1909 flamenco guitar

The workboard, the back & sides, & the top.

Small flamenco guitar bending form

Side bending form with template.

Next to build, a solera or workboard for assembling the guitar body.

K Bear - shellac tools

The materials needed to put a glass finish on a guitar are simple and cheap.
Equipment includes; glass jars, a piece of wool, cotton cloth like clean white t-shirt, grain or denatured alcohol, and shellac flakes.
The shellac flakes are mixed with pure alcohol to make the shellac at a rate of 1 oz. by weight to 8 oz. alcohol.
After six sessions of rubbing on the shellac, 3/4 oz of shellac has been spread evenly over the whole guitar.  After the guitar is finished, less than two ounces will have been added to the guitar's weight.
No electricity is required to apply this finish.  No aerosols are released into the air.

Jose I template & bending form construction

These will be cut out and glued together to make a side bending mold.

The side template is copied onto a piece of lucite and cut out.

French polishing the guitar

 After a couple of sessions, the guitar starts to get shiny.

 The bridge location is masked off.  Later, the bridge will be glued to the bare wood patch.

French Polishing for GuitarmakersFrench Polishing for Guitarmakers

Mixing shellac flakes, 1 lb. cut

A one pound cut of shellac is 16 ounces by weight of shellac flakes dissolved into one gallon of pure alcohol.  That's a ratio of 1 to 8.

So one ounce of shellac flakes dissolved into eight ounces of alcohol is a 1# cut.

The next project will be a replica of a short scale Ramirez flamenco guitar.  It's not a real big deal, but I first resolve the drawing to the dimensions written on the drawing.

Headstock Inlay

K-Bear, the Kermodie, pearl inlay.