Mark Riess's Blog (30)

 Okay, this is turning out all right. I decided to reshape the neck while I was at it:…

When I left yesterday, the cutaway piece was pretty much fitted up and ready to go, so with a few minor adjustments to the kerfing, a trial fit or two, a dry run at clamping, and some finish sanding to the exposed surface, I glued it up and put the clamps on:…

I rounded up an old classical beater, and, while tossing and turning one night, decided to retrofit a cutaway design into it as well as add a home-made piezzo pickup. I happened to have an orphaned pre-bent piece of brazillian rosewood made for a florentine cutaway knocking around my inventory of random guitar woods. I personally prefer the venetian style cutaway, so this was a perfect excuse to use it up in an experimental self tutorial.

Here is the victim, an old "Orlando" I…

Oodles of ouds are coming across the workbench these days. Yesterday I removed the peg head from a neck/head assembly a friend had shipped from Jordan to replace the peghead on an oud he has. The oud maker in Jordan had mistakenly sent a neck assembled to the peghead as well, which my friend did not want. So I fired up the espresso steamer and separated the two. 

After…

I bought a cheap Japanese Yamaha-copy 12-string guitar at a second hand store for $50. It had an over-bellied top, a bushing missing from one of the tuners, old strings and a misaligned nut. I hung it in the garage for months, planning to torture it as a repair experiment.



Then, as I researched repair methods for over-bellied tops, I discovered the JLD Bridge Doctor, a simple, mostly wood device easily installed inside the guitar that flattens the top and also acts as a soundpost,…

Spruce (Engelmann, Sitka?) top, Brazilian rosewood back & sides; ebony bridge & fretboard,

mahogany neck, heel is capped with laminates of redgum eucalyptus and rosewood, peghead veneered with rosewood; bindings of ebony & rosewood; rosette, position markers, peghead inlay, end and back trim are of 'found' abalone. Saddle and nut are bone. Scale = 24-13/16". Fret board is bound on each side with ebony.

Body is 14.5"…

I've been restoring this instrument I made some 34 years ago. It started out with 4 strings and tapered violin pegs, but about 4 years ago I really wanted a bouzouki, and since I couldn't afford one, I decided to convert this (I used to call it a) dulcilyn....kind of a combo between a dulcimer and a mandolin. I…