Building the Master Mold

Ah, now we get to start working on things that look like guitars. The mold is the unit that holds the shape of the guitar while you work on it. As I understand it there are two ways to go. An inside mold that pulls the shape against is and an outside mold that presses the shape against it. The KMG Success kit comes with a kit for an outside master mold.

You start with one rim of the mold face down. Set a couple of "spacer blocks" in place, glue and nail. Repeat as necessary. Flip it over and do the same thing to the other arm.

Check it frequently to make sure you are square and plumb:

Side one came out ok but I can do better. For the other side I pulled out some clamps and made some changes to the directions. Instead of glueing and nailing one side at a time I kept flip flopping  back and forth. I left the clamps in until enough spacers were in place to hold it securely. I think I was more accurate doing it this way.

Just for kicks I clamped them together:

I still had a lot of fine tuning to do. The spacers can't extend inside the rims. I had to scrape, file, chisel and sand almost every spacer to get the inner space nice and flush to the rims. This is an example of what needed to be addressed. In this case, with the spacers extending behind the arm I couldn't set the splice plate properly.





With the two ends square and flush its time to install the splice plates. I don't know how well you can make this out on the photo but the splice plates are an example of what makes this a success kit. Ken cuts the splice to size and pre-drills the screw pattern. You still have to enlarge the screw holes and and align and attach the plates but the layout is done for you.



And now, after chiseling, filing and sanding the inside - using Ken's elegant suggestion for a sanding roller for the spacers - I have a finished (almost) mold

The last thing you do as part of this step is to draw a center line on the work board.

One thing I forgot is I want to keep track of how long it takes me to build. So far six hours - two for the clamps and four for the master mold.

Pro Style Deep Throat Cam Clamps

No, this is not a Linda Lovelace tribute post - I'm sure you're all disappointed. Building a guitar calls for a lot of specialty tools. Ken's kit comes with a kit to build three cam clamps. The deep throat refers to the reach of the clamp. You'll see what I mean.

The raw materials:



So what you get are three pre-patterned wood pieces, the aluminum bars and the pins. Step one is to finish cutting out the pre-patterned arms. And, of course, my close friend Murphy showed up. I have a pretty good jigsaw, a Bosch, highly rated but not too expensive. It has a locking mechanism to hold the blade in place. There is no screw to tighten. This means when the locking mechanism breaks there is no way to attach the blade. You know your blade is securely locked when you rotate the grip clockwise and hear three clicks. Opened it up, set the blade, rotated the grip, heard click one, heard click two, and then the grip just spun around, there was no third click and there was never going to be a third click. I thought maybe two clicks was enough. I wiggled the blade and it felt pretty secure. So I plugged it in and started ripping. I was maybe 1/2 inch into the first cut when the blade stuck in the wood and the jigsaw kept hammering. Apparently, two clicks wasn't enough.

Frustrating. I thought about taking it apart to find the problem. I'm no MacGiver but I can figure things out. I got the manual, looked at the schematic and my eyes glazed over. Plan B. Long before I bought the Bosch I had a Sears jigsaw. I remember buying it on sales\ for $14.99. Well you get what you pay for and $14.99 doesn't get you much. I forgot that one of its flaws was the stability of the holding mechanism. It held the blade securely but rotated to the right ever so slowly as you were cutting. Perfect if you are cutting ovals. Not so good on straight lines. So I finished the cutting as best I could.

After cutting, filing and sanding you are left with this:



Time for a little glue up. On day one I was going to learn that there is no such thing as too many clamps:

I waited a while for the glue to dry - I used Titebond original formula yellow carpenters glue - and started to assemble. Very straightforward, good directions, finished in about an hour. I used an all purpose drill bit on the aluminum and I did pin the pins with a drop of superglue. As most things in life go the second and third ones came out better than the first:

So the problem with the first one is I didn't pay attention to how much cam is exposed below the upper arm. When you turn the lever the cam doesn't come in contact with the material you are clamping. No big deal, I'll just make a new lever and line it up better before I install it. The other two work fine.

Now do you see what I mean about deep throat? Get your minds out of the gutter!!!

The Kit (box #1) arrives

Ken ships you your success kit via UPS in two rather heavy boxes. The first, which has many of the essential jigs and tools, arrives a few days before the second, which has the actual guitar pieces. So imagine my smile when I got how from work recently and found this waiting for me:

 All right... lets open this sucker up:

and start unpacking:

Lots of stuff that looks very foreign to me. Fortunately some of them are shaped like a guitar so I must be headed down the right path.

The Acoustic Vision Takes Shape

I'm not quite sure when I decided to build an acoustic guitar. I don't really play my Takamine very often, it just sits around gathering dust. I've been having a ton of fun building and playing the Teles for the last few years. I assumed making an acoustic guitar required tools and experiece that were beyond me and my skill level. I told people that know I am a builder that I build electrics because acoustics are way to difficult.

I was in MIMF (Musical Instrument Makers Forum) one day, I don't know what I was looking for, and happened to stumble on a referenence to a Kit Guitar Builders forum. I checked out the site, hmmm... kit building. I bought and read a book, Complete Guide to Building Kit Guitars by Bill Cory. Really well written a great beginners guide to get you started. Lots of advise and wisdom from his build experiences and great reference material. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this:

I did a lot of other reading, looked at a couple more sites, talked to a local builder who offers a kit assembly course and decided to take the plunge. But then I got to thinking... a kit? Shouldn't I be building from scratch. After all there are no electronics, no pickups to wind, its just wood. I'm a decent wood worker. I've built a playhouse. I've built a doll house. But then I got to thinking about bending the sides and cutting and shaping the braces and installing perfling. No way could I do that without serious help. So a kit it was. But which kit?

One thing I like about John's book is the advise he gives first time builders - learn from his mistakes so to speak. He reviews the most popular kit manufacturers and makes recommendations for which one to buy based on your particular circumstance. After reviewing the options I ended going with a "success kit" from Kenneth Michael Guitars. One of the things I liked about Ken's option was the extras - molds, tools, jigs, too numerous to mention - that came with it. I knew this build was going to require getting a lot of specialty tools and this seemed like a very sensible way to get started.

We emailed back and forth a couple of times, finalized the package and visited my friends at Paypal to make it official. The finshed guitar will have a spruce top, rosewood sides and back, ebony finger board. It's going to be beautiful. But enough conversation, lets start building.