Well. That is the end of this story. I used sanding sealer and cellulose aerosols to spray the instrument then 400 and 800 grit sandpaper for the elm which gave me a sort of satin finish. I was originally thinking…   Read more»

Thanks for the comments guys. My philosophy is to imagine how they built instruments 100 years ago using mainly hand tools and an imagination. Also, I am only building one-off instruments as a personal challenge. If they turn out sounding…   Read more»

And now.The headstock logo.

My “Thistle” logo was adapted to suit the narrower head and transferred onto 1/64th plywood then taped onto the headstock. careful scribing with a scalpel then an angled cut left a clean outline for routing…   Read more»

More photos for your amusement.

 Carbon fibre truss rod. 8mm x 4mm. Dremmel routed a 3mm slot then widened it with sandpaper on a 2,5mm bit of ply.

 Fretboard slot template was drawn on tracing paper using Stewmac…   Read more»

Had a period of not much work (not Covid) but here are some more photos of the slow progress.

Thats enough excitement for now. more soon, including making the fretboard from scratch and side bending.
 
 

Hi Rocknroller. Without all the right modern piller drills and cnc stuff I had to think of another way to “carve” the plates. The spikey ball technique worked exceptionally well on the “Thistle 2 archtop” maple as opposed to sharpening…   Read more»

That is the outsides of the plates rough planed to the profile lines. quite happy with the results but can’t finish the neck area of the top plate until I get the mortice joint done and the neck rake…   Read more»

spent some time making the front and back profiles for key points (bridge, waist and longitudinal. Now for the fun bit. I’m carving the profiles into the wood using a “Kutzall” carbide spiked ball in my flexidrive from my…   Read more»

Today’s offering is the front and back (planed to 17mm thick) with the perimeter reduced to 5mm using my router in a stand and carefully running the edge past the blade. it took a day to do at 1mm…   Read more»

The carbon truss rod is purely a stiffener 4mm wide x 7mm deep as I am unsure of the potential for elm to flex even in a short length. I am thinking about 22mm thickness at the nut as well…   Read more»

Progress has been slow. I now have the back and front plates planed and bookmatched as best as I can given the fairly open grain.

Also the neck is roughed out and the carbon truss rod groove routed.
 

After a lot of cutting of more bits of the log to get the right grain direction, I cut 3 slices about 6mm thick x 70mm wide to be the sides. I then planed them down to about 3.5mm…   Read more»

The log. The design was based on lots of looking at you tubes and drawings and photos until I was confident (?) about scale lengths body sizes widths etc. having concluded that there is no standard size. I eventually…   Read more»

Thanks guys. I have been friends with Martin (as have Mark and Carol) for over 20 years and he is just a modest fun loving person who isn,t bad on the guitar.

I have posted the video of martin Taylor and my guitars on “Thistle 2 The archtop if you are interested

This is the video I made of Martin Taylor playing my guitars.

 Highlight of my “musical” career.

Don’t just sit there, buy some wood and get going. i loved every minute of my project.
Mind you, patience is required. If you want to see fingerstyle archtop, look at Martin Taylor on you tube.

I have been off line for a while but am still alive and kicking. I refinished the face of the acoustic to get rid of a crazing effect and bothe are sounding good despite my playing abilities. As posted elsewhere,…   Read more»

Thanks. it took about a year to complete and was finishes one week before lockdown in March 2020 so hasn’t been played in public as such but Martin Taylor has recorded it along with my acoustic Thistle. That was special….   Read more»