Week 5 – Back work and Sound Hole

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Attaching back braces

  • Use block plane to round off back reinforcing strip, sand to get good finish
  • Cut slots in back reinforcing strip using template to mark distances
  • Saw through slightly and then use 6mm chisel to cut out
  • Plane tops of back braces to an angle so that the top is 4mm wide, but the bottom retains its original width
  • Glue the back braces in between the cut slots and use the go-bars to hold in till dry
    • 2nd from bottom brace goes in first then check it is square with the reinforcing strip
    • Put in the last 3 braces, measuring the distance between left and right sides with the first strip to ensure parallel

 Front work

  • Thicknessed the sound board to 2.5mm on the sander so that inlay is flush with top
  •  Cut sound hole using circle cutting jig.
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Week 4 – More Sound Hole work

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

 Cutting the inlay channel

  1. Block planed the inlays round sound hole till flush with top
  2. With 10mm router bit, but rosette inlay circle to 1.5mm deep. Start nearer neck end in case mistakes are made because these can be covered up by the neck.
  3. Start from the centre of rosette then adjust outwards slowly in micro-steps until the router just starts to cut into the other inlays

Cutting the inlay for the rosette

  1. Cut the inlay to the outside diameter of the channel (can always cut a slot to make it smaller if it doesn’t fit
  2. Then cut the inner side of the inlay based on the width of the channel (not the diameter of the inner edge).
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Week 3 – Reinforcement and Sound Hole Sculpting

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Back reinforcing strip

  1. Glue reinforcing strip made from cross cut strip taken from guitar top/front.
  2. Burr side up and overlap top and bottom ends on back and glue down. Won’t necessarily be a strip the whole length of back so glue a shorter strip if necessary. Hold down with masking tape.
  3. Clamp down using the clamping/joining jig for 5 minutes. Cover with paper to prevent wood from sticking to clamp bar
  4. Remove clamps and wipe off excess glue and re-clamp for 1 hour

 Cutting circles for centre sound hole decoration and rosette

  1. 1.5mm router bit and special jig on router rotating round a 1/4″ pin.
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Week 1 – Sound board and back

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

So glad I took some of the wood with me, the top and bottom. (AA Sitka Spruce Top Board, Tasmanian Blackwood bottom and sides).

Tonight I joined the top and bottoms together and cut out the back braces. Here’s a summary of what I did:

Making the top and bottom

  1. Michael helped identify the mirror edge of the bottom halves. He lay them on top of each other and looked at the end grain to see that it matched (halves are sawn from the same cross cut piece of timber).
  2. Identify and mark the top side of both halves.
  3. Long plane both top and bottom halves along the join edge.
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