Getting close to Valentine's Day--Did I mention we love our instruments?

In room 401, guitars are starting to take shape for the second year students. This semester, we have a wide array of guitars being built, from a neck-thru electric to a baritone acoustic guitar.

The electric guitars seem to be all over the place as far as how complete each is. A student building a "SG" style guitar just finished gluing on the neck to the body, while a couple others are just starting the neck. This all seems to depend on how simple or extreme the design is. A common theme among carved top builders seems to be carving the top on the CNC machine. One text run has been done so far, and it turned out great!

On the other hand, the acoustic builders seem to be in pretty close pace with each other. Most have been starting to glue on kerfing, some even gluing the box together. It is amazing to see how large (baritone) or how small (ukulele) some instruments are!

Regardless of the type, all instruments are being constructed carefully and with a well thought-out plan.

Luke

Spring Semester 2011

It's week two of the first spring semester in the Guitar Development and Production program. Our current classes include Advanced Guitar Construction, Advanced Inlay and Archtop (in which we continue the instrument we started last semester).

In our Advanced Guitar Construction classes, we are building the instruments that we previously made templates and molds for in CAD/CNC class last November and December. We have 16 weeks to complete the instrument we designed and are graded according to our weekly progress and the overall build. This class focuses on building a guitar from the ground up, while paying close attention to how much time each step will take and consequently, the whole process.

In our new Inlay class, we will all be aiming our sights on completing a number custom inlay projects both by hand and on the CNC machine. This two credit class will be a great door opener to the intricate world of inlays.

Things are being picked up where they were left off before our winter break. A lot of the guitar and mandolin builders have the final arches done with f-holes in and are getting ready to glue the box together. Those who are constructing an instrument with margins (violins/a few mandolins) are mostly finishing up final top arches--after having scraped down purfling.

-Luke

The Final Day of the First Semester!

Well it's the last day of the first semester at Southeast Technical and everyone is getting ready for a well--deserved break--whether or not people give working on guitars a break is up in the air....

For the past few weeks the second year students have been hard at work finishing up projects to turn in and finish this week. Whether trying to quick string-up an acoustic or buff out a finish repair in Adv. Repair, or finish an arch or put in purfling in Archtop, things have been getting down to the wire.

In CAD/CNC, we have cut out all necessary templates, bending molds, and outside molds. To finish up the class we all have been working on a "second project", which could be anything from a 3-d model of a carved-top to a blueprint of a six-string neck-thru bass.

To say room 317 is busy on Wednesday nights would be an understatment. We've all been hard at work trying to buff out eight project boards to an EXTREME shine with absolutely no scratches--and stuff is flyin'!

To wrap it up, this first semester of the very first year of Guitar Development and Production has been full of new and exciting work. We've gone from being "cnc-illiterate" to being able to cut out a fully functional fingerboard with a 16" radius and the correct slot depths. Let's not forget about a UV finish that can be sprayed and buffed the same day it the wood was prep-sanded! Just three weeks and we're on to the final semester to create some nice instruments!

Luke

As the End of Semester 1 Approaches...

As we near Turkey Day next week, I think it really started to hit a few of us that we really only have a few more weeks until Christmas break and, ultimately the end of the 1st semester. If there is one thing that is said often at Southeast Tech it would have to be: "Wow, it went by so fast!"

In both Advanced Repair and Advanced Finishing classes things are really starting to get serious. With only a few weeks left, we've got A LOT of buffing to do, aiming to get that "Colling's" buff, as Brian says, on each project board. As far as repairs go--there's just A LOT of guitars that need repairing out there!

In CAD/CNC, the router is constantly running and making that high-pitched buzz we've all grown so accustomed to (whether in Second Year or not, to be sure!) as templates and outside molds are cut out.

Finally, in archtop class, things are sort of all over the place...as expected when there are violins, mandolins, and archtop guitars being built all in one room. Final arches are being planed and scraped, margins are being trimmed and corners cut, and things just keep picking up as we near the half-way point in our build.

-Luke

First week of November

A lot has been going on in the Guitar Development & Production program this past month. One worthy note: we're officially halfway through the semester and it really doesn't seem like things are going to lose momentum.

In repairs class, besides doing the normal and, believe me, random repair projects, we've started to hand-bend guitar sides. This used to be the way the students used to bend them, before we had bending blankets and bending molds. Here is an example of a bridge plate that was made smaller than the bridge and the pressure of the strings forced the top to bend up and crack it.

In CAD/CNC we are all starting to, or already have, cut out our templates, bending molds, etc. Turns out, a CNC machine can be pretty loud!

Wood chips are flying down in the violin room on Tuesday and Thursday nights as most of us are in the process of rough arching our archtops, mandolins, or violins. After being rough arched, or anyone putting a margin on their instrument instead of binding, it is "spot" glued, or temporarily glued, together. It is not even close to being ready to do the final gluing, but it still is really cool to see the instrument come together as a whole.


Finally, in Advanced Finishing class, we have found the true potential of UV Finishes. Since they have such a high solids content, a project can be sprayed in as little as two coats, cured, and ready to be buffed in only a matter of hours! I would take a picture of the process but I think my camera might blow up!  Maybe not, but since the UV light is so powerful we have to cover every part of our body and wear gloves and UV-special masks.

-Luke

Things are on the way...

It's the start of October and things are really getting interesting in the second year guitar program.

In advanced repairs, we have all been doing a number of different repairs--whether a bridge re-glue, neck reset, fret job, or even a headstock crack. Things are getting exciting as we all work to expand our knowledge of guitar repairs.

In CAD/CNC, we have finally begun tinkering around with the actual CNC machine. I have no doubt that soon we will be cutting out molds and templates. One thing's for sure: that machine is really going to get broken in during the next few months!

Come Wednesday, we will be spraying and curing a UV conversion finish in advanced finish work--which is sure to be cool. Also, we start to venture deep into the world of finish repairs such as drop fills, color touch ups, burn-ins and practicing grain lines.

Instruments are starting to take shape in arch top class. Most are finishing up bending and gluing ribs to blocks and we start working on gluing kerfing/linings in.

Start of Week 5

It's week four and things are starting to pick up for the second year guitar students. In archtop class, we've all been running around trying to get our ribs bent and glued to our head/tail/waist blocks--whether mandolin, archtop guitar, or violin!

As tools class comes to an end and the first year students start their new schedule, we start our adjusted schedule with Fridays off. With advanced finish work now only on Wednesday nights, we look forward to finishing (no, not that kind, we've already sprayed them!) our first project: a goldtop finish. Another thing
we're working on is buffing project boards and practicing our burn-ins and
 grain-lines.

In our CAD and CNC classes we have finally gotten through our intro workbook and are excited to starting mapping out our future guitars from paper to the Rhino. We also look forward to using the data we have learned about this past month and putting it into a CNC machine to cut out templates and molds.

-Luke