My first build. KMG 'D' kit.

[JoshColvin]

Hello everyone, I've just begun my first guitar build, and am very excited for the journey. I'm not much of a woodworker, so I thank all of you ahead of time for your help in answering questions when they arise! The knowledge here seems incredibly vast. I'm a total newbie, and have already made a newbie mistake! ( At least only one that I know of). I hope to write a post at the end of each day that I work on the guitar. Here's day one!

Yesterday was Christmas in June! The package arrived from KMG. So I promptly opened up the box and oo-ed and ah-ed at all the beautiful pieces of wood. And then I picked up the rosewood back…wih one hand…and it split in two, right down the middle of the installed zig zag strip. I forgot to breathe for about 2 minutes as I stood there and stared at what I had just done. But I should be able to fix it using a shooting board. The split is remarkably clean. I'll take a photo of the damage soon. I didn’t originally plan to make a shooting board, but alas, now I do.

So first thing I did was get the sides in the mold to measure out the cut off on each end. I drew lines on the mold where the center line was marked on each of the sides, so I had a reference point for the future. Then, while hold the side tight to the mold I marked the center line where the two pieces of the mold come together. I did this on both the neck end and the tail end for both side pieces. Then I used a swanson speed square to complete the line across the grain, to form a perfect 90 degree angled line. Then I actually used the tail block, clamped along the line I drew, onto a work board, in order to get a nice straight flush edge for my saw. I used a Stanley saw I got from Lowes. It’s not exactly a razor saw, but it cut super straight and clean.

With all four chunks cut off, I put the sides in the mold. They fit beautifully! The edges lined up just about perfect with no light showing through the crack. So the next step was to find the center of the neck block, per the KMG online manual. I did this and marked the center line on blue painters tape. I used a yard stick to draw a straight line across the entire work board. I then lined up both seams in the sides at the neck and tail end, so I know everything would be perfectly straight; placed the neck block and did a dry clamp. I determined it would work if I used one of the double C clamp things I got from Lowes on the bottom, and two small C clamps I got from a garage sale on the top. So I slathered on some Titebond, put the neck block in place, and clamped it accordingly. Next I found the center line of the tail block, and clamped it in a similar fashion. Now it’s clamped up and drying for the night. Tomorrow I hope to get the kerfing and side reinforcements on.

I’m so excited about this project, and I can’t wait to keep working on it!

(p.s. I'm hoping the photos show up...I'm new to all forum activity)

[Kevin in California]

Hey there Josh, if I haven't said it before, Welcome!
You are off and running. Do not hurry this process, take your time and enjoy it. We have all made and continue to make mistakes, but find that if we take the time to think things through before we act, those mistakes happen less often. I'm sure I speak for more than just myself on that.
We are all here to watch and help where we can if you have questions. Remember that Ken who supplied you with the kit is the best FIRST person to go to with assembly questions with is supplied jigs and instructions.
We all like pictures too so please do continue to post them.
Happy building.

Kevin

[JoshColvin]

Thanks for the advice Kevin!

Here's where I'm at after day 2:

[Dave Bagwill]

Looking good! :-)

[John Parchem]

Josh, The guitar is looking good.

[JoshColvin]

Day 3

Today I installed the rosette and contoured the edges of the back with a 15' radius and sanded the top edges flat and flush. Then I sanded the 1.3 degree angle on the top per Ken's online kit manual.

I'm trying to follow Ken's online manual pretty much to a T and it is so incredibly helpful to have that resource! Thanks so much Ken for putting that out!


So far I'm really enjoying this process.
Today I learned that I love the smell of Mahogany shavings.

[JoshColvin]

Today I began prepping the top bracing. I made the note card cauls for the radius of the top braces. Then I laid out and cut the notches on the X bracing. Then I made the bridge plate, using the X brace lines as a guide. After gluing in the bridge plate I began to shape the tone bars. I used a chisel to get them close to the lines that had been pre drawn on them, and then used the dremel tool with a sanding drum bit to get it exact. That's all I had time for today!