Binding

Cutting binding ledges with a veneer trimmer.

Binding glued and taped.

Bodywork

The body is closed in.  It resonates near A flat and G sharp.

More spool clamps made today as well as cutting and bending some maple binding.

Soundhole

A little work on the soundhole to reinforce it and give it some depth by cutting in a cove.

There is a knot right at the bend of the upper bout.

Workshop

Wet weather

Wet weather changes how the guitar is put together.  The top and sides are glued together.



After the back braces were put on, the back started curling in the wrong direction.
Strips of thin wood are under the back and it's clamped in the center with a strong-back.
After the glue cures up for a few hours. it'll be flat again.




It's raining, so there are no clothes drying outside so the clothes pins can be used to clamp the linings while the glue dries.

Soundboard and sides

attaching the top to the sides.

The top of the guitar, the soundboard, is being attached to the sides by gluing in tentallones.

Soundboard

I had to wait for some parts to come in from Luthier's Mercantile, like the rosette.
I'm in a hurry to build this guitar, so I'm not designing a custom one.
Here's the top with the rosette inlaid.

The other side of the top is the inside.  The X-brace is glued on as well as the bridge patch, which is the piece of veneer that is under the bridge.  Laid on that is a brace called a bass bar, and it provides additional stiffness on the side of the thick strings.

more bodywork

The Back and a us$0.75 spool clamp

A spool clamp made using a 1 5/16" hole cutter and a 6.5" 1/4-20 bolt with wing nut.

The back has been thinned to 0.090" and will be braced with hand split spruce.

Bodywork

The big jointer plane, used to make the butt joints for the back and the top.

After jointing, the two halves of the back are glued together.

Top braces are made from hand split spruce.

Big box Fail.

So, I go to Fry's Electronics for the second time ever, to buy some laptop memory.  At the memory dept, the guy looks up the memory for my laptop, prints a picksheet, and we go to the register, where the cashier takes the sheet to the person in the 'cage'.  We compare the stick to the one from the laptop and it matched.
So, we take it home and install it.  It didn't work.  The reason is probably because we put in 1GB in the external slot with a 512MB stick under the keyboard, and it didn't synch up.  So, back to the gulag, I mean Fry's Electronics.  On entry, I get a service sheet from the door guard.  At the service dept, nobody wanted to look at me.  When I actually talked to a human formed object, it sent me to the memory dept.  The memory dept sent me to the front for an in-store credit.  The front of the store sent me to customer service, who passed the memory stick to about four different people to verify that the memory stick was actually the memory stick.  Once they found someone to sign off, I decided that a refund was the only option.
While waiting for the sign off, I overheard some CSR human formed objects talking about how they weren't going to get written up for some transaction...  A real confidence booster for a potential return customer.  No, not me. 

What do you call it when a Fry's Electronics employee quits?  Logan's Run.

How many Fry's employee shaped objects does it take to make one human?  There aren't that many Fry's employee shaped objects.

After Googling some additional info about upgrading the IBM T43 laptop, Tigerdirect.com is where we got the memory.  I've bought many items from Tigerdirect with good results, so why would we go to a retail store?  I don't know, I'm asking.

The test that Fry's failed was that no employee wanted to expose themselves to the risk of helping a customer for fear of breaking a company rule or making a mistake while helping a customer.  I already knew that I needed two 1GB memory sticks, and that the other memory slot is under the keyboard.  Fry's would have had the sale, and the "good experience" which did not occur would have caused a return visit by this customer.

This did not happen.  One customer lost permanently.

The two bent sides have been trimmed and bound onto the workboard.  It will hang on the wall to air out while the back and top are built.

Cutaway side bent

The side is about 0.090" thick with the area over the tight curve a little thinner.  It is wrapped in paper towel and soaked in water for a few minutes, then wrapped in aluminum foil.  The side is then laid on the form and the temperature of the blanket is raised to around 250 degrees F.  The clamp on the waist is then pulled tight.  After that, the bottom of the side is clamped down.  By that time, the temperature is around 300+ degrees, and the cutaway is slowly clamped down until the tight curve is finished.  Then the last clamp is tightened all the way and the heat is turned off.  The side is left in the form until it cools down, which takes a few hours.

Bent side

Another view of the bending form with a bent side cooling down.  The form is made of chip board or MDF, the end clamps are carriage bolts and the heat is applied by a silicone rubber heater.

Bending a guitar side

This is a form to bend a guitar side.  Heat is provided using a silicone rubber heating blanket attached to a router speed control.  Temperature is monitored with a digital thermometer.

Cam clamps are very useful in musical instrument building.  They are not hard to make, but they're also inexpensive to buy.

Pictured above, a side bending form with interchangeable upper bouts, one for a regular side and one for a cutaway side.

The first guitar shaped element of the building process is something called a workboard.  It is used in the assembly of the guitar body and attaching & aligning the neck to the body.

This book is the definitive reference for acoustic steel string or classical guitar building.

A prototype of a cam clamp that doesn't slip.

Cakepop

Cakepops by Shanda

If you've never had one of these treats and you like your sweets, you owe it to yourself to get a dozen, because one will not be enough!

The guitar builder's book

The one book any person who is building guitars should have is -
Guitarmaking Tradition and Technology by Cumpiano and Natelson