Completed classical guitar body

The body is completed.  A purfling may be installed around the edge of the top, but now it's time to finish shaping the fretboard and install frets.

Glueing binding to the acoustic guitar body

Gluing binding on a classical guitar

Binding is glued on with white glue and the tail seam is hidden with a piece of rosewood and some white purfling.

Cut binding channels for classical guitar

Binding channels are cut on the top and bottom.  This picture shows how the binding is to be let into the heel.

Acoustic guitar binding

The fully carved heel of a small flamenco negro guitar.


Also, a picture of the whole guitar fro the back.

I'm using some very interestingly figured sycamore for the binding.

Carving a classical guitar neck.

The guitar neck is rough carved.  It's still top heavy so more needs to be taken off the end of the neck by the tuning head.

Bending equipment for acoustic guitar sides

Sides for acoustic guitars and the curved binding are bent over a form.  A heating blanket is used for heat and is controlled by a speed control and an electric darkroom timer.

The speed control is pinned to prevent it from being able to switch to full current, making it work ONLY with the dial resistor.

The timer is a safety feature to prevent the blanket from remaining on too long.

If the temperature gets too hot for too long, the wood gets scorched or charred.  In the worst case scenario, a fire could break out.

Short scale (612mm) classical guitar

Making kerfed linings

This is a fret slotting jig repurposed for cutting kerfed lining strips for an acoustic guitar body.

A shot of the kerfed lining used for the back.

The lining being glued on.

Finally, the back attached to the body with clamps.

Tentallones

Tentallones are the individual pieces used to attach the classical top to the sides.
The order of operation is to attach the top to the neck, making sure that the centerline of the top and neck are lined up.  Then the sides are inserted into the slots in the heel and clamped down onto a workboard.  The lining that binds the top to the sides are attached one piece at a time.
The picture shows these pieces being cut.  A piece of basswood stock 1/4" x 1/2" is beveled on one side then cut into 1/4" pieces.  A sample tentallone is shown on the left side.

Attaching the neck, sides, and top - classical acoustic guitar

The neck, sides, and top completed.

A closeup of the tentallones.

Small classical guitar bracing

Sycamore has really interesting lace patterns that makes it good for contrasting trimming on dark wood guitars.

The small flamenco guitar is braced and needs some time for the glue to cure.

Preparing the top braces for the small flamenco guitar

A round patch is put over the soundhole area, cross-grain to the top and the other braces are cut to rough dimensions.
The specifications on the plans are pretty heavy, so the brace dimensions are smaller.  Also, a bridge patch is an additional divergence from the plan.
It's raining.  Time to do something else.
Maybe Sunday to glue and shape the braces.

The classical guitar rosette

First is the glueing of the border strips and then placing the mosaic tiles.  It took 33 tiles to make this rosette.

Shaping the classical guitar neck

The head of the neck rough shaped.

And the heel of the neck carved with a chisel.

Inlaying the rosette - route the channel

The top with the rosette channel routed.  The mosaic pieces are 8.5mm and the channel itself is around 11mm, so some ebony strips will be used to fill the gaps at the outside and inside.
This top is a very stiff piece of spruce from Terrace, BC, sustainably harvested by Mario DaCosta (sprucetonewood.com).

Laying out the mosaic rosette

The tiles are cut off the log about 1.5mm in thickness.

The edges need to be trimmed to fit snugly.

Redo - mosaic log

The 8 planks are glued together,wrapped in waxpaper and clamped down with blocks.

After a while you have a tootsie rollpop.

Making a mosaic rosette for a guitar

On the left are planks that have been glued.  In the center is the press that holds the plank as the glue sets up.  On the right are sticks arranged in order waiting to be glued.
At the top is the notebook with the rosette pattern.
The one on the bottom is the design with a black instead of white background, the spiral in faded orange, and the bead in red.
After all the planks are glued, they are scraped flat and glued in a stack to make the rosette log, which is sliced into 1mm tiles.  The tiles are assembled in a round form and then inserted onto the guitar top into a channel around the soundhole.
This design is a double spiral with a red bead at the intersections of the curves.

Rosette, sides, back and top rough in.

Eight 10mm x 1mm planks when glued together make a mosaic log that is sliced into 1mm pieces that are glued into a circular slot around a soundhole.  This design isn't going to work, so it will be discarded.

Bent sides are left bound onto the mold for awhile.

The top and back are joined and cut to profile plus a half inch.

Guitar forms and jigs

A template of half the acoustic guitar body is cut out of lucite and used to make an assembly board for the body and a bending jig for the sides.

The back plates with the forms.