I finally was able to secure a go bar deck to glue my back braces to the piece of wood that will become the back of my guitar. We go ahead and use a template to line all of these pieces into their correct spots so that we can glue them down without them slipping. Well, I used the template, but one of my back braces didn't fit through the slots in the template and was caught up preventing the entire brace from gluing down properly. Fortunately for me, I noticed it before the glue had fully dried, but it still was a pain in the buns to carefully pry it loose and reposition it. except for that after repositioning the brace, it then proceeded to slip out of alignment and was now fully glued down in a slightly non-perpendicular angle...and I had fallen a full day behind the build at this point. It isn't really worth it to fix a minor thing, because you wont really be able to notice it when everything is glued up. It gives it "character"
While the back braces were getting all glued up, I proceed with attaching the kerfing to the ribs (sides). This is a strip of wood with notches cut into it so it becomes fairly flexible that you then use to line the top and bottom edge of the rib to create a larger gluing surface for when you glue the top/back plate to the sides. The best way to provide the clamping pressure is with a bunch of clothespins reinforced with rubber bands to make their pinch stronger.
Which when all is said and done, looks like this:
Along with the side braces, which structurally, don't do anything to strengthen the guitar, but say you should develop a crack that runs along the length of the side, these braces will stop it from running the entire length of the side. From here, you sand the kerfing flush to the side with a radius dish that matches the radius you put into the back and a radius bar for the radius you built into the soundboard. Now you are ready to cut the notches into the sides that your braces will fit in to when you glue the top/back on to. This is a major pain in the buns to do by hand because you need to make absolutely sure the braces will fit before you make your cuts to depth. you also need to keep your depth of cut in mind so that it will eventually be covered up by your binding without showing any gaps. After a long time getting that fit as close as possible, we bust out our fifty feet of bungee cord to glue the top down to the sides.
Typically at this point, you go ahead and glue your back portion on, but unfortunately for me, over the weekend, my top had decided to separate from my sides in the area between those two notches in the above picture due to a combination of not enough glue and the arch that is built into the top. I had to lose another day on the schedule sawing the brace loose from the sides so that I could glue the top back down to the rib, thus removing the gap. You then flush trim the top to the sides with a router (which also slipped a bit on me and trimmed a bit more off than it was supposed to, but fortunately will be trimmed away later for binding). Then we prepped the back for gluing. It is essentially the same procedure as gluing the top on, but because my one back brace had slipped while gluing, I had to cut my notches for that brace by hand, as opposed to using the router and template for the other braces.
Before we close up the back, we are encouraged to sign the inside and put any dedications we deem fit.
Its a really expensive box now. Luckily for me, I learned from my mistake with the top, and used enough glue for the back so that no gaps formed. After flush routing the back and sanding the sides totally flat (another whole day of Cheetos dust) I was able to route the channel for my binding, which hides the seam where the top/back meets the sides along with where the braces will poke through the ribs, along with looking awesome. I also was able to have the dovetail routed for where the neck will meet the body.
With that all ready to go, I could now glue in my binding. I chose tortoise-patterned celluloid which required using a really nasty plastic cement to glue on. The glue actually partially melts the plastic which permanently bonds it to the wood. While this glue set up, we hold the binding in place with hundreds of pieces of strapping tape.
While that was setting up, I went ahead and started to sand my cocobolo fingerboard to its proper radius and condition, as well as determine where my inlays will be placed.
Cocobolo is another nasty wood to use, because the dust is actually toxic. It makes a great fingerboard wood, though, and it looks awesome (it also dyed my hands yellow-orange). Add in the subtle touches of abalone for the position markers, and it will look absolutely amazing.
Speaking of looking amazing, once the glue dried and I removed the tape:
I'll need to do a few touch ups where the glue didn't quite hold things in place how I wanted, but what lies ahead for me is scraping that flush to the top/back and then sanding it flush to the sides. Then I will work on getting the neck shaped out and fit to the body.
Only 2 weeks left.
 |
| There's so much time and so little to do! WAIT! Scratch that...reverse it. |
No comments:
Post a Comment