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foseca curved lid???

i got a fonseca box that i want to make an acoustic out of. the lid is pretty thick and gets thicker near the middle. the bottom however is a thin peice of wood. I'm leaning in the direction of the bottom as the sound board. suggestions please.

also, i want to sand it down, remove all lettering and give it a tobacco burst (?used?) look, would coffee grounds work. any other 'non-professional' ideas?

i'll try and add a pic tomorrow.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan on March 18, 2010 at 3:25am

i decided to use the bottom. i sanded off all the paint and treatment. next step will be to stain it with some naptha oil then apply tung oil as a finish instead of a tobacco burst. i was shaping the neck most of the day yesterday and got to say it is exhilirating. it's a pine/oak neck and it looks pretty good so far.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on March 18, 2010 at 3:29am

Sounds good...post some pics!

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan on March 24, 2010 at 1:29am

I posted some pics on my page. next question (or two actually); I'm real nervous about cutting sound holes in my box. it's pretty thin but holes should be ok if not too big and properly placed, any suggestions
and...
where their was a sticker, now there is a dark spot that won't sand off. when I stain and oil the box will the stain blend in or become more noticeable, what to do, what to do.

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on March 24, 2010 at 2:32am

The sticker stain won't take satin the same as the wood around it, but its part of using a cigar box and not making a body from scratch, don't worry about it. I cut some F holes in a very thin lid with a coping saw. First I drilled holes for the ends then cut from there. The design for the my F hole is more of a stencil so the wood is stronger. Put a block of wood behind it before drilling so the drill doesn't push thru and splinter the plywood. Go slowly and it will come out fine, looks like you know what you are doing from you pics, waiting to see the finished guitar.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan on March 24, 2010 at 2:40am

all right, i'll try that. Thanks for the advice. I've been getting some pointers from a seasoned carpenter around the way. Other than that and reading a lot on the internet (especially here), I really don't have any woodworking experiance.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Roberts on March 24, 2010 at 4:14am

Ohayo gozaimasu, Jonathan-san!

I would have used the top for that "arched top" look, but that would have made making the bridge a bit of a challenge.

Like Michael said, put some scrap wood under what you're drilling on. But for pete's sake, use a decent drill. I use either a specialized hole-cutting bit (for big holes) or a forstner bit (for smaller ones). Brad points work well, Brad Pitt doesn't. Heh. But your everyday run-of-the-mill cheap drill bits WON'T DO for something thin like soundboards. They will tear things up and you'll have to spend time cleaning up the mess with sandpaper.

I'm used to using cedar or sitka spruce for guitar tops, and those two woods tear and split like CRAZY. So I set the depth stop on the drill press carefully and drill HALFWAY THROUGH the top. I flip it over. Both brad points and forstners have a center spike that has gone through-and-through, making it easy to line things back up and finish the hole. This is probably overkill for what you want to do, but make some practice holes on scrap wood, thin pieces of plywood if need be.

Gambate!