Back Braces

The back braces are now glued to the back, they are first pre-radiused in a radius dish. For this guitar I used a 15' radius.. The Braces are then glued in using a go-bard deck and radius dish to clamp them to the back.. This forces the back to a 15' radius.

Adding the Linings

I'm using purchased Mahogany reverse kerf linings, I just don't have the patience to make my own..

Some glue and bucket of 100 clamps and it's pretty straight forward... Of course once one side is done you need to flip it over and do the other :-)

Nice and colourful

Side Bending

So these are the first sides I've bend on a Fox Style bender all the others have been on a pipe. Things went pretty well except I got a some scorching of the inside face. Too hot a setting I guess, the good news is the sides bent very nicely with little spring back, I also bent the binding since I had the bender set up. I'm happy with  the bender I got from Blues Creek Guitars and the other parts from LMI, the controller and blanket.

Prepped to bend, a sandwich of wood and heating blanket between two steel slats

Bent and cooling off

The results, glued to the blocks and out of the form for a photo.

Jointing the Top

So here is my procedure for jointing the top, the back is done the same..

Clean up the edges on a shooting board using a jack plane, in this case a nice low angle jack from Lee Valley. - great plane.

I can get the joint perfect using the hand plane but I often times take more time than I would like chasing the joint around. So I finish the edge with a few passes of a 24" level with 220 PSA Sand paper. I find it works better for me this way.

Then the joint is glued together using original Titebond and held fast using a simple wedge jig, again simple and works great.

Thicknessing and Jointing

Tonight I thicknessed the sides and jointed the back. Rough thickness is obtained using a Safety Planer and the final thickness is obtained using a home made drum sander.. Sides are about 2mm and the back right now is about 3mm which is a bit think bit I might try leaving it there, not sure. My idea is that the thicker = stiffer back might give a bit more projection from the small instrument.. Not sure if I will leave it at that thickness or not...

The Safety Planer, used by many Luthiers

I very simple jig to hold the far side of the wood down as it goes through

Back Jointed using a simple Jig

I'm also getting ready to route the dovetail mortise in the heel block, I'm doing this early on in the process as opposed when the box is closed, I'm thinking I prefer this but this will be the test.

Anyway here is the jig I made set up to route the dovetail using a template from LMI.

On to the Next One

Most people who build guitars will tell you it is a bit of an obsession. I guess I am no different in that regard, I've been bitten by the bug..

Building something that is both beautiful and beautiful sounding is very satisfying.

So the next guitar is a small tenor based on a Regal tenor guitar from the 1920's with a 21" scale length, 12 fret to the body and floating bridge and tailpiece.. I calling it a Celtic Tenor as I plane to try to optimize it for GDAE tuning as a sort of octave mandolin.. It should work well for Celtic style playing.

The Shape will be that of the Regal but I plan on changing a few things most notably the materials

Back and sides will be Koa, with and Englemann Spruce top, the neck will be Cedro (Spanish Cedar), with and Ebony fretboard, most of the trim will be Ebony..

The Raw Material

I'll be doing a few things different in the build process as well since I think I have a few methods in mind that work better for me.. First off I'll be using the universal mold I made, I don't have the space to keep making separate molds for each guitar type I make.. It also has what I hope are a few other advantages this I'll talk about as they come up.

Template used to set up mold

Template removed

On to the Next One

Most people who build musical instruments will tell you it is a bit of an addiction . Guess I am no exception, it is a very special feeling to build something that not only looks good but sounds good!

So off we go with the next guitar, his one is a small tenor based on the 1920's Regal Tenor Guitar