I am (or, I was) a Luthier; constructing hand-crafted acoustic (mostly) instruments, mainly guitars. This became a hobby in the later years of my career. Working in my guitar shop on the shores of Collin's Lake near Kingston, Ontario, I devised several guitar making devices to aid me.
Now in my retirement, I live in Victoria, B.C. I no longer make guitars but play six of my creations, including my beloved RW custom guitar and my RW 12-string guitar.
I have been a Faculty member and Program Coordinator at St. Lawrence College in Kingston Ontario, Canada for 34 years.
In 2017, I retired from teaching and moved, with my wife to Victoria, British Columbia. Here, through etherealcanvas.ca I continue my interest in creating digital images, mostly by creating natural environments.
As a luthier at Loonsong Guitars, I would toil away at creating the best instruments possible in my guitar shop by the lake and the sounds of loons.
I concluded Loonsong Guitars in 2017 when I retired from being a college teacher at St. Lawrence College.
My first guitar was a triple-O parlor style guitar from a Stewart Macdonald kit.
On the second guitar I decided to go full Dreadnought style....again a kit from Steward Macdonald.
On the third guitar, I meticulously went through the book by John Bogdanovich on making the classical guitar.
For the 4th guitar I incorporated many of the features I had been seeing in other guitars; Florentine cut-away body, 5-ply neck wood, player's side sound-hole, abalone shell inlay, triquetra main sound hole, floating neck, pinless bridge and beveled edge soundboard.
For a change I took my hand at making a completely different instrument...the Irish Bouzouki.
Continuing with embracing change, I made a replica Les Paul-style electric guitar.
I have always loved the sound of a 12-string guitar... so I made my own - RW guitar. Copiously inlaid with white mother-of-pearl shell wherever I could.
Tried my hand at making a traditional Hawaiian Ukulele. Still play it on occasion...
Built for my praise team guitar partner of many years. This custom guitar has many of the same customizations as I used my own custom guitar.
Weird little Instrument that got a lot of attention over the years. The StrumStick (more properly called the dulcimer guitar) has only 3 strings and is played like a dulcimer.
The soundboard is made of “sinker” redwood which had been submerged in a B.C. river for many decades.
LoonSong Guitars is no more.....but I play my creations regularly and joyfully.
In Phase 1 the raw woods for the guitar sound board, back and sides are sanded down to their final thickness. The sound board and back are aligned for symmetry and glued to form a single board.
In this guitar I plan to have a Celtic theme. For Phase 2 the sound hole rosette will be a Celtic braid of white mother of pearl inlaid into an ebony wood circle which itself is inlaid into the sound board. This rosette project will require about 100 separate pieces of shell inlay.
In phase 3 the spruce bracing is cut , shaped and glued to the sound board. This guitar follows the standard “X” bracing style.
There are three tone braces in the lower bout of the guitar for extra strength for a 12-string.
In phase 4 I will construct the neck mostly from mahogany but with a center sandwich of two maple strips and middle section rosewood. In this guitar, Instead of gluing up a scarf joint for the headstock, I will use complete sections of wood for all but the rosewood section.
A channel must be cut into the center of the top of the neck for the insertion of a truss rod. This rod can be adjusted to compensate for any bowing of the neck that might occur when the strings are installed or general bowing over time.
Following the same technique used in the rosette, the LoonSong logo is inlaid into the headstock cover wood. For the added neck strength required for a 12-string guitar, I’ve routed out two slots and added two carbon-fiber re-enforcing rods.
The side wood is thinned to about .08 to .1” and must be wetted and heated to bend. This is an electric, temperature-controlled heating pipe or bending jig is used.
The wetted side wood is placed on the pipe once the temperature is about 300oF. As the wood heats and steam is created in the wood fibers, the fibres will “relax”. Then a small amount of pressure will cause the fibres to bend. Care must be taken not to over stress the bend to the point where the side wood will crack, just enough to facilitate the bend.
Phase 7: The edge of the sides at the back are sanded down to the appropriate wide dimension, flush with the tail block. The “kerfing” is then glued around the inside of the back edge, just a hair proud of the edge. This serves as a gluing surface for the back board to bond to the guitar sides. The kerfing will now also be sanded until it is flush with the sides.
Phase 8: The sound board of the guitar is glued onto the sides in the same way as the back board was. Once dry, the back board and sound board overhang is trimmed flush with the guitar sides.
Here, the binding and purfling channels are cut into the guitar body edges in preparation for the trim
The maple binding is bent to form along the top, back and cut-away edges. The binding is glued and taped in place with “high-tack” tape until the glue is dry.
The edge binding is then scraped with cabinet-makers scraper to bring it flush with the guitar body wood
One of the final stages is the finishing. This itself is a three stage process. First a clear grain filler is applied if the wood grain is porous. This is followed by 15 to 16 coats of sanding sealer, with light sanding between every three coats. Finally 3 to 4 coats of clear top coat is applied for what will be the high gloss finish. This all done before assembly and the bridge is installed .
Once the Sanding Sealer and Top Coat layers have been applied, the neck and body are thoroughly sanded. The process begins with 320 grit paper and continues to a final sand with 2000 grit wet paper.
Once the entire guitar is sanded with 2000-grit wet paper it will already have a dull shine. Flannel buffing wheels with course and then fine buffing compound brings the surface to a mirror-like finish.
A temporary clamping caul is placed against the bridge plate inside the guitar and the bridge is glued and clamped, here with four wide C-clamps with Teflon pads. In this 12-string there are two “insurance” screws inserted through the bridge after gluing. The holes for the screws are filled with wooden Ebony plugs and made flush with the bridge body.
When the strings are installed and at full tension, the height of each string at the first fret is tested with a height gauge. The string height should be as low as possible without causing buzzing. This, then, completes the building of the guitar
The Completed Guitar.
The woods that will be used in the 12-string guitar: Sitka “Bear-claw” Spruce sound board and Macassar Ebony back and sides. Sitka Spruce is known to have superior sound qualities while the grain colour of Macassar Ebony is just gorgeous.
A home-built thickness sander is used to reduce each sound board half down to a uniform thickness of about .1” to .11”
The thickness sander sands the wood uniformly across its face. A micrometer is used to check the board thickness after a few passes. If not at the required thickness, an bed-elevating knob is given a turn to reduce the sanding gap and the wood is passed through again.
The same will be done to side and back board wood sections. The side woods are sanded down to about .12" and the back wood is left at .125" for more strength.
The two symmetrical halves of the back board must be sanded perfectly straight on a polished marble or granite sanding stone fitted with adhesive-backed 200 grit sandpaper.
The joining edges of the sound board must be sanded perfectly straight
When hand held together against a strong light, if no light can be seen to creep through the joint, the edges are straight enough to glue together
Once the edges of the sound board are true they each are placed on my joining jig to be clamped and aligned while they are glued together
For the back of this guitar I’ll be using a centre strip which will continue to match the edge binding on the sides. It consists of two strips of maple with a thin black and white trim center.
The two back boards and center strip are glued together in the same way as the sound board was; all three pieces clamped together in the joining jig.
The Celtic braid design for the rosette created on AutoCAD. Each knot is made of five separate pieces which is then repeated 20 times to complete the braid.
First the ebony base must be made. Here a channel is routed into a blank board to fit the individual ebony pieces. Made from tiles because the ebony grain must radiate outwards
Now the sound board is routed just beyond the perimeter of the sound holes to accept the ebony tiles. The sound hole itself will be cut out much later.
Close up view of the 3/16” router bit used to route out the inlay channel into the sound board
Along with the ebony tiles there will be an inner and outer band of black and white trim or “purfling "
The ebony is now almost fully inlaid into the sound board. It and the purfling trim will be glued and sanded flush with the sound board surface.
Paper outlines of the individual Celtic braid pieces are glued to the surface of sections of white mother of pearl shell. Here, a very fine coping saw is used to cut each piece out
As the shell pieces are cut they are laid out to inspect the progress of the braid. Then they are numbered and stored in order.
The full paper pattern of the braid is also glued to the ebony ring surface. This serves as a routing guide to place the pieces of shell.
The channel for a section of shell braid is routed and fine trimmed
Each shell piece is also wet ground and fitted to its routing channel by hand
Then the pattern paper on the shell and ebony is sanded clean and flush to the soundboard
In phase 3 the spruce bracing is cut , shaped and glued to the sound board. This guitar follows the standard “X” bracing style.
There are three tone braces in the lower bout of the guitar for extra strength for a 12-string.
Each sound board brace is cut from quarter-sawn spruce, hand-shaped and profiled….
A very sharp straight chisel is used to carve the braces
Interlocking main “X”braces are glued and clamped into place. These form the major structural support of the sound board
Smaller tone braces are glued to each side of the X braces. Shaping of these will define the guitars sound
Closeup of the clamping for the tone braces.
Finally, the sound hole is cut out of the sound board.
The Dremel router is used to route progressively deeper through the sound board until the hole is completed, leaving a clean edge
Now the sound board and the back board are essentially complete. They are ready to be glued to the sides, which will also be made of Macassar Ebony, as the back is. But before the sides are thicknessed and bent to shape, the neck will be constructed.
We take a break from building the guitar body now and turn to construction of the guitar neck
The five wood layers give the neck increased strength over a single block of wood. The mahogany and maple is cut down the center and one side is reversed to give opposing grain to the other side for even more neck strength.
The five pieces are now aligned, glued together and clamped overnight..
The major issue here is to keep the individual pieces from “skating” on the glue out of alignment when the clamp pressure is applied. Sometimes the use of alignment pins is necessary.
The raw neck is now complete. It must be shaped and be brought to the correct dimensions for mounting onto the guitar body
The top of the neck must be perfectly flat for the fretboard to be attached. Here the neck top is sanded on a the perfectly straight granite sanding surface like the sound and back boards
The general shape of the final neck is cut out on a band saw. The cut is made well outside the neck outlines to allow for final shaping later.
A channel must be cut into the center of the top of the neck for the insertion of a truss rod. This rod can be adjusted to compensate for any bowing of the neck that might occur when the strings are installed or general bowing over time.
The neck will be connected to the body of the guitar by a mortise and tenon joint secured by ¼ bolts and dowel nuts.
The shaping of the neck’s contour is done quite quickly using two grades of specialized rasps called “dragon” rasps. These are covered with hand formed with dragon “scales” that remove a large amount of wood in each stroke
The neck is now roughly formed to its final shape. Further sanding will be required…
A thin cover plate, called the headstock is glued over the peghead of the guitar. The outline of the 12 Goto tuners, the LS logo and the ebony truss-rod cover plate is affixed as well.
Following the same technique used in the rosette, the LoonSong logo is inlaid into the Ziricote headstock cover wood.
For the added neck strength required for a 12-string guitar, I’ve routed out more two slots; on either side of the truss-rod slot and added two carbon-fiber re-enforcing rods to keep the neck from bending at all.
I have found that inlaying shell into wood, as completely meticulous as it was, became one of the most enjoyable parts of guitar building. It requires great patience but take me to a "Zen" like state. Here, Celtic designed knots and the "RW" logo are to be inlaid into the fretboard.
The fretboard fret slots are cut using a precise mitre and fine slotting saw. Then the frets are pressed into the slots using this arbour press.
Once the ebony fretboard is inlaid with Mother of Pearl in the same way as the rosette was and fretted, it is glued and clamped onto the neck body.
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The bold-grained, Ziricote wood headstock cover plate is glued to the neck headstock of the neck and slotted to allow access to the necks truss rod.
T he side wood is thinned to about .08 to .1” and must be wetted and heated to bend. This is an electric, temperature-controlled heating
The wetted side wood is placed on the pipe once the temperature is about 300oF. As the wood heats and steam is created in the wood fibres, the fibres will “relax”. Then a small amount of pressure will cause the fibres to bend.
Care must be taken not to over stress the bend the Florentine cut-away wood to the point where the side wood will crack, just enough to facilitate the bend.
In later years I designed a guitar side bender.
This design uses a 6” by 36” silicon heating blanket sandwiched with one guitar side wood sandwiched between two spring steel slats.
With the vertical waist press opened, the “sandwich” is placed on a wooden mould of one guitar side. The waist position on the wood is marked and this mark is lined up to the centre of the waist position of the mould. Then the press is closed and snapped tight.
The heat is turned on and set on the temperature controller to 330oF. Once the temperature almost reaches the 330oF the waist press is slowly lowered, pressing the wood in at the waist point.
The mould above is used to hold the bent sides into the correct position for assembly of the sides to the neck block, tail block and if there is a cut-away in the guitar, the cut-away block
With the sides in place. The mould is closed and the sides are pressed into position. The blocks are dry-placed to check their shape and position before gluing the side assembly together
A cut-away block is required to connect the treble side of the guitar to the Florentine cut-away section of guitar side. To properly align the block, clamping must be done from the front as well as the back of the guitar.
Once the neck block, tail block and Florentine cut-away block are all glued in place , the final shape of the guitar is set. The connected sides can be released from the mould.
The sides are now ready to be assembled with the guitar back and then the guitar front to form the guitar body
The edge of the sides at the back are sanded down to the appropriate wide dimension, flush with the tail block The sanding tool with adhesive sand paper has a 15 foot radius to fit the sound board radius.
The kerfing wood strips are then glued around the inside of the back edge, just a hair proud of the edge. This serves as a gluing surface for the back board to bond to the guitar sides.
The kerfing is glued all around the perimeter of the front and back of the guitar, even here at the Florentine cut-away The kerfing will now also be sanded until it is flush with the sides.
Once the back edge is completely kerfed, the back is glued on. Spool clamps are used to maintain pressure around the full perimeter of the guitar body.
The back is secured onto the guitar sides, ready for the LoonSong label to be applied before the front edge also is kerfed and the sound board is glued on
The sound board of the guitar is glued onto the sides in the same way as the back board was. Once dry, the back board and sound board overhang is trimmed flush with the guitar sides
One of the more critical requirements when cutting the channels for guitar binding and purfling is that the cut be made vertically. This usually means in line with the sides of the guitar.
What is required is a way to allow the router to be moved through three degrees of freedom; 1) forward and backward, 2) sideways right and left and, 3) up and down while holding the router perfectly vertical with the guitar held perfectly horizontal.
This router allows for the three degrees of freedom while an adjustable bed holds the guitar body such that the facing surface is reasonably horizontal.
Here, the binding and purfling channels have been cut into the guitar body edges in preparation for the application of the trim wood strips
The maple binding is bent to form along the top, back and cut-away edges. The binding is glued and taped in place with “high-tack” tape until the glue is dry.
The edge binding is then scraped with cabinet-makers scraper to bring it flush with the guitar body wood
On the front of the guitar the purfling consists of white Mother of Pearl bounded by two black-white-black bands
One of the final stages is the finishing. This itself is a three stage process. First a clear grain filler is applied if the wood grain is porous. This is followed by 15 to 16 coats of sanding sealer, with light sanding between every three coats.
Finally 3 to 4 coats of clear top coat is applied for what will be the high gloss finish. This all done before assembly and the bridge is installed
Once the Sanding Sealer and Top Coat layers have been applied, the neck and body are thoroughly sanded. The process begins with 320 grit paper and continues to a final sand with 2000 grit wet paper.
Once the entire guitar is sanded with 2000-grit wet paper it will already have a dull shine. Flannel buffing wheels with course and then fine buffing compound brings the surface to a mirror-like finish.
The outline of the properly positioned bridge is cut through the finish with a sharp knife.
Then the finish under the bridge is removed very carefully using paint remover and chisels as a scraper
The footprint of the bridge must be clear of finish to get a strong glue bond between the sound board and bridge.
temporary clamping caul is placed against the bridge plate inside the guitar and the bridge is glued and clamped, here with four wide C-clamps with Teflon pads.
In this 12-string there are two “insurance” screws inserted through the bridge after gluing . The holes for the screws are filled with wooden Ebony plugs and made flush with the bridge body.
The Bridge on this 12 string guitar does not use any pegs to hold down the strings. Following the Ovation guitar design, there is a hole in the bridge itself through which the string is fed.
When the strings are installed and at full tension, the height of each string at the first fret is tested with a height gauge. The string height should be as low as possible without causing buzzing.
The slot of each string is filed with the correct width nut file until the best string height is established. The guitar is now setup for playing.