I was asked by my friend HNLim to build him a 10-string guitar.
Well having not tried to play and build a 10-string before I obliged his request.
Luckily for me he got me most of the materials, including the hard to build neck fingerboard etc.
Being a 10-string the main difference will be in the neck and the bridge, the rest of the body top will be like a 6-string guitar.
Perhaps the top braces will be slightly higher by a just a little for the extra tension from the 4 strings.
The specs for the guitar are as follows:
Top: Carpathian Spruce AAA grade
Back & Sides: CSA Rosewood
Neck: Spanish Cedar
Fingerboard: Ebony
Bridge: CSA Rosewood
Bracing: Not really decided could be a Ramirez or modifed Barbero by my luthier friend Alexandru Marian.
The top we got was a great top; HNLim order a few master grade top from EuroSpruce Tonewood over the ebay and the density was 420kg/m3
I didn't quite like that heavy top so when the Carpathian Spruce arrived (from Darren Hippner), measured the density and advised him that top was much better than the Euro spruce.
And so the top was decided.
As for the back and sides, he was undecided between the various set that he has bought; all of them has good tap tones it more due to visual aspects.
But finally (for now) he decided to go with the plainer looking one and reserved the better looking set for the next build.
After all this 10-string build was experimental.
The neck was using cedro with ebony strips in the middle.
This was partially built by the guitar maker / tonewood supplier Darren Hippner; I just need to do up the slot for the sides and the tuner slots.
With all the materials settled, I began to start building.
I jointed the top and plane it smooth using my kanna and wooden plane
Nowadays I love woodies, they so much better then the metal equivalents.
After the top surface is planed smooth, I cut the rosette channel and handed routed the channel with LN router plane.
Now fitting in the rosette was a big problem.
My friend modified the rosette by cutting out the central theme tile and replace it with another.
Problem is he use CA glue to glue the new central theme tile and the rosette hard as rock.
And the new rosette was not concentric but elliptical.
I had shave off the protruding tiles so that it is more flexible and then force the rosette into the channel.
Finally clamped it down with big F-clamps.
After the glue dried I shave it down with LA block.
Once the top is done, began to thickness the top to about 2mm.
This top is ultra light and after thicknessing, the entire top weighs only 120g which is very light.
It has a good potential to make a killer top.
Next I split some bracing from the bracing blank and shave the bracing to size.
The bracing pattern was another problem that I had.
I can't exactly decide on what sort of bracing pattern to apply.
In the end my Great Luthier friend Alexandru Marian did a new experimental guitar based on the modified Barbero flamenco guitar bracing pattern.
That guitar was ultra loud and with good attack.
I guess I would be choosing that pattern.
It's a 5 fan bracing with 3 closing brace and a treble bar.
The sound of the experimental guitar was a bit dry with lots of emphasis on fundamental frequency.
But the attack was superb and the volume is ultra loud; the guitar was very balanced though.
So I cut the bracing to size and wait for a dry weather to glue them in.
It's been raining now, I can't find a suitable weather to do gluing.
Meanwhile I continue to work on the new solera (another thread) for this build.
I don't want to cut open my existing side mold for the wider neck so I choose to build a new one instead.
This solera has no elevated freboard modification and has movable side blocks instead of side mold.
Jointing the top.
Cut out the plantilla
Route the rosette channel
Inlay the rosette
Level the rosette
Thicknessing the top. Look at those translucent shaving!
Splitting the brace.
Braces splitted
Planing braces to size
The weight of the top is 120g which is very light.
20130204
I did some work on the neck.
The neck was a laminated neck but it wasn't flat so I level it flat and check for right angles.
Also I started to glue in the soundhole reinforcement donut ring onto the top.
Flatten the neck
Plane the headplate perpendicular to the neck plane.
Weight of top is less than 120 g after I trim the edges
Gluing the donut
Clamp with a block of wood
Donut glued. It's on top of my #3 that's why you see a spruce underneath
20130222
Well some changes, my friend decide to do the 6-string first and so I am converting this into a 6-string build.
This top will be used for the 6-string and another new top used for the 10-string which will be continued sometime next year.
I will start another thread for the 6-string.
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