Second Falcate Braced Classical Guitar

Forth Contemporary Falcate Classical Guitar Build Blog:

14 April 2017

With the neck heel carved I was able to set the neck angle, route the pocket for the neck extension and install the extension for the bolt on bolt off neck.

I laminated a brazilian rosewood head stock veneer and a black and white fiber sheets. Shaped the fret board wedge extra to match the headstock angle and glued on the head stock veneer.

I rough cut the headstock shape on a band was and then used spoke shave, plane and chisels to finish the shape

I used my fancy Luthier Tool slotting jig for the slots and the holes and was ready to finial carve the neck.

Heavy work with a spokeshave followed by rasps chisels and sand paper I had a neck

I had been thinking my previous classical guitar classical heels were a bit clunky and with the feck extension one almost does not need a heel so I came up with more of a vestigial heel. It really is only 2 mm smaller than normal. I am getting use to it.

I sanded every thing to 220 filling a few gaps and chips in the rosewood along the way and then for the first time used a water based clear filler "Aqua Coat". After z-poxy is was a pleasure to work with. It mostly filled the pores.

With a few wash coats of shellac.

I pored filled the neck with a finishing grade thick CA. I am currently in a spray schedule for post catalyzed Royal-Lac

During my last classical guitar project I made an extra CF reinforced walnut bridge blank. In between spray sessions I got to use my mini milling machine to make a classical bridge.

I will ebonize the bridge with a vinegar and steel wool solution. So I started that as well

4 May 2017

Sorry this is such a big post but it does finish the guitar...

I pore filled the body with AquaClear and sealed with 2lb cut of shellac and sprayed post catalysed Royal-Lac for a finish. It took me a day to figure out how to spray the product cleanly. I used a HVLP spray gun with a 1.2 mm tip. I sprayed five coats the first day> I am sure I sanded most of it off. THe second day I sprayed on 5 clean coats. I leveled the next day and finished with three coats. Three day later I wet sanded and buffed. I really like the look and the feel of the product.

With the finish on, I placed the bridge, cleared the bridge location with straight edge razors with a follow up light sanding.

I used an LMI vacuum clamp to glue it on.

I just used a hammer to drive the frets.

Except for the last two bits of fret wire. I widened the slot and used CA to glue in the last fret.

I roughed out a nut.

Here it is all strung up

I used visual analyzer to take a frequency response curve. I was a bit off of my target frequency's. I was hoping that a top resonance of 190 Hz and the back 4 semitones above that. But I ended up with a top resonance of 186 just above F#. My back resonance was 232 Hz which is 4 semitones above 186. Unfortunately everything is close to being right on a note frequency.

As an experiment I decided to stiffen the back using a trick Trevor told me to move the back a little higher with the hope that the top resonance would also move a bit more off of F#. I make my braces as shown in the Book with a gabled profile using a router table and a 22.5 degree router bit. I pre profiled the lower bout back brace carving a bit too much out of the center, resulting in a lower frequency for the back than I wanted.

Trevor suggested splitting a section of brace in half and gluing the outside (non cut side of the brace together to make a good fitting cap. Pictures make this easier to see.

The additional height on the brace raised the back frequency up to around 255 Hz with very little coupling to the top which moved toward 190 Hz. I shaved almost all of the height off of the cap with a small plane, mostly counting on what amounted to sister beams on both sides of the original carved out brace.

In any case after a lot of carving I ended up with a top between 188 and 190 Hz (depending how I hold the guitar while tapping) and 245 Hz for the back. The guitar still sounds good. I never really heard any problem with the original response, but it was fun to play around. Also note the relative back response is a little less than the original FRC.

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