Meeting
Dec 30, 2018
Click on any image to start the slide show.
Attendees
- Members
- Kenny Craft
- Robbie Dummitt
- Jack Gellerstedt
- Patrick Geoghegan
- Paul Mays
- David Motley
- Tom Pafford
- Larry Sakayama
- Howard Wilson
- Guests
- Sam Anderson
Patrick Geoghegan's ukulele
Patrick used crushed green malachite stone set with CA glue for his rosette and end decoration.
Howard gets a close up of a Broken Neck
Radial Purfling
Robbie plays the BBS guitar
Jack Takes Notes
Larry's Garage Sale Special - Future Project
Tom plays his old Silvertone
Larry Sakayama's shop in Wirtz, VA
Main Events: Banjo Necks, cuatro guitar, 4 string electric, ukulele rosette, radial purfling, broken neck, Harmony repair...
We never got to our planned agenda of setup on the BBS guitar and top bracing our J45 Project Guitar.
Kenny Craft's Cuatro Guitar
According to Wikipedia
The cuatro is a family of Latin American instruments found in South America, and in Puerto Rico and other parts of the West Indies. Although some have viola-like shapes, many cuatros resemble a small to mid-sized classical guitar.
Cuatro means four in Spanish; the instrument's 15th century predecessor was the Portuguese cavaquinho which has four strings, like the original cuatro (modern cuatros often have more than four strings).
Kenny bought it in Puerto Rico while on a three week trip to help rebuild Puerto Rico. It was made in Arecibo, PR by Gerardo Morales Soto. His shop was outside under a carport type structure. This cuatro has 5 paired courses (10 strings) and is tuned B (+1 Oct), E (+1 Oct), A D and G. It is unique in that the back, sides and neck are a single piece of wood with the body cavity carved or milled out. The top looks like spruce.
Jack Gellerstedt's Banjo necks
Jack had some questions about banjo neck relief. Because he has not been using truss rods, he sands the relief (about .010") into the fretboard. The banjo strings don't provide the kind of tension typically found on a flattop acoustic guitar so string tension does not significantly change the relief. Also, unlike a flattop acoustic guitar, his banjo necks are made flat, without a radius.
Robbie's Broken Neck
It's a Gibson Country Gentlemen. Ouch!
"I had just finished a concert and unstraped my guitar when someone spoke to me. I was holding it against my thigh with the butt end on the floor and my hand on the headstock. It simply slid out of my hand. Unbelievable! I'm sorry there's not a more interesting tale to tell, but that's my story and I'm stickin to it."
Paul Mays's 4 string guitar
Paul's guitar is almost done. He cut the neck pocket too large so he covered it with a large pickguard. He uses a very low profile pickup from flatpup.com. The neck angle needs to be reset because the string height is too low. Before resetting the neck, Paul wanted to test his wiring so he fashioned a nut with holes rather than slots to hold this strings at a reasonable height over the fretboard. This put's upward pressure on the nut so he used a zip tie to hold down the nut. Sometimes testing requires some creative thinking.
Tom Pafford's Silvertone
"The guitar is the first acoustic guitar that I ever purchased. I bought it 12 years ago at Zzounds. It is the Silvertone brand sold for many years by Sears Roebuck and Company. It was $150. It posted a solid spruce top and Grover tuners. IT sounds average at best. But the action and play ability are more to my liking than any guitar that I have made as yet. I hope to be able to duplicate the neck profile, fingerboard radius and action on future guitars".
Sam Anderson's Old Harmony Guitar
It's a Harmony model H162. It was made between 1957 and 1971 based on the features of the guitar. Sam plans on stabilizing all of the cracks and fractures, replacing the chipped off binding, resetting the neck to lower the action, and then refreting the guitar to play. Possibly installing a pick up.
