a more than unusual job

Last year in November I was exhibiting at the "Vintage Guitar Show" which takes place once a year in Oldenburg. It is a great event for vintage electric guitar freaks but there have been some luthiers like Karsten Schnoor from Hamburg and my workshop companion Daniel Stark, too.

Someone came to my table and told me about a twelve string jumbo guitar he had ordered from Klaus Doll. But the luthier and shop keeper died suddenly on the 9th of may 2013 after a heavy illness.

We talked about this unfinished guitar and about the possibilities of what should be happening with such an instrument. He asked me if I could finish it. 

I had come across the name Klaus Doll once or twice but I never got to know him. And finishing his instrument was something I couldn't decide right at that place. I had to sleep over it and make up my mind. 

I invited the man to my workshop to take a look. He came and brought with him an almost finished body and a neck blank with an already prepared dovetail joint. He also brought the another 6 string Doll that he purchased some time ago. 

I agreed to finish the guitar.

Some minor repairs needed to be done first to finish the body. There was still some sanding to do and after the neck area was sanded and double checked for flatness I could fit in the neck. 

I roughly shaped the heel and glued on a heel cap. 

The planned shape of the headstock has been drawn on the neck when I got it. I had to glue on the headstock veneers so I made a template. The headstock is very much inspired by the selmer/maccaferri style guitars even so it is quite long to fit all the tuners. As it is not necessary to make a routing template for the headstock it was time to check my hand-cutting-the-slots skills.

The clients first guitar served as a model and has got an h 1 inlay at the 12th fret. As a continuum he wished to have an h 2 inlay on his new guitar. To match the abalone on the rosette and the fretboard dots I also made that from paua abalone.

 

 

 The frets are done and after the final sanding the pores get filled with pumice and shellac. The large pores of the Indian rosewood need to be filled properly to get a perfectly flat surface for the lacquer. Doing this with pumice stone and shellac is the traditional method I learned during my apprenticeship and it takes some experience to do this job good and in time. 

And then...sanding again.

 

Several coats of DD lacquer are applied and wet sanded (...see above). The hole surface needs to be sanded till all the shining spots are gone and is polished to a high gloss afterwards.

For easy removal of worn out frets later there is no lacquer applied on the side of the fretboard. Therefore I put a tape on the side and "break" the lacquer coats to remove it with a scraper. I then sand the surface VERY carefully to reduce the lacquer to zero to get a smooth transition. 

The bridge is positioned and the lacquer removed. This has to be done meticulously because any remaining lacquer leads to an inferior glue joint of the bridge.

 

A happy Ending and a happy customer. This has been one the most unusual jobs I have ever done. And I thing it will remain first place on the unusual jobs list for a long time. It was a very interesting and demanding job. I am very thankful that someone put so much trust in my work and I hope (and I have done my best to) I have finished this job in the sense of the great German luthier Klaus Doll.