Count to ten

 

Ok. All ten fingers are accounted for and still attached to the same places they were moments before.

Take a deep breath, count to ten again, turn off the band saw, and start to pick up the pieces.

I wanted to trim down the head block to line up closer to the sides.  I normally use a hand plane or a sander, but I needed to trim it down a fair amount and this is edge grain that is a bit of a PITA.  So no problem, I'll just take a quick rough pass on the band saw (which has an aggressive resaw blade on it at the moment)

To get it to fit, I had to retract the safety guard all the way up,  which is a bit scary so I held the guitar sides by the back.....  all of this was not a great idea and the last part especially so.

At this point in the build the sides are pretty flexible.... it bound up on the blade and "spun" out of my hands.   Initially a big chunk broke off, and the whole thing spun right there on the table, striking the blade in at least four different places before it completely shattered and threw pieces in all directions.

It was nearly instant and quite impressive.

Band saws are "relatively" safe compared to table saws, but they can still be pretty damned scary.

It pays off to be prudently paranoid of such tools, better to chew up a piece of wood than a body part.  Even better to not be lazy and get some extra exercise with the hand plane or hand saw.

And in the end there will be a guitar with a story and some scars to prove it.

Back story:  whenever I need to buy any luthiery supplies, I often reverse sort by price and see if there is anything interesting.   What we have here is the least expensive black walnut back-and-sides set I have run across, if I remember correctly it was $15.

The size was a bit too small, but if I was careful I could get a L-00 out of it.  The website noted that it wasn't perfectly book matched, had a crack or two, some insect damage, etc, etc.

But as I was working on it.... I think it is (or at least was) going to be quite lovely and was strongly considering using this for a "good" standard build guitar vs an inexpensive experimental one.    I'm now strongly considering "experimental" ;-)

I've already steamed apart the remnants and glued the bigger chucks back together as much as was feasible. The Plan B will be to bend a new set of sides, probably using 1/8" plywood, and laminate it with the walnut on the outside.  That will ensure it is nice and strong, compensating for structural damage to the walnut in several places (up to and including one side being torn completely in two).

Plan C will be to toss these sides and find some new wood that will match up with the quite lovely (and undamaged) back.

I was debating on what to use for top wood.  Now I'm thinking Douglas Fir, I have a nice piece that I don't otherwise know what to do with.

For the neck, I have a sap wood black walnut board that has some character, and the left over walnut from the previous guitar for fret board and bridge.

We'll see after Sides Version 2.0 is done.

9/13/2025 update

First pass at repairs are complete. The body is once again structurally sound and the cosmetics are mostly done. 

Here is a photo of the repair of the worst damage.  Right side is probably as good as it is going to get, the left side is getting there -- it looks better in person than in the photo.

There are four blade strikes in total in this photo - one of the repairs is almost invisible, two of them will be visible but probably won't be distracting (especially if I do binding on this one).  I left the neck block damage as is & orientated where I hoped it would be visible through the sound hole, but it doesn't look like that will work out.... I can't see it at all in a test fitting (marked with a red arrow)