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Related Manuals for Stewart MacDonald Bluegrass Resomaster
Summary of Contents for Stewart MacDonald Bluegrass Resomaster
- Page 1 Resonator Guitar Kit Assembly Instructions www.stewmac.com...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
45-50%. The kit wood should eye protection and gloves when needed, and always be laid out and allowed to “equalize” for one week in your use proper ventilation. shop. Flip the wood daily to minimize excessive warping. © 2003 Stewart-MacDonald page 1... - Page 3 page 2...
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Page 4: Assembling The Body
Assembling the body Gluing the sides to the neck block and tail block Determine the center of the neck block and tail block and TIP: Use a glue brush draw centerlines in pencil on their outer faces (their gluing Applying glue with a brush eliminates most of the surfaces) and on the tops and bottoms of the blocks. -
Page 5: Making The Inner-Body Form And Waist Clamp
Making the inner-body form and waist clamp The two pieces of heavyweight cardboard supplied with the kit are for creating a guitarmaking form to support the body during the early stages of building. Using the paper pattern, cut two matching pieces in the shape of the guitar body. -
Page 6: Installing The Top
Apply adhesive-backed 80-grit sandpaper (or non-stick sandpa- Try using a weighted board placed across the top side of the rim per and double-stick tape) to an area of the workboard. for uniform downward pressure. Apply adhesive-backed 80-grit sandpaper (or non-stick sand- faces of the sides, kerfing, neck block, and tail block all the paper and double-stick tape) to an area of the workboard as way around with a pencil. -
Page 7: Sanding The Back Kerfing
used on the tail block. Follow with spool clamps spaced Remove the waist clamp temporarily to make room for a evenly around the sides. With spool clamps close on either router. With the top glued on, notice that the sides have side of the waist clamp, you should have good glue squeeze- gained great stability, even with the waist clamp removed. - Page 8 To align the soundwell concentrically with the hole in the top, measure 5/16" out from the edge of the hole at four opposite points, and place a piece of tape at each point as a marker (8). The soundwell should be installed with one of the soundwell’s “tone holes”...
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Page 9: Installing The Back
Installing the back With the soundwell glued to the top, the body assembly is now very stable, and you can remove the waist clamp. Mark the soundwell edge and the kerfing with pencil, and sand it as you did the top and back. Put pressure in the center over the soundwell, and not on the outer edges. -
Page 10: Routing For Binding
Routing for binding The binding supplied with your kit measures approximately 1/4" x .060". Use StewMac’s Binding Router Cutter Set, with the largest ball-bearing installed (14). This setup will rout a ledge of approximately .060" for the binding width. Set the height of the router bit’s cut at 15/64", or slightly more than the thickness of the plywood guitar top/back, so the binding hides the laminated edge of the plywood. - Page 11 Use a sharp scraper to flush the binding to the wood. The router bit will cut slightly deeper than the actual thickness of the binding — perhaps by as much .007". When the tape’s removed, the binding will be slightly taller than the routed channel.
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Page 12: Assembling The Neck
Assembling the neck Installing the truss rod The truss rod is installed so that it adjusts at the peghead Align the back edge of the adjusting nut with the break line end. This makes it easy to adjust the truss rod under string of the peghead angle. -
Page 13: Shaping The Fingerboard
Shaping the fingerboard The fingerboard has 24 fret slots, more than are needed for a resonator guitar. Trim off the fingerboard at the 20th fret slot. Draw a pencil line across the back of the fingerboard to mark the location of the 12th fret slot. The end of the neck’s fin- gerboard gluing surface, at the top of the heel, will line up with this mark when the fingerboard is glued on. -
Page 14: Installing Side Dots
Within the four 1/4" holes, just barely start a secondary hole with a 7/32" twist drill (not a brad-point) (26). These sec- ondary holes bevel the bottom of the 1/4" holes to form the right shape for the fingerboard mounting screws. These holes are difficult to drill without overdoing it, so practice on scrap! This chamfering is very delicate;... -
Page 15: Fretting The Fingerboard
Fretting the fingerboard A scrap piece of unfretted fingerboard has been included into the slot before hammering in the fret. If you use with your kit. Measure out the frets you will actually use on Titebond, let the frets dry overnight before nipping and filing your fretboard, and use the leftover fretwire to test your skills their ends. -
Page 16: Installing The Fingerboard
Installing the fingerboard There should be a flat area approximately 3/16" to 7/32" wide Install the fingerboard with Titebond glue. To get just the left between the end of the fingerboard and the break angle right glue coverage, spread it with a flux brush. Work the glue of the peghead. -
Page 17: Installing The Peghead Overlay
Installing the peghead overlay When the fingerboard’s dry, remove the rubber band clamp. The bone nut blank should be smooth-walled, square-bot- tomed, and of uniform thickness. If it needs smoothing or thicknessing, sand it with 100- and 220-grit sandpaper, dou- ble-stick taped to a flat surface. -
Page 18: Fitting The Tuning Machines
Saw, chisel, and file away the chaff left by drilling, until the channel walls are smooth (36). Then carve and file ramps at the nut end of each channel, so the strings don’t rub the wood on their way to the tuning posts. The shape of the ramps is up to you, but they extend approximately 1"... -
Page 19: Final Assembly And Setup
Final assembly and setup The guitar must be assembled and set up completely before applying a finish, and then dismantled for finishing. Place the neck mounting bolts through the neck block holes in the body. Press the heel against the shoulders, and then hold the neck in place as you install the two hex nuts. -
Page 20: Fitting The Cone
Fitting the cone For a more accurate neck alignment check, you must install the cone, spider, saddle, tailpiece, and the two outside strings. Before installing the cone, scrape off any glue residue from the soundwell rim where the cone will rest, so the cone will seat on a flat surface. -
Page 21: Installing The Saddle
Some spider castings will have one or two legs that are quite high. Gently tap the outer edge of the offending leg. The “web” of the spider must be supported when you tap. You can easily break off a leg, so don’t overdo it. Better to move the leg just a little bit, and finish getting the fit you need by sanding (44). -
Page 22: Spacing The Strings At The Saddle
Temporarily clamp the tailpiece to the body, aligned on center. Keep the strings on the high side of 3/8" as you start out. Temporarily clamp the tailpiece to the body, (46) aligned on the strings, move the strings aside, and with razor saws center. -
Page 23: Setting The String Height
Setting the string height Up to this point, with two strings on, but not tuned to pitch, our own guitar had a string clearance between the bottom of the strings and the top of the 12th fret of 19/32" — that’s 3/32"... -
Page 24: Cut The Saddle Notches
Cut the saddle notches Next, go to the saddle and space the strings as you did at the nut (divide by five, then move the strings around until the spacing looks right). Lower all the strings at the saddle to match the depth of the two outside strings that are already cut reasonably close to their final depth. -
Page 25: Install The Fingerboard Mounting Screws
Install the fingerboard mounting screws When you reach the final string height, before removing the Install the screws to cut their threads into the top while the strings to continue, drill the 5/64" mounting screw holes into fingerboard is under tension, and then remove the screws the top behind frets 15 and 19. -
Page 26: Installing The Cover Plate
This will hand rest. be your final check before dismantling the guitar for finish- ing. Under string tension, our Bluegrass Resomaster showed a clearance of 1/4" from the top of the strings to the under- side of the hand rest (55). -
Page 27: Finishing With A Traditional Sunburst
Finishing with a traditional sunburst At this point you can disassemble the guitar for finishing. like, you can simply apply a low-gloss wipe-on finish by hand, Final-shape the nut now, too: file off the overhang, round the consisting of a couple of coats of waterbase lacquer or fresh- corners and the back side, and use at least 400-grit Fre-Cut®... -
Page 28: Sanding The Body
Sanding the body All the wood surfaces should be fine sanded up to 220-grit. back, use 220-grit sandpaper only). Sand in the direction of Use Fre-Cut® paper on a wooden block lined with thin the grain, not across it. After the first 220-grit sanding, damp- leather or felt (or use a rubber sanding block). -
Page 29: Staining
Staining Wear plastic gloves when handling stains. The mahogany One or two ounces of mixed stain is plenty for a neck. Pour neck (and the rosewood peghead overlay, if you wish) should the stain into a shallow bowl. Wet a soft clean cloth with stain be stained. -
Page 30: Sunbursting The Body
Sunbursting the body On this style of instrument, it’s traditional to sunburst or stain build the color coat in several passes, rather than mixing a the light wood body to a dark brown color. To accomplish stain that might be too dark. this, first spray a base coat of lacquer for the color to lie on. -
Page 31: Lacquer Spraying Schedule
Have fun finish often with a clean dry soft cloth as you work. Rinse the with your new Bluegrass Resomaster! sandpaper in soapy water often, to remove hard specks that can scratch the finish. (Note: Soak the micro-finishing paper in water overnight before use. -
Page 32: Appendix 1: Neck-Fitting Details
Appendix 1: Neck-fitting details Ideally, the top and sides of your guitar are square to each alter the angle of the neck slightly so that the strings meet other: meeting at a 90° angle, especially at the neck block. the saddle with plenty of clearance at the hand rest, or else When they are square, little or no neck fitting should be nec- “tip”... -
Page 33: Neck Adjustment: Side-To-Side
Neck adjustment: side-to-side One area that may need to have a small amount of wood viewed from the side of the body). To check the alignment, removed is the treble or bass cheek. Wood removed here use a long straightedge laid against both the treble and bass controls the “side-to-side”... -
Page 34: Neck Adjustment: Tilt The Neck Up
Neck adjustment: tilt the neck up If the neck block was mistakenly tipped forward when glued and a straightedge, mark the area to be chiseled away in a in place, the neck may be “overset” too far away from the straight line from the top of the heel to the zero point at the body. -
Page 35: Appendix 2: Intonation Check (Optional)
Appendix 2: Intonation check (optional) When you build a standard acoustic guitar the bridge is If minimal wood was removed at the cheeks, locate the fin- glued on last, so you can move it in order to position the sad- gerboard so that the 12th fret lines up with the point where dle for good intonation.
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