Workbench Notes and New Projects

Patterning a Rosette

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:57:47 -0700

Lutherie is equal parts Art and Craft. Along with other decorative appointments, the rosette is where I get to do some pure art. I love this part of the build. No two of any Edwinson guitars in existence are sporting the same rosette. Every one of them is unique. I’ve used the same patterns many times, but with virtually unlimited variations in woods, shell materials, and colored veneer lines, there doesn’t seem to be much point in doing the same thing over and over again.
Lately, I’ve moved past my old standard “Compass” design, and patterned out some new shapes and graphic presentations. This article depicts the entire process, start to finish, on a new guitar I’m making for my friend Henderson, who lives in Honolulu. Since Henderson lives on an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, I thought it would be cool to do some sort of wave motif. This is what I came up with.
The waves are cut from the same Macassar Ebony that the sides and back are made of. The alternating swirl elements are made of Imbouiya burl, which will also be used for purflings around the perimeter of the top. The veneer lines are dyed Maple, in rust, orange, and red. The inner and outer rings, and sound hole binding, are black ebony, which will also be used for bindings on the rest of the guitar.
Henderson supplied the amazing flamed Sinker Redwood top for this guitar. It’s got some outrageous figure going on, and with this wave rosette installed, it looks very three-dimensional. This guitar certainly won’t be a shy, plain looking wallflower. When she walks into the room, heads will turn and hearts will quicken.

On my early guitars, I used to spend two or three entire days to make a rosette. They were pretty labor-intensive, as each part had to be cut and shaped individually.
Using jigs that I made for circle cutting, and using the disc sander to shape the outside curves, each piece of the design was carefully fitted together, hopefully ending up with a pleasing result. I was never the “ten minute rosette” guy.

The whole process is now greatly streamlined. About three years ago, Aaron and I acquired a 1940’s-era pattern engraving machine from a woodworker who decided to change careers. This machine has revolutionized our ability to do inlay work.

The engraving machine consists of about 400 pounds of cast iron and precision machined steel. It’s huge, considering the tiny parts that it makes. Basically, it’s a hand-operated duplicating machine, utilizing patterns made to scale from 1:1 to 1:8 in proportion to the parts you want to make. The cutter head uses 1/8” shank down-cutting end mills that are sized at 25 or 31 thousandths. Here’s a picture of this beast: As you see here, the machine has a pantograph armature that links the hand-operated stylus to the tiny cutter on the left. The pattern on the top deck, right side is used to guide the cutter.

I usually set the machine up to a 1:6 ratio. That is, my hand made patterns are scaled to 600% of the size of the inlay pieces I’m making. Using an .031 end mill and a 1/8” stylus, the parts come out very precise and tight. With a good pattern, I can make dozens of exactly shaped inlay pieces in a short time. This gives me the freedom to try all sorts of material combinations. The picture below is a closeup of the cutter, motoring out a line of Macassar ebony wave pieces.

Here’s how the patterns are made:
I use 1/8” thick white Sintra for the patterns. First, I make some blanks to follow the round of the rosette, scaled to 600%. I cut the blanks with the router, using this shop-made circle cutting jig. The picture on the right shows the resulting pattern blanks. When I’m doing a new design, I make enough blanks to do several different patterns.

Next, I sketch some designs on the Sintra blanks. When I come up with a shape I like, I cut it out with a jewelers saw. This is the master pattern, which I use to trace the lines on the working pattern blank. The interlocking pattern pieces are carefully cut out, and glued to a backing board. This pattern (below right) is good to go now.

I save all cut-off wood from backs and sides, and have been collecting some nice chunks of exotic burl wood to use for inlay work. I sort through my scrap collection, and find some pieces that play well together. The select pieces are run through the thickness sander to make them exactly 1/16” thick. Then I stick them onto a backing board with double sided print adhesive. Pictured below right are the Macassar ebony and Imbouiya burl that I used on Henderson’s rosette.

Now, it’s time to take the new pattern and the inlay material over to the engraver.

Once it’s all set up, I can start mass-producing rosette tiles.

Then I bend the inner and outer rosette rings, and select some colored veneers to cut into purfling strips. I use a rosette work board to assemble all the pieces, dry-fit, so I can work up a nice looking design before implanting the whole thing into the guitar top. Pictured below is one of five different versions I tried out for the Wave rosette.

I finally settled on using the Macassar/ Imbouiya combination. It just looked right with that crazy Sinker Redwood top.
The next part of the process is to cut the inlay channel in the top. I made this little circle cutting jig to score the cut lines with a sharp blade. This prevents fuzzies and tear-out when I rout the channel with the Dremel router.
I use the same rosette work board to set up the circle cutter and the Dremel, so the channel will be precisely sized to fit the rosette.

All the parts are dry-fit into the channel to make sure everything works. When it’s all good, I glue it in. After the glue has set up, the rosette is sanded flush to the top. The sloppy part up at the top will be covered by the fingerboard.

Finally, the sound hole is cut out and bound. I bind every sound hole on every guitar. Not only does it protect the softwood end-grain from the onslaught of picks and fingernails, it also adds completeness to the composition.

So there ya have it, a finished rosette. Couldn’t be simpler.

Below are some photos of some other recent designs I’ve come up with.

Long live the Pattern Engraver!

And last but not least, here’s a Falcon inlay that I made with the Pattern Engraver’s help:

Announcing the Arrival of a new ECC Consort Cutaway

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:45:16 -0800

On February fifth, this new guitar began its life with a strummed G chord. It sounded big and robust, and sustained for twenty two seconds before becoming inaudible. I slapped a twelfth fret harmonic, with the same result. As I cut in the nut slots and refined the setup, I kept testing the guitar, and it kept giving back nothing but hugely enthusiastic response. Master grade Indian Rosewood and Western Red Cedar told the story. This one’s a finely honed katana.

I have a ritual that I perform with every new guitar. Once I have the setup dialed in where I like it, I take it through a range of tunings, from concert pitch standard to various D- and C- based tunings. This gives me a pretty rounded take on the guitar’s emergent tonal character.
Then I hold the soundbox up to my face and begin singing into the sound hole. I sing through a range of long, sustained notes. When I hit the guitar’s fundamental pitch, the whole instrument begins to vibrate like crazy, and the strings ring sympathetically. When I stop my voice suddenly, the note continues to ring out from inside the guitar, sometimes for a long time. There’s a weird, euphoric thrill I get when this starts to happen.
I continue singing into the guitar for several minutes, until I’ve found all of its most responsive pitches. When I find a really resonant frequency, I work it, singing loud and sustained notes, quiet short notes, and everything between. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I swear I can feel the guitar coming to life. In a way, I feel like I’m a shaman, singing this new guitar awake with magic incantations. By the time I’m done with this ritual, it seems that the new guitar has become aware of itself, and it knows what it’s supposed to do and be.
I know this may sound kind of woo-woo to some of you, but it really works. Try it with your own guitar: Sing into the air cavity, and try to find the fundamental pitch of the instrument. If your guitar is responsive and not overbuilt, you may get a big surprise when it starts to vibrate. If you have a digital chromatic tuner handy, you can really start getting a picture of its tonal makeup.
This new Consort is now sparkling with life. I had it hanging on a wall hook in the shop yesterday, and as a bus went by on the street outside, it started ringing sympathetically. The bus engine sounded a pitch that just made the guitar go. To me, this is a sign of success. And the proof is in the playing.
Here are some photos of the new Consort:

I think this new guitar will excel as a recording and performing instrument. I’ve taken it through the paces over the last few days, and it responds with equal vivacity to a wide range of tunings and playing styles. (The scale length is 25.5”, which accommodates lowered tunings nicely.) There is great clarity and separation in arpeggiated runs, and chords ring out full and proud. It moves a lot of air with little effort, showing a very wide dynamic range. The sustain is incredible, and yet it never seems to get muddy or crowded when you play fast and loud.
This is a natural-born modern fingerstyle guitar. Some of my favorite players whom I imagine would love this Consort are: Pierre Bensusan, Martin Simpson, Kaki King, Tommy Immanuel, Don Ross, Muriel Anderson, Ulli Bogershausen, Kotaro Oshio, Sungha Jung, Phil Keaggy, and others who occupy that exalted pantheon. I wish I could get some of these guys to swing by the shop and check it out. It’s these types of players that I’m angling for. These guitars are built optimally for the modern fingerstylist. This guitar rates among my top five, all-time, I’m proud to say. But then, I say that about all of them.

A note about the woods and appointments: The back and sides are master grade old growth Indian Rosewood. The top is AAAA Western Red Cedar, perfectly quartered, with lovely silking (AKA medullary rays). The neck is three-piece, quarter sawn Honduran Mahogany with Rosewood center fill. Body binding is highly flamed Bigleaf Maple, with rosewood end-grain and dyed veneer purflings. The fingerboard, bridge, and front headstock plate are Nigerian Ebony. The fingerboard and headstock are bound in ebony, with flamed Maple purfling and thin red pin striping.
Fretboard inlay includes abalone side position dots, and 4mm Paua abalone fret position dots with brass outer rings, topside. At the twelfth fret is my trademark stylized lotus inlay, in black pearl, white pearl, and Paua. The headstock crest is adorned with the Edwinson E logo in black pearl.
The rosette is a new design, done with spalted Maple and Rosewood mosaic tiles, ebony inner and outer rings, and dyed Maple veneer lines. The sound hole is bound in ebony, and the sound port in flamed Maple.

For more information and specifications on this guitar, click HERE to go to the Consort Model page. You’ll find a detailed list of specifications at the bottom of the page, and photos of previous incarnations of the Consort model.

I built this guitar on spec. It is available, at the price of $4250 USD. That includes a custom fitted Ameritage Gold Series case. (Click on this url to see the case specs: http://www.ameritagecases.com/category.php?cat=Gold_Series)

UPDATE, March 26 2010. This guitar is now available at the Guitar Emporium in Seattle. Robb and I decided to offer this beauty at a substantial price reduction. With a Guardian brand hardshell case, the current special price is $3500. If you choose to upgrade to a custom fitted Ameritage Gold Series case, the price is $3850. That gets you this super-deluxe case for $130 below list.

If you’d like further information, shoot me an email: edwinsonguitar@yahoo.com and I’ll get back to you quickly.

Two New Falcon Guitars

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 13:46:43 -0800

Two new Falcon guitars are here, fresh off the workbench, fully fledged, and ready to fly. I was very excited to get these two done, because I knew all along the way that they would both have a special vibe. As I was building them, both sound boxes had an amazing tap--they were very resonant and lively, like well tuned drums.

I was expecting good outcomes for these two, but I was totally stunned by how much punch, power, and tonal complexity they both had from the first day. This is the newest model in the Edwinson line, and I’ve built only three so far, but they have all exceeded my best hopes and expectations. They’re like tiny Italian sports cars with very powerful engines, race-tuned suspensions, and sexy aerodynamic lines. They go from zero to sixty the moment you put your hands on them.
The first new Falcon is a natural blonde, built with South American Canary wood and a 30-year air dried Lutz spruce top. I’ve never seen another guitar made with Canary wood, but I decided to try it because it seemed to have all the right properties of a superior tonewood. It’s a quite dense and non-porous wood, with a bright, ringing taptone, and surprising sustain. It is canary yellow, with orange and red notes, straight to wavy grain on the quarter, and a lustrous chatoyance in the figure. This wood bends, works, and finishes very nicely, and remains dimensionally stable in service. I will definitely be looking for more Canary wood. This is primo stuff.
The Lutz spruce top came out of a log quarter that was sold to us by a gentleman who had an ambition to build mountain dulcimers thirty years ago, but never got around to it, as marriage, family, and a “real” job intervened. It sat in his basement, air drying for three decades. One day, he passed by our shop and asked if maybe we’d like to buy it from him. The transaction worked out well for everybody.
This wood has some minor cosmetic flaws, but it sounded and felt better than almost anything I’d ever run across, so I decided to use it on this “experimental” guitar. It’s mind-blowingly lively and tuneful in the final result, so a few tiny little blemishes don’t hurt my feelings one bit. I wish I had a hundred more sets of this stuff.
The neck is a two-piece, quartersawn White Limba construction, which is a nice color match for the body woods. Limba is an excellent neck wood in every respect, with properties to match Honduran Mahogany. As good mahogany continues to become more scarce and expensive, I’ll be using Limba for necks on a lot of future guitars.
The guitar body, neck, and headstock are bound with Indian Rosewood, with Purpleheart and red veneer purflings. The fingerboard and front and rear headstock plates are also Indian Rosewood. The bridge is Argentine Brown Ebony, which is a nice color in concert with the other woods. The upper bout side has an open, bound sound port, a standard feature on the Falcon. The tuning machines are Grover Sta-Tite open gear tuners with nickel finish, bronze gears, and an 18/1 ratio.

The other new Falcon is a Rosa Negra. In Spanish guitars, an instrument built with rosewood back and sides and a cedar top is sometimes called a rosa negra, so I borrowed that designation. I like the sound of the translation too: The “Black Rose”.
This combination of woods is optimal for fluent, highly expressive fingerstyle guitars. It gives you a tonal palette that can go from light, springy and melodic, to darkly funereal.
This new Falcon has all of that. It responds with gusto to a wide range of tunings, and with a 22 7/8” scale length and a slim, fast neck, it plays like a dream.
The body, fingerboard, and headstock are bound in flamed Koa, with rosewood and dyed veneer purflings. The fingerboard and front and rear headstock plates are an undetermined species of striped Southeast Asian Ebony, which is a nice complement to the other woods. As with the Canary Falcon, the neck is Limba, two piece, with a rosewood center strip, and the bridge is Argentine Brown Ebony. The tuners are Grover Sta-Tites, nickel finish.

For more information and pictures of the Falcon guitar, click HERE to go to the Model page. You’ll find a complete list of specifications at the bottom of the page.

The first prototype of the Falcon guitar has already garnered some serious praise. Its owner, J.R. Rogers, is the founder and owner of the Acoustic Guitar Forum, a fantastic multimedia online forum for everything related to acoustic guitars and the people who love them. If you don’t believe my hype, click on this: http://69.41.173.82/forums/showthread.php?p=2035077 to see what J.R. thinks of his Falcon guitar. If you Google “edwinson falcon guitar”, you’ll find more cool stuff to read as well.

I built both of these guitars on spec, to introduce this new model. They are available now. My asking price is $3150 for the Canary guitar, and $3250, USD, for the rosewood one. If you’d like more information, send me an email at edwinsonguitar@yahoo.com.

New Years Eve 2010

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 16:19:45 -0800

Brent and his band have a storied history of playing shows at the Brick Saloon. To the regret of many local fans, both up there and down here, Ford and the F-250’s went on a lengthy hiatus about three years ago, as the band members were getting married, having kids, and generally being forced by circumstance to start behaving like responsible adults. It was tough to coordinate schedules for band practice and shows, and other priorities had to be attended to. So they decided to pull the plug for awhile and give Ford a rest.
They couldn’t stay gone for too long, though. Brent decided he wanted to pull the band back together for a New Years Eve gig at the Brick, for old time’s sake. His erstwhile band mates enthusiastically agreed, even though they could only arrange time for three full band practice sessions, to blow the dust off their lengthy set list and start ‘er up again.

In early November, Brent decided to pull the trigger, and asked me to build him a custom Edwinson Guitar. He’d been wanting to do that for a long time. He requested that the guitar should be done in time for the New Year’s show in Roslyn, so I put some of my other projects on the back burner and commenced the build right away. It came together really well. I’ve been a fan of this guy for the better part of a decade, and I knew he needed a guitar with a lot of horsepower, that would stand up to his take-no-prisoners playing style.
I managed to get the guitar finished in time to hand it over on December 23rd, so Brent could take it home over the Christmas break and play it in a bit before the show. It would be a big understatement to say that Brent was happy with the outcome. I was pretty happy myself, proud and honored to build a guitar perfectly suited to a guy of Brent’s calibre.

On December 31st, a snow storm came in fast and heavy up north, on the way to Roslyn. Driving conditions up at the Pass were quickly getting treacherous, but at this point, it was damn the torpedoes. Aaron, Brent, and I loaded up the Grand Cherokee and made our way north into the storm, often at a snail’s crawl in the high elevations.
We arrived in Roslyn, safe and sound, about an hour before dark. Plenty of time for a late lunch and a nap, and loading in the gear, and a sound check for the band, who all managed to make it through the storm unscathed. Good portents?
Even though it was New Year’s Eve, we were thinking that it would probably be a pretty thin crowd on account of the weather.
Wrong! These people aren’t weather wimps.
The Brick was humming with activity all day. By the time Ford took the stage at ten PM, the place was packed.

Even though it had been at least three years since the last Ford show, the band hit the groove running, and they never let up. More and more people piled in, a huge celebratory throng, filling the dance floor, shakin’ what they got with raucous exuberance and glad abandon. I lurked around with my camera, taking dozens of pictures of the band, the crowd, the lines at the bar. It was a great thrill for me. Brent’s new guitar sounded tremendous--clean and powerful and true. As an audience member, I marked every moment. He’d brought two other guitars with him, but they never came off their stands all night. He played the Edwinson through all three sets. To me, that was a ringing, rocking endorsement.