Here is a pile of guitar wood that will soon shape up.
Joining the back
Joining the top.
Installing the rosette pices.
Installed and ready for leveling.
Closeup of the rosette
The top is ready for braces.
The side all ready for the bend.
First I spritz then with a little water to keep from scorching them.
Then wrap them in foil to keep then from stainging and to keep the hot steam on them for a while.
The bending sandwich goes like this from the bottom to the top. Spring steel slat, side wrapped in foil, another spring steel slat, silicon heating blanket, galvanized spring-loaded slat on the top.
First I bend in the waist after the temp gets to around 250 deg or so with the waist caul under spring tension. After the waist is bent, I spring up the ends of the galvanized slat and put it under tension.
Finally as the temp approaches 300 deg or so, I bend the bouts around and tie them off. I let the temp climb to 325 or so and then switch from full power to cycled power. after the side cools to around 150 deg or so I bring it back up to 250 and then let it cool. I usually leave the side in the bender over night and it is ready to go the next day.
This cool little jig allows me to put a certain radius on the top edge of the sides to accept the top plate. Some builders do this with a sanding dish but I find this method works very nicely and I can put a nice flat area in the upper bout so that the fingerboard doesn't form a hump as it transitions over the sound box. I have different guides for the different radi that I use. typical are 30' for the top plus a flat upper bout and a 15' for the back.
Getting ready to prebend a set of linings. You can install these without bending them but this makes for a nice tension free install.
Bending the linings using the side bender.
The sides are masked off for glueing in the crack containment tape.
Crack containment tapes are in
The linings are installed and ready to accept the top & back.
Doing a little work on the headstock, this is the front
And the back
Glueing on the back braces.
Installing the back seam reinforcement and the label.
The finished back ready to go on the box.
Adding braces to the top.
I glued the back on and soon will close the box.
Finishing up glueing the braces.
Get'n my Mojo workin!
The top is finished.
Glueing on the top, of course it is at the bottom of the stack against the top form.
Fresh out of the form.
A few shots of the assembled box
Next up doing the purfling and binding. This one gets the deluxe vintage treatment.
Routing the channel for the purfling and binding.
Managing the strips
This is the deluxe vintage style purfling
All taped up
All scraped up and looking good!
The fingerboard and neck getting some binding. Next I will cut the dovetail for attaching the neck.
Cutting the dovetail mortise in the sound box.
Cutting the dovetail tenon in the neck.
About to do a little fine tuning of the parts so that they press together and lock.
Test fitting the pieces.
The fingerboard is one, the neck has been shaped.
Just some fine sanding to do in readiness for the finish!
Attaching the neck.
I'll be glueing on the bridge tomorrow and will string her up on Monday!
All ready for some pickin!
A very nice piece of curly mahogany
And a red spruce top
A way cool bridge!
A traditional torch inlay for the headstock and snowflake fingerboard markers.
With a nice brown Cedar Creek case.
