A post long due....

So i know it has been a long time since the last post, and three soundboards later, we have the body all glued up, and ready to be bound with binding, and cut with our dovetail jig for the neck.

The soundboard was a long, and very painful process with the first one as a bust, due to the damn circle cutter's lack of accuracy.  The second to the wood not being thick enough and splitting while carving out the braces, but the third one finally will work.  although the rosette is not perfect due to re-using the second soundboard's rosette so we would not have to make a new one.  its not perfect, but the next guitar will be... i hope.

The neck has been cut into its rough shape and we are awaiting the truss rod and misc. items for completion.  I designed and cut my own bridge and gave it a natural look to it.  it was a very difficult task to complete with the band saw because i did not have any scroll saw blades but i was able to pull it off.


so for now, its just a quick update and i will post more photos beneath.  i hope in the hear future, when this guitar is finished, i will be able to make another guitar with my father and refine our skills and make a 000 acoustic and do some things differently based on our learning experiences from this one.  and hopefully by the 3rd or 4th guitar, we will be able to sell them.  (i love thinking ahead).

so thats all for now!  its coming along great and will most likely be finished by the end of the month.

Necessary Jigs and Braces

Some Jigs and forms are needed to obtain certain shapes and glue parts together while building the guitar, so my father made a go-bar set up to glue the braces to the soundboard and bottom and keep the brace's radius.  For those who do not know, the top of the guitar - according to our plans - has a 28 foot radius and the bottom has a 15 foot radius and must be glued to braces to match the specified arch to keep strength and sound quality present while building.  We built the braces out of cherry as well as the kerfing which i will get to later on.  The braces needed to be cut to spec, then bent in a jig, and sent through the thickness sander, then, once released from the jig, the required radius for the bottom. (have not gotten to the top braces yet)  The go-bar jig is for gluing ing the braces onto the top and bottom sheets of wood for the guitar.  The sheets sit on a dish that has the appropriate radius cut out (purchased at lmii.com) so everything glues properly.  Lmi also sells a go-bar jig (although to save some cash, we made ours) and they do a better job explaining it than i can.  The kerfing jig is pretty straight forward.  Its just there to guide cuts with the radial saw.  My father has a great deal of experience with woodworking and in the past has made a boat-crib, table, our entire kitchen cabinetry, our home, a thomas moser knock-off platform bed frame that is absolutely beautiful, and a number of other things.  I am the one taking pictures most of the time but also do a good portion of the work, unlike the last guitar haha!  I really enjoy woodworking and plan to keep manipulating wood into works of art such as guitars and other things.

Kerfing jig

Sanding bottom braces to appropriate thickness

RIGHT ON!

Go-Bar jig

Bottom brace jig

Mold to keep everything together

Making the Soundboard and Back

The wood for the guitar came in the mail from Oregon wild wood about a week ago and my father and I began to give the wood some shape to what we desired to make.  The wood we ordered included: two ebony bridge blocks, one neck block-myrtlewood, two side panels and two back panels-myrtlewood, two soundboard panels-port orford cedar, and one ebony panel.  We glued the back panels together and the soundboard panels together as well, then we marked and cut the estimated shape (3/8 for room for error) and they are currently waiting to be glued to the sides.

Sanding the top and bottom panels to the required thickness

Jointing the panels for a perfect fit

More thickness sanding

Top and bottom done until bracing and assembly

 

The top at the end of cutting and sanding

Introduction

Hello friends and newcomers who do not know me.  My name is Elliot and over the winter, my father, Herb and I have embarked on a woodworker's adventure to build an acoustic guitar.  This is our second year building a guitar (two years prior, we built a Gibson les paul 1969) and decided to take a stab in the dark and create an acoustic guitar.  I have started this blog a little too late for my liking due to family events and getting caught up with schoolwork, but i will try my best to keep the rest of the build up-to-date with the blog.  So, let the blog begin!