Constructing guitar for publication MARTIN KOCH

Martin is an Austrian publisher of guitarbuilding instruction materials.

A selftaught amateur guitar builder with three main interests, guitar building, book design and writing instruction manuals, Martin considers himself lucky in being able to combine all of these interests by publishing his own books and manuals on guitar making.

As a family man busy with his publishing activities he currently has no time for building instruments, other than those needed for illustrating his books.

Binding a guitar body

Machining a binding recess with a bearing-guided rebate cutter

Binding does not only embellish an instrument, it also gives the edges better protection. The picture illustrates Martin using Wealden's adjustable rabbeting cutter for making a binding rebate on a lapsteel guitar, which he built for his latest book.

Interchangeable ball bearings make it easy to find the proper rebate depth (slightly less than the thickness of the binding)

Wealden's adjustable rebate cutter

Fixing the binding

Fixing binding using acetone

Binding material available from guitar builders' suppliers is normally made of celluloid. The best solvent to use for glueing on such an acetate binding is acetone. Using a brush the acetone is applied to a small section of the binding and the rebate; then the binding is pressed into the rebate and secured with tape. After six hours the tape is removed and the binding can be scraped flush

Martin writes:

"Wealden Tools is my main supplier of router bits. Their product range is wide, prices are fair and delivery is very fast. In Austria and Germany, routers come only with 6mm, 8mm or 12mm collet, the 8mm size being the most common one. Fortunately, almost all router manufacturers over here offer 1/2" and/or 1/4" collets as separately available parts for their routers. I have three different routers and a complete collet collection for each of them, so the shank diameter doesn't matter when I'm looking for a new cutter."

Cutters used in guitarbuilding

Martin playing one of his guitars

Template trim cutter: A cutter often used for cutting neck pockets or pickup cavities on electric guitars is the template trim cutter, which is used together with a actual size template of the neck pocket or pickup cavity. Most of the material is removed with a Forstner bit followed by the template trim cutter, which leaves a clean surface.

Panel trim cutter: After bandsawing the shape of the body, panel trim bits come in handy for smoothing the body sides on a router table.

Straight cutters: Straight cutters are mainly used for cutting truss rod channels into guitar necks.

Other cutters: Other cutters used in guitarbuilding are surface trim cutters and rounding-over bits (for rounding off the body edges). If you build acoustic guitars with tapered, sliding dovetail neck-to-body joint, you may want to have a look at Wealden Tools' sliding dovetail cutter (Part No. T1030B 1/2). This cutter eliminates the guesswork and allows for 1:1 templates without offset.

Martin's books (currently there are two of them: "Building Electric Guitars" and "It's easy to Build Your Own Lapsteel Guitar") are available from his website, at Amazon and in British and American bookstores. Additionally, there are building plans and a CD-ROM with movies of the building process available.

It's easy to build your own lapsteel guitar cover

Contact information:

Website: http://www.buildyourguitar.com

email: martin.koch@buildyourguitar.com