Necks & Fretboards

The necks are now fitted to the bodies and the fretboards are complete and ready to be glued on the necks.. Once the fretboards and peghead overlays are glued up I can get on with carving the necks.

Some CNC Work

I don't really use the CNC much for actual building more for templates & jigs, but I do use it to route the head plates and cut the pockets and inlay pieces, it's just more accurate than I am..

So her are three head plates for the L-0 guitars and three inlays, Koa, Walnut & Indian Rosewood with Black Lipped Mussel, White MoP and Gold MoP  ...

One Big One Small

Finished the Cello Guitar and the Tenor Ukulele. I'm happy with the sound of both, especially the Cello Guitar. I think I will be making more of them.

L-0 Guitars

Moving on to working on the necks for a bit, don't feel like doing a bunch of sanding on the boddies right now. Matching necks to bodies.

Matching Necks to Bodies

Oak, walnut & koa

Progress on L-0 Style Guitars

Things are going good with these three.. Same body shapes different backs and sides and different bracing patters but all Sitka tops.

One of the goals of this build set is to refine and update a few procedures to work better with the space and equipment I have.. One thing that is very useful in building that I don't really have room to leave set up is a go-bar deck. So trying out using a vacuum bag and radius-ed work board to glue on top and back braces.

L-0 "H" bracing in a vacuum bag

Start of a double "X" brave in the bag

Bending sides

Completed double "X" glued to it's sides

Closing boxes

In the Pipe

I'm working on applying the finish to the Cello guitar and Tenor ukulele. Always a bit of a slow process and while that is going on I am starting on the next projects. in this case 3 guitars, based on the Gibson L-0 6 string.

All 3 will have Sitka tops but that is about where the similarity stops.. The closest to a classic L-0 will have my view of the Gibson H bracing with a White Oak back and sides and Spanish Cedar neck. The next will have a pretty standard Martin influenced X brace with Walnut back and sides and a Mahogany neck and the last will have a double X brace with Koa back and sides and a Mahogany neck.

It will be interesting to see how they all sound.. The double X brace design will I think become what I use going forward.

Working on the Arm Bevel

The trickiest part of the arm bevel is getting it shaped and smoothed down right to the purfling lines on the top and side. Then of course the veneer needs to be glued on tight..

Shaping the bevel

Veneer on and done