The Knothole Lutherie Shop: AKA McCloud Designs

Three finished guitars, two E Indian rosewood, one myrtlewood

2011-12-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

All the necks lined up ready for the next phase.

2011-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

Bending one side of the Classical guitar. Photos are out of sequence. This series should start with the photo of the side on the aluminum foil.

2011-10-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Only 9 more heads to shape!

2011-10-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Two guitars strung up at last!

2011-08-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

Pat glueing back braces on Hauser style guitar.

2011-08-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

Brittany's guitar getting ready for frets.

2011-08-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

Three luthiers at work.

2011-08-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

High tech clamping device using rope and clothes pins

2011-05-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

2011-05-07T06:55:00.000-07:00

Almost guitars

2011-03-05T16:52:00.001-08:00

Neck attached to soundboard

2011-02-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

Gluing the liner

2011-02-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

Ready for the mold

2011-02-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

Bubinga sides-first to be bent with heating blanket plus all the bindings ready for their mates.

2011-01-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

Bending finally--machine in action with the results--bent bindings!

2011-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Progression of heads from rough to almost finished

2010-12-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

Heads ready for final shaping and profiling the back braces.

2010-12-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

Gluing the head plates

2010-11-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

Ready to glue head plates for bubinga guitar.

Final radius

2010-11-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

Using my new jig to radius the back braces and gluing braces on the final back. On to bending and shaping the necks!

Ready to bend

2010-11-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to start bending sides.

Replacing binding

2010-11-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

Replacing the old plastic binding with wood. About time.

Leveling the binding

2010-11-06T23:55:00.000-07:00

Student (grandson Owen) preparing soundboard for rosette.

2010-07-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

2010-07-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Student (son John) preparing binding for classical guitar.

2010-06-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Using a jig made by nephew David McCord to sand the concave radius in the bridges. Thanks David!

2010-06-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

Six Indian rosewood backs

2010-06-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

Four Indian rosewoods and two walnut backs

2010-06-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

Bubinga, Myrtlewood and Sycamore backs

European, tiger and quilted maple

2010-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

2010-06-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

Spanish cypress, Western cherry, midwest cherry

2010-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Soundboards nearing completion after many months work.

2010-06-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Thicknessing the center reinforcement strip for the back

Marketing?

2010-03-09T09:54:00.000-08:00

One question that many ask when visiting my Knothole Lutherie workshop is: "What's your marketing plan?"
That's simple, I don't have a "plan." The main reason for the shop is to create instruments that sound good---are easy to play---and look good. I picked the number 22 because, at the time I began this quest, I had over 50 sets of backs & sides and over 50 sets of good quality soundboard material but I had only enough neck wood to make 22 guitars---so 22 guitars it is!
Building to me at this point has little to do about marketing or money. It's therapy. It keeps me and my mind busy. It also transforms sticks of wood into beautiful sounding instruments. Even though I am not a player, I can actually produce some very nice sounding chords and the wood (in the form of a nylon stringed guitar) produces very, very pleasing sounds.
My marketing plan is to have people play my guitars. Buy? Again, at this point, my objective is to listen to the magic music that visitors produce.

Preparing the backs.

2010-02-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

Using the drum sander to thickness the backs to 2 mm.

Mass production??

2010-02-22T14:33:00.000-08:00

Hardly what you would call mass produced using very small hand and finger planes to shape the fans braces

New use for fiberglass kite sticks

2010-02-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

Using more, smaller fiberglass kite sticks helps make the clamping pressure more uniform along the fan brace.

Rubber ends caps protect the delicate fan braces during clamping/gluing

More 3/4 guitar top

2010-01-31T19:18:00.000-08:00

Using "go-bar" to clamp braces while gluing

2010-01-31T19:11:00.000-08:00

Quilted maple back and 3/4 Indian rosewood back

3/4 Nylon string guitar

2010-01-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

Shapng the fan braces

Detail of fan brace going under cross-brace

New method of building guitars!

2010-01-04T00:13:00.000-08:00

Over the past 18 years (since 1991) I have been a leisure luthier building a guitar every now and then. While looking at my stock of guitar wood in the early months of 2009, I figured that at the rate I was going I would be about 120 years old before I used all the wood I had in stock. So, my "new method" of building is this: While setting up to do a task, I simple do that task 22 times thus eliminating multiple set-up times saving many hours of my labor. While doing this multiple part production, I make sure that each component still receives my full attention to ensure a high quality construction. That savings in time will help keep the cost of my guitars down to an affordable level for hand-built instruments.
Since opening the Knothole Lutherie Shop in October 2009, there has been an interest in people wanting me to teach them how to build guitars. This option is now available. I have developed a six phase method of learning to build a nylon string, Spanish style classical guitar. To be sure that each student receives enough guidance, the class size is limited to two.

Cutting rough profile of Indian rosewood back.

2010-01-04T00:12:00.000-08:00

Routing the channel for the rosette.

2010-01-04T00:10:00.000-08:00

Joining jig doing its thing.

2010-01-04T00:08:00.000-08:00

Soundboard ready to join

2010-01-04T00:06:00.000-08:00

New Name: The Knothole Lutherie Shop

2009-09-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Several reasons for a name change. Guitar Designs is officially being used by someone else and McCloud Designs is an engineering firm in the East.
When the shop area in the Lincoln City Cultural Center became available, it was referred to as a "hole-in-the-wall" space.
Knothole sounded better since the knothole is the beginning of the branch of a tree. The Knothole Lutherie Shop is only the beginning of many different instruments and other artful objects.
Enjoy!

2009-09-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Student working on his first guitar neck.

2009-09-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

Room clean (sort of) and ready for framing.

2009-09-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Frame's up!

2009-09-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Bench tops complete almost ready to use.

New shop?

2009-08-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

Would you believe this may be my new luthier shop downstairs in the Lincoln City Cultural Center. Needs work!

Repair

2009-08-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Broken head with new blank almost ready to glue. After gluing, blank will have to have head-plate and veneer attached, shaped, slots cut and string ramps formed.
Broken head and what it looks like after repair.

Oops!

2009-07-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

The glue held. This neck repair may delay my building for several days!

Made for music

2009-07-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

Dave Gauthier playing one of my intruments at a recent guitar building workshop at Sitka Center.

The master at work!

2009-07-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Using the square to make sure the head angle is at 90 degrees.

Still squaring the angle. Shown are some of the future necks already cut and glued and ready for squaring.

Head angle being glued

2009-07-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

A new use for those fake credit cards you get in the mail. (the blue thing in the center) This one is being used to shim the neck stock so it is perfectly 90 degrees to the bench.

Guitar neck in progress-June 2009

2009-06-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

Central American mahogony ready to become classic necks plus transition of necks from raw wood to finished product

2009-06-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

Sycamore Spanish style guitar

2009-06-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Myrtlewood Spanish style

2009-06-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Custom bass

2009-06-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

Custom electric

2009-06-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Electric with figured bubinga top over mahogony body, thru-the-body maple neck with ebony fingerboard and Fender Lace dual pickup with single coil switch.