Acoustic Guitar Build

Glad you folks are enjoying the build. I am also having fun doing it and learning a lot as I go along. Sometimes it is straight forward woodworking and other times there are so many small steps to complete one thing.

Bret - I think I will probably do at least one more after this. One thing though I am not spending a whole ton of money making these jigs. I use a lot of plywood scraps, etc. I just like to get things right. We'll see how it goes.

Andrew - The plans for this jig are on the net somewhere. A lot of people have copied, made the same and even improved on this jig. The original design calls for three 150w bulbs sitting inside acting as a heat source. I read that Charles Fox didn't trademark the jig when he first made and instead offered it up to the luthier community to use for free. His logic was if he trademarked it he would have probably has several lawsuits on his doorstep as soon as someones shop burned down. I just looked at pictures of the jig online and copied it.

Body Glue-up

Next I am gong to glue up the bent sides to create the form for the body. This is pretty straight forward but one thing is to keep the end blocks centered and square to the side.

Before gluing it up my sides are 100mm wide. The body will have a taper on it. That taper was penciled in before bending so I will know how deep to plane.

With the bent side in the mold make a pencil mark to cut side to length. The end should line up to the center mark on the mold.


Using a square block, clamp it down and cut to length.


The body will be tapered toward the neck so the neck block will be cut to 80mm and the tail block to 95mm. The ends of each block are cut at a 4 degree angle so the dome plates mate nicely.


Make a center line mark on your end block and have the two ends of your sides meet at the center line. Using a square make sure your block is square to the side. Spread glue and clamp it.


After about two hours or so you can do the other end.

Fitting the Back

In this step I will fit the back. That is I won't glue it to the back plate to the body just yet. I will just fit it.

If you remember in the last post I mentioned that the body will be tapered. So that means there will be an arch. Before I did the bending and glue-up I made a pencil mark for my taper.

Here I have made a temporary jig to hold the sides in place as I plane down to the end blocks along my penciled taper mark. Make sure you plane with the grain run-out and not against it.


Here you can I have taken it down to the end blocks.


Now I have to do a bit of tailoring on the back plate so I clamp it in place...


and slowly flip it up to reveal the inside aligned center-to-center. Here I make a pencil mark for where the center spline meets the end block.


Then I take it off, make a cut with a hand saw and lift it away with a sharp chisel. This is my end-to-end placement register.


Then I glue on the kerfed lining. They break easily where the bend is tight so They have to be done in segments. Glue them on proud.


Back plate side done.


Now I use a radiused rail with some sandpaper on it to sand the proud kerfed linings level to the sides. The radius will ensure the arched back mates nicely to the linings.


Here I made some proper spreading clamps.


Now I am ready to mark where the braces need to be cut to fit neatly into the notched braces. The mark is made on the underside where the braces meet the body sides and on the body side.


Mark on braces is referenced from the outside, the cut will be about 2mm inside the mark to account for the side thickness.


Here I mark across the top of the linings where I will notch it out to accept the brace end using the mark I made on the body for my reference.


Brace ends cut to size with a hand saw and chisel.


The braces fit nicely into the notch. I had to be careful when notching it out as the wood is kerfed and soft.


The back plate fitted and ready for gluing... but not just yet.

Impressive

Wonderful!

That's seriously some fantastic work!

I was at our local Woodcraft yesterday and they had this poster on the wall.

Bravo Alex, this is wonderful!

Love this thread Thanks Alex

Looking real good Alex-thanks for the updates.

I hadn't looked through this thread, but I am impressed! Lots of work just building the jigs! Nice work Alex.
Vaughn, I had a Ventura 6 string that pulled up badly at the bridge, but my Conn 12 string has stayed nice and flat. Jim.

Fitting the Top

Next step I will fit and glue the top.

In the last step I only fit the back as I had to fit the top after fitting and before gluing the back. The bent sides had almost no spring back after bending but they are not a perfect fit. Using the spreading clamps and dowels the body was pressed into the form and the back was fit. Basically the shape was then decided.

In fitting the top I use the same method for holding the body in shape. However there was one difference in the fitting. On the back I notched the kerf linings out so the braces butted against the body on the inside. But on the top once I had everything lined up and marked I notched out the positions by cutting through the body.

The reason for the departure was simply ease of doing but also I wanted one plate to hold the shape. On the back the braces are 90 degrees to the center line while on the top plate the braces are angled to the center line. Notching out the positions on the soft wood with such an acute angle I probably would have made a mess of things. So I did the cut through method. Both ways are standard.

The cut through notch. After lining up and marking I cut out the first set on the top bout. These act as my position register. With the first set done I then mark out the positions of the X-brace notches.


A close up of the cut.


Check the fit.


Doubling as a clamp I drilled holes on the mold to accept the clamps.


I was stewing about how I was going to do this and then decided on this. I had the clamps from before and they worked perfect in the body mold.


The dry clamp; everything fits in place nicely. The top is slightly arched so I can't put pressure across it flatly. In this case I use some spot cauls with cork on the bottom facing the soft spruce top.


A side view.


The glue-up.


The top glued in place.

Very cool. And the edge banding will hide the notches... Nice

I found on my little travel guitar, Routing the channel for the edge banding was the most nerve racking thing I did... Something about putting a power tool to it just seemed like one wrong move and ZIIiiip, there'd be an issue!

Exactly Brent, the perfling and edge banding will hide the notch. I empathize with you on routing the groove. I'm already thinking OMG and working out the best method/solution.

Moving along. By the way my domain access problem was fixed. The admin of the web hosting company found there was a setting fault on their firewall. So I am back in business.

In this post I will glue the back on. Last time I went through the steps for fitting and gluing the top. Before that I fit the back but didn't glue it as the top has to be taken care of first. So now that the glue has dried, cured and I've had my cup of coffee it is time to attach the back.

I put some pads down on the lifters because the spruce top will sit on them. That is one thing about this project; you have to be very mindful of what the spruce top comes in contact with because it dents so easily.


Then I glue on some side struts to strengthen the quatersawn rosewood against splitting.


Here I use some dowels to spread the body to the back that was fit in a previous step. It is not unusual for the sides to crimp or splay a little when one side has been glued on. This time though I can't use the spreading clamps.


Sorry folks no picture of the glue-up as it was done in the same manner as the top. After the glue up I mostly used my low angle block plane to flush up the back to the side. other tools I used to help out were a file and rasp.


Here you can see a side profile with the back flush cut to the side. The dowels just lifted out.


Another profile shot.


A few more steps and the body will be done. Getting there.

The End Graft

In the next step I will make and glue on the end graft. This is a tapered piece of quatersawn stock that seals up the tail end, where the bent sides come together.

For my end graft I am using some curly maple I have left laying around the shop from the Chef's Prep Table I made last summer. This is where some luthiers get creative but this time I am doing a simple tapered end graft. I really like the tapered butt joint because it will be a perfect fit when it snugs up - no gaps.

My curly maple stock. For the taper I just eye the proportions. I think I had 35mm at the top and 12 at the bottom.


Put it in the vise and use a low angle to plane down to the line.


Ready to fit.


Marking the placement.


Start making a router jig.


The completed jig attached to the tail end of the body. Notice the napkin being used to protect the spruce top from the wood and clamping pressure. It worked great.


After a few test cuts on plywood I was able to set the correct depth. Here is a pic of the cut groove ready to accept the graft.


It fits perfect with almost no cleanup.


Glue it in place and clamp it with a caul.


A few hours later I took the clamps off and trimmed away the excess with a Japanese hand saw. Usually for this kind of flush cut trimming I lay a thin piece of protective stock and cut away carefully.


This turned out nicely. Once again I have confirmed best practice for so many things we do in woodworking are jigs and test cuts.

I swear, each time you post to this thread I'm just more and more impressed with your work Alex

Beautiful work again Alex! Love the grain on that end piece.

You are making some killer jigs there as well.

My opinion is that you will need to start producing these guitars on a regular basis,a s they are looking fantastic!

Thanks guys.

Stu, coming from you that means a lot to me. I am also in awe of your work. You are a man of infinite resources.

Brent, just wait until you see the next jig.