Grain Filling with Epoxy (Instead of Egg Whites!)

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anthony, art, egg whites, guitar building, guitar making, lutherie, luthier, murkar, music, wood, woodworking, working

So unfortunately many of my images from previous posts are apparently not recoverable – so I’m doing a re-post on grain filling because somebody asked for images. This time, I’ll cover how to do it with Epoxy instead of Egg Whites. However, the process is the same – the only major difference is that you must wet sand egg whites (you can’t scrape the surface like you can with epoxy). This is because it’s the mix of egg whites and sawdust that ends up filling the grain.

If you have to choose one, I’d recommend epoxy – it’s much easier and faster than egg whites. Grain filling with egg whites is fun and nostalgic, but unless you love sanding (and I do not), I’d recommend going with epoxy. Epoxy usually doesn’t require more than one coat, making it quite a bit faster than egg whites.

Since this is an entirely new post on grain filling, I thought maybe I should cover why it’s important – as you can see below, this is an open pored wood. This particular piece is Cocobolo. There are large open pores – and when you spray a finish (or try to apply a French polish), the pores will show up on the surface because the surface isn’t completely flat. The purpose of pore filling is therefore to fill up the pores, with the end-goal of creating a perfectly flat surface that is ready for applying finish. Proper pore filling will allow you to achieve a glass-like, smooth finish.

Step one: Mix up a very small batch of epoxy. I use a five minute epoxy, and work on small patches at a time. I find this easier, but you can choose an epoxy with a longer open time if it suits your fancy.

Step two is pretty basic – smear the epoxy evenly over a small area of your wood surface. Wipe it on both with and across the grain, making sure it goes into all of the pores well. You have to work quickly if you’re using an epoxy with a short open time, so don’t dally.

The next step is to remove remove the epoxy from the surface using something flat. An old credit card, empty (empty!) gift card, or an old razor blade will work well for this. The purpose of this is to remove as much epoxy as possible from the surface of the wood, while NOT removing it from the pores.

Mix up another batch of epoxy and repeat until you’ve covered the whole surface of your project with a thin layer of epoxy. Then make sure that you let the epoxy cure completely before proceeding to the next step.

Once the epoxy has cured hard, you can use a razor blade, a cabinet scraper, or sandpaper to level the surface. The razor blade is my preference – just be careful not scratch the surface of the wood. Use it like a cabinet scraper to scrape the whole surface flat, leaving epoxy ONLY in the pores (not on the surface of the wood).

Once you’ve scraped the whole surface level, sand the surface with 400 grit sandpaper lightly. Be careful not to remove the pore filler that you’ve worked so hard to put in place. The image below shows a properly filled surface after a light 400 grit sanding – you can see that it’s perfectly smooth and flat, and is ready for you to apply the finish.

Epoxy shrinks less than other pore fillers, making it an ideal product for pore filling. It also dries clear. Make sure that you test your epoxy before using it for grain filling – it should dry hard. If it’s soft and gummy like rubber, don’t use it. The epoxy produced by “Gorilla Glue” sometimes dries like this, and is unsuitable for grain filling.

Thats all for now!
~ Anthony Murkar

Upcoming Tutorial: Making a Krenov Smooth Plane

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hand, handplane, krenov, lesson, making, plane, smooth, tutorial, wood, wooden, woodworking, working

Somebody commented asking about making planes…so I thought it would be a decent idea to show how to go about making a Krenov smoother fo anybody who is interested in making a wooden handplane.

There are some OK tutorials online, but most of them don’t really talk about what makes a plane good. If you want your plane to cut well there are a few things that are important to know when making your Krenov. In addition, I’m making a plane for a friend (probably from Ebony) – so I will be recording the whole process of making a smooth plane from start to finish. That way anyone who reads the tutorial should hopefully have the knowledge necessary to make a smooth plane completely (from start to finish) by the end of the tutorial.

This will be a small smoother, with a 36 mm blade. I am hoping that the iron arrives later today so that I can get started this evening. I will begin posting the lesson as soon as I receive the iron.

Identifying Quartersawn Wood (or, Medullary Ray Explained)

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across, alberta, anthony, bc, blank, british columbia, builder, building, canada, canadian, check, community, cut, explain, fix, forum, grain, group, grown, guitar, hand, handplane, home, homegrownlutherie, how, identify, if, is, know, lumber, lutherie, luthier, luthiers, mahogany, maker, making, manitoba, medullar, medullary, meeting, murkar, neck, north, northwest, nw, ontario, organization, plane, quarter, quartered, quartersawn, quebec, ray, rays, repair, rough, runour, sawn, see, smooth, sound, soundboard, southern, tell, territories, to, top, west, what, wood

There was an interesting thread on MyLesPaul today about quartersawn wood…

There are a number of views on how much it matters that guitar necks be quartersawn. Personally I would use quartered or flatsawn only, nothing with distinctly angled grain. However some say it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s stable.

It came up in conversation, however, that often saw marks or end grain sealer at the lumber yard covers up the end grain of the wood, making it difficult to identify the grain direction while you are there. So I thought I would share this.

This is widely known by acoustic builders, but I think electric guitar builders tend to pay less attention to the structure of wood to some degree. I wanted this to be posted here so that it gets archived along with the other tips and techniques…that way it’s here for anyone just getting started in guitar building to learn about.

So here it is, a piece of basic lutherie knowledge that everyone should be aware of: How to identify quartersawn wood, without looking at the endgrain (or, a brief lesson in the anatomy of wood).

It’s actually very simple. I must note that you’ll rarely come across wood that is perfectly quartered so as to display this in a regular lumber yard (unless they have wood marked as quartered, or a section for instrument woods), but if you bring a finger plane with you, you can find out the grain direction of rough sawn lumber quickly and easily by looking for this characteristic. In addition, in the opinion of many, this should be the standard by which you assess whether wood is considered quartersawn for the purposes of lutherie.

In many woods, medullary ray is visible in perfectly quartered blocks. It is visible on the face of the wood that is perpendicular to the vertical grain. However, when the wood is off quarter by more than about 10 degrees, the ray disappears. So it is only visible in perfectly quartered wood. The ray is visible running sideways across the grain (at a 90 degree angle to the normal grain direction). Below is an example of medullary ray, here seen in a piece of African Mahogany:

However, here is a piece from the same block of mahogany, but this piece is slightly off quarter. Notice that the medullary ray is not visible in this piece. This means it is not perfectly quartersawn.

So, there you have it – the easy way to tell exactly which way the grain is running, without looking at the end grain. If you plane on the edge of a square block and the ray becomes visible, it’s rift sawn at about 45 degrees. If the ray is visible on the wide face, it’s quartersawn. If it’s visible on the narrow face, it’s flat sawn.

Luthier’s Miniature Handplane

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anthony, building, dovetail, guitar, handplane, infill plane, lutherie, luthier, making, murkar, plane, violin, wood, woodworking, working

Another handplane is in progress. I think this one will turn out to the be the nicest one yet when it’s finished. Tomorrow I will polish the sides to a high gloss.

That’s it for now!
~ Anthony Murkar

Making of the Mahogany J-11: Part III

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blog, building, electric, fender, gibson, grown, guitar, guitars, handmade, hiscock, home, how, information, instructional, J-11, j11, les paul, lesson, lutherie, luthiers, mahogany, make, maker, making, melyvn, of, strat, stratocaster, tele, telecaster, the, to, use, what, when, where, which, why, wood, woods

Have been working every day 12 hours for a week or two…exhaustion is long past set in, but regardless I’ve managed to find a couple of hours to work on this project and it’s coming along quite nicely.

First step – make some cheese bread from scratch!

After that I hogged out material for the pickup routes and the wire channel, then screwed down my acrylic template.

Routed out the cavities. Had some tearout from rushing and not being careful (exhaustion) but it will be hidden in the end under the pickguard anyways. I will patch it up and clean it up a bit later.

This is what I’m going for – same as my first build (the prototype). All gold hardware, two humbuckers – one volume, one tone, and a blend pot instead of a toggle switch. Gotoh TOM bridge and stop tailpiece.

The headstock inlay has been order from DePaule supply, so I’m looking forward to having that here so I can finish up the neck.

Another Miniature Handplane

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anthony, brace, bracing, brass, cocobolo, for, handplane, how, infill, lie, luthier, luthiers, make, maker, making, mini, miniature, murkar, nielson, norris, peen, pins, plane, rosewood, small, smooth, steel, to, tool, toos, veritas, violin, wood, woodsmith, working

Having a grand old time making these miniature handplanes…this one has no glue, the sides are held in place with brass pins that are peened so they’re nice and tight and shouldn’t be going anywhere for at least 100 years.

The blade is O1 steel, body is Cocobolo. Cuts beautifully. The mouth is about 0.5 mm, quite tight.

This one will sell for $80 or so. I also sold the Luthier’s Knife to a guy in the United Kingdom so it’s gone from my shop now.

Making Miniature Handplanes Part II

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a, A2, angle, best, block, bracing, brass, cocobolo, convex, finger, grown, guitar, hand, handplane, handplanes, home, homegrown, ibex, infill, is, lee, lie, little, lutherie, luthier, maker, makers, making, mini, miniature, nielsen, norris, O1, palm, plane, planer, planes, plough, review, rosewood, router, side, small, spiers, steel, tiny, tools, valley, violin, what, wood

The miniature handplane has been completed! This one will be sold for $75 CAD or so. Tomorrow I’ll start making another one.

The blade is 17 mm wide, O1 steel. The bottom of this one is flat, not curved. Some sample test cuts on Cocobolo and Cuban Mahogany:

Score!

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aaa, african, american, burl, cuban, grade, guitar, honduran, inexpensive, instrument, load, lumber, luthier, mahogany, master, price, quality, quartered, quartersawn, score, spalted, spruce, wood

Just wanted to post this here because I’m excited about it…a big pile of African mahogany I just purchased at a VERY good price. Looks like I’ll be making three more electric guitars this winter!

Mahogany of the highest grade, straight grained and perfectly quartered. Ideal for some modified Single Cut Les Paul Juniors…..!

Sound of Old vs. New Instruments: José Romanillos

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affects, age, change, classical guitar, effects, flamenca, flamenco, how, instrument, jose, new, old, ramirez, romanillos, sound, spanish, spruce, violin, wood

I watched this today and found it very interesting – this video is by José Romanillos on how the sound of Spanish/Classical guitars changes with age – he talks about what he considers a good sounding guitar and how the age of the instrument relates to these desirable qualities.

Very interesting! Have a look:

What’s in a handplane?

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So…what is it that makes a good handplane? I thought I would touch on it a bit – keep in mind though as you are reading this that I am definitely no expert. I’ve done quite a bit of reading and have some experience getting some very nice cuts on highly figured maple and going across the grain, but that’s about it. Anyways, though, this will be helpful to you if you haven’t heard this stuff before.

Plane Building

A poorly made plane is hardly ever the problem – you don’t need a $250 Veritas plan to get nice, smooth cuts. It’s usually the set up. And to prove it, the one below cuts shavings almost as nicely as a Primus Reform smooth plane. I recommend building your own planes as the best way to learn about what makes a good plane function – google the krenov sandwich method in order to learn how to make a plane like this one.

I have a better one in progress, but this is here for now as my latest project – a plane made from scraps. Scrap apple and cherry body, an old spokeshave blade from a broken Stanley spokeshave, and…could it be? Yep, a nail as the cross pin. Now that’s pretty boondocks. However, with a 57 degree blade angle, it cuts like a dream (except the nail bends and the blade loosens often; I’ll replace it with a steel rod soon though). Next project: A cherry wood plane with cocobolo sole, and a proper pin (not a nail!). Let the shavings below give you an idea of what a smooth plane made of scrap wood and nails is capable of when properly set up and sharpened.

The Scrapwood Smoother

#1: Sharpening Properly

Your blade needs to be sharp – and I mean sharp. If you can’t shave with your blades, you won’t get nice cuts. If you can easily pare hairs off of your arm you’re in good shape. You should literally be able to shave with you blades. There are many good resources to teach you to sharpen online – if you can, check out the guide on the Hock website (google ‘Hock Blades’ for their website). Very comprehensive. If you can’t get waterstones, by the way, you can also get 3M papers from Stewart MacDonald used for polishing metals, etc. which you can use with the sandpaper method to get your blades up to snuff.

#2: Flat Sole

The sole of your plane needs to be dead flat. Period. On metal plains, flattening is a huge pain. On wooden planes not so much. Either way though – warped soles mean poor cuts.

#3: Tight Throat

The throat does not necessarily have to be tight – but it helps. 0.5-0.8 mm is a good width for a smooth plane. A tight throat increases the risk of shavings getting jammed in the plane, but reduces tearout.

These are the big three. If you have a big problem getting nice cuts, there is a very good chance that one of these three things is not set up properly.