Making the Heel Block

While I was bending the sides halfway, I suddenly realised I have not done up the heel block yet.
Well why I say the heel block, similar to the concept of the steel string world, I intend to make the heel block first.
However this will be a still a traditional Spanish foot.
It's just that I will only glue the neck to the heel block after the binding and purfling are done.
One problem with my last build is the binding and purfling.
The presence of the elevated neck makes the installation of purfling and binding a big problem.
Now I will align the heel block and neck together first and then proceed to assemble the guitar; glue the sides to heel block and end block and top.
After closing the back, I do up the purfling / binding and finally glue the neck to the body.
As I have inserted guiding holes, the alignment of the neck to heel block / top should not wonder off.
Another advantage of this way of build is that I can choose to install the fretboard / frets on the neck separately before gluing to the main body.
This is killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

Now more to making the heel block.
First I saw the excess part from the neck to form the elevated neck angle.
I had previously marked out the angle.
After sawing I began to plane the neck to the line marking.
After checking for squareness, similar to planing a scarf joint, I began to work on the heel block.
I use the top to measure the number of pieces needed for the heel block.
The 1st piece I intend to cover the main bulk of the top up to the UTB.
This is said to give more body to the treble; strictly speaking an elevated fingerboard design already caters for this part, but I wanted to strengthen this area to prevent the neck from lifting from the body.
A strong C-block will enhance the structure integrity of this part.
Also with a elevated neck (above top) heel block (below the top) sandwich assembly, it will prevent top split at this area.
This type of split which is adjacent to the fingerboard is one of most common split of the guitar top.

Neck I plane all the heel block piece to get a smooth surface for gluing.
I need about 85mm thick (to be adjusted later) for the heel block, so I plane one of the pieces to thinner thickness.
Also I plane an angle to the 1st piece that is glued to the top, this angle will correct the top sloping angle back to perpendicular for the rest of 3 blocks.
After that I mark out the heel curve and 12 fret side joint mark on the heel block.
The pieces are ready for gluing.
After going thru' the pieces with the wooden plane the surface is shiny.

Saw the slope from the neck.

A step at the neck, the rest of the waste will be planed away.

Planing the waste to the line.

Smoothen with the wooden plane

Checking for straightness

Side squareness

Gleaming surface after planing with the wooden plane

Measure the 1st piece of the heel block. It covers all the way to the UTB.

All pieces sawn

Saw the angle for the 1st piece

Plane it smooth

Thickness one of the pieces

All pieces ready to be glued

The entire neck.

Another view

I saw 2 strip from last piece of the heel block where the foot is.
These 2 strips will be used for the wedge to lock the sides into the slot.
Also a wide foot will look not so nice as a narrower foot.

Saw the strip out for the wedge

After planing the sides the foot is ready for gluing.

I glued up 3 stack of heel block leaving the last piece unglued; the one that is gluing to the top.
I will explain that later why.
When I check the 12th fret line, I notice the heel block 1st piece (nearest the top) is slightly longer than the space available on the top (from 12th fret to UTB).
So I had to cut a groove in the 1st piece stack.
This will serve to support the UTB too, which I think is a good idea.
I use my mini douzuki saw and my favourite rebate plane to to the job.
The curve is done using the file.

Sawing filing planing the groove for the UTB. This will support the UTB more.

Check fitting. It's not perfect fit but it's ok more will be done later.

Now is to drill the guide holes for the final assembly when the neck is glued onto the top and heel block.
Yes for this build the neck wont be glued to the heel block during assembly.
It will only be glued after the entire body's binding and purfling is done.
With the neck out of the way, the purfling can be done easily.
Normally for elevated neck design, most maker will make a mortise tenon neck but I prefer the Spanish slotted foot design neck so I chose to do it this way.
After drilling the holes; 1 on the heel portion the other 2 on the top to heel block portion.

The next portion is to plane a groove to the heel block so that the top is flushed with the front port of the heel.
This is like the normal neck where the top is flushed with the neck.
Now that our neck is on top of the top, the top will flush with the heel portion.
So I use a douzuki saw to cut a slot roughly the depth of the top's UB thickness.
Then I set the router plane to the top's thickness (2.14mm) and started to remove the wood.
The router plane can be used to remove to the exact depth in between the 2 ends.
I must say the LN router plane is very useful, never regret buying it.
The end section is removed by plane.

Drilling the guide holes

Guide holes drilled

Top thickness at upper bout is 2.14mm

Sawing the slot at 12th fret region

Setting the router plane depth

Removing the wood after the slot. The 2 ends of the router plane is supported.

The 1st portion removed

All done fitting nicely.

Roughly how the neck assembly looks

From the front part

Time to glue up the heel block since all the preparation (guide holes drilled) are done.
No special tricks here, just heat up the surface, apply the hide glue and align and then clamp.

All items prepared.

After surface is heat up hide glue is applied to both surface

Aligned and clamped

After the entire block is glued, it's time to cut the slots.
Again this time round I will be doing the wedge method.
But instead of using that neck jig which doesn't really work due to the inaccuracy in making the jig, I just use a guide block (with the correct angle) to start the saw cut and continue using the douzuki saw.
The block is about 95 degrees.
After drawing all the lines I clamp the guide block and started the sawing.
I use the mini douzuki for better control and continue with the normal size douzki once the slot is deep enough.
I also marked the portion in the heel block (the surface that is to be glued to the top) till where I should stop sawing, that's about 20mm from the center line.
This gives about 40mm wide to 80mm high (triangular) of wood to hold the heel to the heel block.
This should be pretty sufficient for strength.
After the saw cut I saw the rear line at a slight angle to form the wedge.
I just simply estimate, basing on the wedge blank which I cut out from the foot block earlier.
Finally I chisel out the slots and shape the rear heel block abit.

Plane the side flat for reference

Guide block clamped.

Start the cut with the mini douzuki for more control and precision

Continue with the douzuki saw (more depth)

Both slots cut

Chisel the slot

Both slots done.

Saw away the rear part of the heel block to form a triangular profile

Done

Next I began to shape the heel.
At first I began sawing away the 2 sides for the triangle heel shape (looking from front) but I realised it's easier to saw / chisel / drill the heel (looking from the side) C-shape first.
So I use a Forstner drill bit and remove some of the material first and chisel / plane / file away the rest.
Sapele is damn hard to shape! This probably will be the last time I am going to use a sapele for the neck.

Use forstner bit to remove the waste.

Most of it removed

Saw away the waste

Saw away the side shape of the heel

Use rasp to shape the heel.

Not quite done, checking the shaping with the neck in place

Did a few things more for the heel block; sand the curve smooth with my roller sander drill attachment.
Next I also adjusted the heel's side profile making it more slim.
I have not chisel the slight curve into the front profile, I'd probably do that after I assemble the whole guitar.
This is because the neck will be install at the last part.
I did up the wedges and check the alignment for the sides.
It fit the heel nicely w/o gaps.

Sanding with roller.

Curve smoothen after the sanding (This is not the final shape though)

Trim the front profile.

Wedges done

Check side fitting with the wedges. Good fit

19 Oct 2012
I shape the heel further to make it a more pleasing shape.
Well it can be done later but just want to make it look good now.

Shaping the heel

A nice pleasing shape

Shop Cleaning

I hadn't found the time to clean up my (work)shop but I guess it's inevitable.
It's more of organising the items so I knew precisely where each item is.
This is also for health reason to clean up the dust.
I found some more tools which was hidden amongst the debris on the floor and some item which I never knew I had.
I saw a can of fine rubbing compound left behind by my late father.
It's kind of funny feeling, when he was still alive, I used to wonder why he kept all sorts of useless things around.
Now that I started to build guitar, those 'useless' things suddenly became useful.
Life is funny isn't it?
Anyway it's great to see the shop organised.
Well 1/2 of it anyway.

After that I decide to build the base for my broken lamp and it works great.
The new base can even be mounted onto the rack.
The metal fitting act as a heat sink for the transformer anyway.
The L-bracket will mount onto the base using 4 T-nuts and threaded screw.
On the lamp end, I drill a hole across the plastic base making sure the screw which is going across the hole will not obstruct the lamp arm movement.
More importantly the hole will not be across any electrical parts.
For the lamp base, I drill 2 holes 18 mm and 12 mm and chisel a slot to join them together.
This will fit the shape of the lamp base protruding ends.
It sat nicely flush with the lamp base.

Sometimes it's refreshing to build other things (jigs etc..) then guitar.
One of the reason is that the time taken to build other things is way shorter than guitar.
So you get to see the result straight away.
Well it's not that guitar building is not fun but it's a long process and sometimes you just need take some refreshing breaks in between in order to build better.
Just my 2 cents of thoughts...

Lots of debris

Cleaning in progress

Tools hang onto the window grill

Gluing up the lamp base.

Lamp base done! It can be mounted onto the rack too.

New Zoot!

I saw this Amzn RW that I like alot, but it very expensive.
After much consideration I decided to get it and I never regret that decision.
When the wood came it's really beautiful.
Amzn RW is from Brazil and very close to the famous BRW , but it's slightly denser that the cousin.
However it doesn't have that sweet smell of BRW.
I also got some MadRW bridge blank and they tap like glass.
I saw this one with beautiful ink lines which I like alot.

Amzn RW

MadRW bridge blank

Making the rosette

Well I began to make the rosette of the #4.
It's roughly based on the FE17, not a replica but largely based on that.
Here I am doing the chess board tile in the central theme.
I will also the doing the herringbone wheat pattern surrounding the central theme.

The FE17 rosette. This is the actual Torres' FE17; the first Torres guitar that Francisco Tárrega used. It was originally Torres' own guitar but Tárrega persuaded Torres to sell him this FE17.

First of all I need to cut the veneer sheet.
Well I use my proven method to cut which was fast and quiet.
I clamp the rule on the veneer and then scribe using my purfling cutter.
After that I cut the veneer into size clamp in alternate layers of blue and white.
To get the thickness I use 2 veneers for each layer.
I intend to do a 5x5 matrix so I need to glue up 6 layers.
When I slice it into tiles I can alternate the layers to form the matrix theme.

Slice up the veneer

The veneer all done

Cut into 6 equal pieces

Layer the strips and measure the thickness

Clamp the strips after gluing.

The tiles block was done quite OK.
I just plane the sides flat and saw away the ends on a miter box.
When I began to saw the individual tiles slices for gluing into the matrix, it didn't work out too good.
The slice thickness was not very even.
I probably need to do something to improve the accuracy...

Shooting the sides of the block

A thin slice of the strip

Sawing the slices in a miter box

The 2 slices in alternate layout. As you can see the thickness is not even.

By adjusting the width and changing to the rip teeth of the ryoba, I am able to get a more unform slice.
However the slice is still too thick and doesn't seem to form the matrix too well...
Time for more narrow adjustment.

6x6 tiles but it look too fat.

Or 6x4 matrix but doesn't look very nice to me...

Meanwhile I began to smoothen out the top using my wooden plane.
It's been a while since I use the plane but after some tuning, it shaved the top like nothing.
The top originally was in a raw state where I can see the fibers.
At first I had no success in removing those fibers except by sanding.
But by sanding I am not able to bring out the beautiful silking in the top.
Only when I use the plane to plane the top the beautiful silking appears!

Planing the top

Beautiful silking in the top after planing. Now it will be ready for rosette inlay.

I adjusted the thickness of the slice by loosening the clamp and give the block a slight tap.
Then I began to slice the tile and the thickness is just right.
But because there isn't support on the tile below, it started to de-laminate due to the sawing stress on the layers.
So I put a piece of wood beneath to support the tiles while I slice up the layers.
It worked and I was able to get 6 good slices to glue up.
I glued up the layers after making sure the orientation is correct and clamp the tiles.

Dry fitting of the slice. Now the effect is better.

Preparing to glue the slices

Glued and clamped

After looking thru' the photo closely, I just realise I can't count...
This is not a 6x6 matrix... It's 10x6 (white and blue) or 5x3(blue only) haha
No wonder it look funny; Nothing like the original which is 8x8 or 4x4(blue only)

The rosette tile glued. Now to cut them into slices. This is a short tile so I think I can get 4 pieces out of it. I probably need another block to do the rosette

It's a been a long breaks since I work on #4's rosette.
Well, finally I found the time to continue making it.
Here is the 2nd layer of the lozenges (king of big but still looks quite OK).
I also began to work on the outer wheat motif purfling.
The Angle will be 30 degree to facilitate easier sawing with the miter box.

The lozenges layer.

Wheat motif purlfing

Another option for the purfling. Which looks nicer?

I started to glued the purfling block and decide with the 1st scheme.
The procedure is same with the way I do with the rosette block.

Apply the glue.

Clamped.

The making of the wheat motif purfling is going well.
After the block has dried, I plane level the 2 sides and saw off the ends in the miter box that I have made.
The angle is 30 degrees.
Then I clamp the stopper block to predetermine the thickness of each tile and started to saw the tiles.
The line is skewed vertically but it's ok the effect isn't too visible in the final product.
This just shows my jig making has yet to reach the precision that I would like to have.
After the tiles are sawn I dry assembled the purfling and it sure looks good.
The width of the purlfing is about 4mm.
Now to consider how to assemble them.
Basically I have 2 options to glue and assemble straight into the top or to preassembled and then inlay into the top.
For the 1st option my channel must be very precise.
If not gaps will occur again.
I got the next few days to think about before I continue.
Meanwhile I just saw enough tiles to make 2 purfling one outer one inner for the rosette.
For the top and back and side purlfing I better think of a better way to make this faster and less painful.

Level the 2 sides of the block

Trim the ends to 30 degrees in the miter box

The miter box set up for slicing the tile.

One slice sawn.

The wheat motif purfling.