soundhole and all of the bracing towards the endblock by the equivalent of the space between the 13th and 14th frets (from memory I think it is 16.7mm for this scale length) and that puts the bridge a bit more into the middle of the lower bout, which is good for the bass response. I also adopted the idea from Allen's Norman Blake 000 to make the soundhole 2-3mm smaller and this also increases the bass response a bit on a smaller bodied guitar. I enjoyed making these adaptations to the plan on my second build - I stuck strictly to the book for the first one (but still made big mistakes!).

Rod and Bunker - you are spot on in commenting on the position of the saddle. It is rather too close to the front of the bridge on the treble side. On a small guitar I didn't want a wide bridge. I cut the rough shape and routed the slot and did some more shaping and I ended up with this curvy design which I really liked, and it is a beautiful piece of Massacar ebony that polished up perfectly. I realized that the area in front of the saddle ended up too thin for my liking - but everything else was great and I couldn't bring myself to throw it away and start a new one. I took a gamble on it knowing that it might be a problem later if it cracks - but that would be a great opportunity for me to learn about bridge repairs

Allen - I think these restoration tuners are a good choice for that style of instrument. They work well but compared to some others have quite high gearing so only a tweek on the knob makes a substantial change in pitch. Also cheap.

Dom - I took some pictures as I did the soundhole binding so I will put them up soon

cheers

Mark

[Kim]

Great looking guitar Mark, just love that vintage mojo. Big bottom girls make this rock'in world go round.

Cheers

Kim

[Dave Anderson]

Very good work Mark. I like your bridge.
I would go with a clear pickguard if any.

[Mark McLean]

Dominic
You asked about the soundhole binding. I followed the technique that Nigel Forster shows in this Youtube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f_t-wGo ... re=related

The top was about 3mm in thickness and I added a reinforcement ring around the soundhole instead of using popsicle soundhole braces. This was simply some offcuts from the soundboard glued with the grain perpendicular to the soundboard. Glue a circle which is a bit larger than the soundhole and then cut out the hole and it will end up like a do-nut. This will then give a 6mm thickness at the soundhole and my cocobolo bindings are 6.7mm tall. Bend a binding strip into a spiral and then trim it to length and glue it in. I taped the binding in place and also put a conical object in there to clamp it (did you see Jeff's post of this? viewtopic.php?t=984&highlight=soundhole+binding+jig). For the guitar I found a plastic cone once used at my Son's soccer training, or you could steal one from some roadworks nearby. These 2 pictures should tell the rest of the story. Then it is just a matter of scraping and sanding.

[brettandkika]

Can't wait until I hear it! Looks beautiful. Great timber, style and the inlay is subtle. A really sweet vintage style instrument.

I think we need to celebrate no #2 with champagne, and then a fine shiraz - and bring on #3

[Allen]

Welcome to the forum Brett. Have you built an instrument or contemplating one? Start a new thread and tell us about yourself and what you're up to.

[Lillian]

I didn't want to give you a knee-jerk response, so I've spent the week looking at your guitar. And I can safely say, I don't like the pick guard. Normally I don't like the, hence the knee-jerk comment, and occasionally I will see one that doesn't bother me much.

In your case, it really bothers me. The lines and the treatments chosen for your guitar are fine, delicate even. It is a study in understated elegance. That pick guard is too much for it. If you have to use one, please go with a clear one. I would hate for you to hide the beauty of your guitar behind a piece of plastic.

[WaddyT]

The guitar is a beauty! I agree with Lillian on the pickguard. Clear would really keep the vintage look alive. The one you pictured modernizes it too much, IMO.