I've never actually held a shiny bowl, so it's difficult for me to say whether the shine was in the fiberglass itself or paint layer that was applied later.

In the parts I mold, I achieve a glossy smooth finish by using two different weights of glass. The layer closest to the final surface is a lighter weight, i.e.: finer weave. The order of the layers depends on whether I'm laying up over a male or female mold.

When laying up in a female mold, the light weight cloth goes on first, followed by the heavier cloth. Laying up over a male mold is just the opposite.

If you look closely at the pics of the patch, you can see the print-through of the fabric weave where the resin shrunk as it cured. The cloth bowl I got from TJR also has a fair amount of weave in the final surface.

Print-through is easier to control when laying up parts in a female mold because as the resin shrinks, it shrinks to the surface of the mold.

Here's a pic of a part I molded in 2003. It's an inlet duct for a ducted fan model of the Su-27 I designed. The part is laid up over a male mold. It's shiny inside and rough on the outside. I added titanium white dry artists pigment to the MGS epoxy to get the white color seen below.

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The 1st gen Ovation bowls were also laid up over male molds, but to get the outside smooth, they laid a plastic sheet over the wetted cloth just like I did, and then applied vacuum to suck the visqueen down.

Because the photos TJR sent of the 1st gen bowl show the fabric weave as well as the wrinkles and folds of the visqueen vacuum bag, I suspect that Ovation actually sanded, filled, primed and painted the shiny bowls.

It would be much easier to add black pigment to the resin and lay up the bowl in a female mold. Then, the bowl would come out of the mold black and glassy smooth.

Progress continues.

First thing was to trim the patch to size. I traced the hole using a Sharpie, but the black line on the black part was nearly impossible to see. No surprises, here. So, I taped off the part instead.

My handy-dandy Dremel and fiberglass cut-off wheel made short work of cutting out the part.

Checking the thickness of the patch compared to the bowl shows that the factory did use two layers of cloth.

Test fit. Not perfect, but good enough. The part is taped to the inside using masking tape.

I'll probably use my favorite method of edge-gluing fiberglass parts to assure perfect alignment. First, I'll tack-glue the corners with C/A. Next, apply a fiberglass reinforcement strip and resin to the inside.

Next up, removing the rest of the top.

Before proceeding I made a template for the new top. Yes, that's made from a voting booth. I worked at the local precinct a few years ago and snagged all the unused cardboard booths. :D



Mostly, it went pretty smooth. I only had two small hitches. When pulling up the top from the treble bout, it split all the way up and pulled some of the inner binding away from the purfling. And, when pulling up the upper bass bout top, some of the purfling got separated from the kerfing. Both are minor and easily fixable.

The last step, getting the top out from between the fingerboard extension and the neck block was the hardest. As always seems to be the case, the last 10% of the job takes 90% of the time and this was no exception.

The Zona saw worked okay, but with such fine pitch teeth it was taking forever to cut through the epoxy between the neck block and the bottom of the top wood. I needed to go to Lowe's anyway to buy more propane so I could grill some chicken, so I hit the tool aisle and bought a few different kinds of saws. In the end the Japanese-style double-sided, flexible pull saw was what worked the best.

It allowed me to cut all the way to the 15th free before encountering interference from the curvature of the upper bout.

The trim irons worked okay separating the fingerboard extension from the top wood up until I got to the neck block. Then, it was back to the pull saw. I needed to split the wood into small sections and break them out of the tight space between the fingerboard extension and the neck block.

So, I'll have to notch the new top, but it should be okay. And, no, I WILL NOT be slathering on the epoxy to glue the top to the neck block or to the fingerboard extension.

Speaking of neck blocks, the factory standards for centering the neck block on the body were pretty loose.

While waiting for my top parts to arrive, I decided to verify the neck angle.

I'd planned to put a 28-foot radius top on it. Since the top wood is kind of expensive, I didn't want to glue up all the braces only to find out that the neck geometry was off.

So, I broke out my CAD program and drew up a 28-foot radius circle, then added to it the thickness of the top (9/32") and placed the bridge in the proper location, spray glued the plans to cardboard and cut them out to make a top plate simulator.

Laying a straightedge on the neck showed that it would hit the bridge about 1/4" too low. Not good.

I did a little research online to see if I could find the top radius of these guitars, but could find nothing. So, I checked the top radius my other Ovations. Essentially, they were all flat. Or, at least they started out that way. The pull of the strings over time had caused all of them to develop the characteristic hill behind the bridge and valley in front of it. On some, like my 1719, this was more pronounced and others, like the 2078, less so.

I found a video online where the owner of Blues Creek Guitars was talking about how he sets up the geometry when building for a 28-foot radius top. He said that he liked to have 1/2" space between the top and the bottom of the straight edge.

He also said that this usually requires a neck angle of about 1-1/2 degrees. I broke out a level and my trusty incidence meter and measured the neck angle of the Ovations. These are about 1/2 a degree.

So, I cut out a section of the top plate simulator I built to simulate a true flat top, and the straightedge is now above the top of the bridge by about 1/16" or so. Much better.

Ovations having, more or less, flat tops makes sense. In the factory tour video one of the workers is shown routing the top for the binding. On a wood box guitar this is done with the body in a jig, face-up on the workbench.

But, the Ovation was being routed face-down. This would difficult to do if the top had any kind of radius to it because the top would wobble around and the router would not cut an even groove.

Since the braces I ordered are made to work on a 28-foot radus top, I'll need to modify them to work on a flat plate, but that is a minor task.

Disaster averted.

I found out why the neck block was offset. It looks like there was a method to the factory's madness, after all.

It wasn't sloppy building.

The top strap button was screwed into the neck block.

Good job, guys!

The work continues.

First task at hand is to glue the patch into the hole in the back. A short piece of tape on each side to hold the patch in place. Then, each corner is tack-glued with CA.

A reinforcement piece is cut from 3-oz. plain weave cloth which is slightly bigger than the patch and fiberglassed into place. When it's dry, the inside is sanded smooth to blend the edges into the surrounding area.

The outside is also sanded smooth. The laminating resin is mixed with cab-o-sil to make a thick putty. This is smeared over the seams to blend the patch into the back. The body is flipped over and a final, thin coat of resin is painted over the reinforcement piece. The body is left to dry overnight. The inside and outside are sanded smooth in preparation for paint.

Next up, make a template from cardboard for the top that will fit inside the purfling. Fit is pretty good. This will be used to trace the top wood. I'll leave a little bit of extra wood on the outside and will bevel thei top wood so it will be a slight pressure fit. I bought some binding rubber bands from Stewmac which should squeeze the sides into the top wood.

Cut the sound hole for the rosette. Measure and mark the location of the bridge and the locating holes for the alignment pegs glued into the bottom of the bridge.

Looks good, but it has the dull sound of cardboard.

Check the neck geometry. The ruler just touches the top of the bridge. The cardboard is 3/16" and the top wood will be ~3/32", so this should put the bridge in a perfect position for nice, low action with plenty of room to grow.

Speaking of top wood, I thought that with what this guitar has been through in its life it deserved to have something special. I bought some Master-grade bearclaw spruce from Stewmac. I sprayed some ZIP Kicker on it to highlight the grain and figuring. (mostly naptha)

And, more importantly, it's got a really nice tap-tone. I'm planning to use forward-shifted X brace pattern to give the guitar a nice, bright sound. So, it should make for a nice guitar that sounds as good as it looks.

Next job is to start preparing the braces. Pics to follow.

A side job that needs to be done before gluing the top into place is to replace the missing binding around the end of the fretboard.



I looked at the binding on my 1719 and it was made from one piece. When I bought the top wood, I also bought some .040" x .25" white binding to do this job.

I was able to successfully hand-bend the binding to a reasonable facsimile of the shape, but it took a fair amount of time and effort. When trimming the ends to fit, I cut one end too short. So, that piece was unusable.

Faced with the prospect of bending a new piece and the possibility of cutting that one too short, I decided to make myself a mold to do the bending for me.

I traced the shape of the end of the fingerboard onto 1/4" plywood, then cut it out using my scroll saw. I tried bending the binding cold, but it didn't work too good.

So, I broke out my handy-dandy heat gun. I put the strip of binding into the mold, and heated it up until it got soft, then squeezed the mold halves together using a C-clamp.

Once it cooled, I popped it out of the mold and it retained the correct shape.

And, here's the final piece, trimmed to fit. Actually, this isn't the final piece because the binding I bought is white and the binding on the guitar is ivory-colored. I bought some cream-colored binding from Stewmac, but it's too dark, so I can't really use that, either.

I searched around online and found what looks like the right color binding from a company called, Allparts.com. If it's the right color, I'll make a new patch, glue it into place, then scrape it to match the profile of the fretboard.

Thanks! That's a great story.

Not a special place. Mostly just where they'll fit.

The only stuff having a special place of display is the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling that were built with these types of tools. Even the, they're only there because that's the best place to keep them where they'll stay out of harm's way. (hangar rash)

When I bought my top wood, I bought the bearclaw spruce, which is what I'm planning to use and I bought some cheap spruce I could use as a practice piece.

I'd planned to use hot hide glue (HHG) where ever possible. There are three main reasons for this. First, it's easier to disassemble, should the need arise, secondly, it has a stronger grip on wood/wood joints and lastly because it carries the tone better than any other glue like epoxy or PVA.

One of the first HHG joints was to join the halves of the top wood. I did the practice piece and was very happy with the results, so I did the final wood next.

I found a local furniture shop that was able to thickness sand the two tops for me for $30. As it turns out they do a lot of this type of work for luthiers in my area.

I cut out the practice top and fitted it to the bowl. I wanted to verify the height of the bridge, so I marked the location. Seen in the pic below are the additional notes around the periphery of the top are where I needed to make adjustments when tracing outline of the practice top onto the final top.

I used a 3/16" brad-point bit and drilled the locating pin holes in the pracice top. I'll need to do this with the final top before adding the bracing.

The top is back in the bowl and the bridge is put into place.

A quick check reveals there is a gap of about 1/16" between the straight edge and the top of the bridge, which is perfect. Bridge location on the top is also spot-on.

I traced the top outline to the final top wood, cut it out and started the final fitting. It fits pretty good, but I still need to make a few minor adjustments. Mostly, I'm pretty happy so far.

I've been thinking a lot about what X-bracing pattern I wanted to use. I was originally going to use a forward-shifted X-brace. But, after playing my 2078-TX I've decided to use the Ovation LX bracing.

The LX bracing is very similar to the standard X brace pattern except for minor adjustments to the angle of the X braces. Standard X-braces are layed out with a 98-degree angle and the LX braces have a 95-degree angle.

The 2009 Ovation catalog contains pics of the LX bracing for both the center hole and the epaulet-style tops.

I've imported the photo below into my CAD program and I'm tracing the braces locations with the intention of printing out a full-size plan. Even though the photo below shows a cut-away bowl, the braces are identical with standard bowl except for the to brace above the sound hole. It's been shortened for the cut-away bowl. On the standard bowl it goes all the way across the top.

I'll use this plan to lay out the braces on the top wood.

I took some measurements from my 2078-TX which will help me to scale the plans.

Really interesting and informative thread! Great job Dan