Contact me at: douglasingram1963@gmail.com or by phone 204.878.2524

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Lots of stuff goes on in this shop, located in Lorette, Manitoba.

Primarily it's the building and repair of classic wood & canvas canoes, and the making of premium canoe paddles. I also do custom boat building, composite fabrication, and special projects. A growing passion of mine is the making of classical guitars, I'll post about that, too.


I want to be able to share with my clients the progress of their commissioned work. Later I started thinking that there might be other people who are interested in what goes on inside a wooden canoe shop operated by an artist and a recovering teacher.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by email, phone, or by post. My mailing address is:

Red River Canoe & Paddle
24249 River Rd
Lorette, Manitoba
Canada
R5K 0Z6




Showing posts with label neck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neck. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 May 2009

I feel so guilty...

Ok, not so much. Carving a lot of paddles is tough work. It uses aggressive power tools that requires a lot of attention, makes a lot of dust, and you have to do this for hours on end.

So, I need to space this demanding work out some. This week I did that by Making a new guitar neck.

I made the mold over the winter, I prepared the sides while I was preparing stock for the SE117s, and I had the soundboard and the back prepared a couple of years ago. So, if it looks like this one gets built fast, remember that it's just an illusion!

This one is special. I am making a new classical guitar, but this one will have a double cutaway much like a Gibson ES335. The body uses the Fleta plantilla. I have got it in my mind that I should do an elevated fingerboard, too, and that the action should be adjustable. That's a lot of challenges all at once!

What makes this neck challenging is how to make the elevated fingerboard and the adjustable action. I could have done it by having an adjustable neck angle as famously done by Stauffer, but on this one I decided to work out a way for the whole neck to raise and lower.

Above you can see it in the lowest position, which means that the strings will be highest. Below you can see it in the highest position, which will mean that the strings will be lowest. Possibly overkill, but I have about 4-5mm travel.

The wood work conceals some of the hardware. The joint is basically a sliding mortise and tenon joint. There is a large headed Allan key screw/bolt in the heel of the neck, and an anchor in the neck block, just like the one in the foreground.

Friday, 30 January 2009

A little more done on the Telecaster necks. I've got all 9 necks routed for resin reinforced fabric beams, about 1/2" X 1/2". This first one will be Carbon fiber. I think that the others will be straight fiberglass, as I already have plenty of strand prepared from another job.

Step one is to prepare the work area. The mixed resin is spread over the fabric, which is then squeegeed of excess resin. The idea is to have enough resin to coat all the individual strands, but not have them drowning in it! Its the Carbon fiber that will provide the beam strength, not the resin.


The fabric is folded or rolled up, and excess resin is squeezed out. The roll is placed into the routed groove, and pressed into place so that the strands are really packed it. A piece of wood is clamped over top to held it all as flat as possible. The wood has packing tape on it to act as a mold release.

The resin is left to cure overnight. No point in rushing it, just work the cure time into your schedule. The wood caul is removed and this is the result. A little clean up sanding...

...and this is the result. The neck is ready to receive the fingerboard now. Once that is one, then final shaping and fret work is left.