Amrosia and Redwood OM for my grandson

[Kevin in California]

I started this guitar a week ago. My grandson will be visiting the first week of July and my goal is to have this one done for him then. I've never built a guitar this fast, and this is number 12.
It is an OM. Ambrosia Maple back and sides, will have a reclaimed Redwood top. Bindings are walnut, rosette will be birdseye maple ringed inside and out with BWB purfling.
The neck is a one piece honduran mahogany. Frets and tuners will be silver.
The OM I build is based off the Jonathan Kinkade model, some some modifications to the top bracing.
The picture of the neck in the vise is what happens when you forget to rout the truss rod channel before you've cut off the excess material from the sides of the blank. Sheesh!. So I cut it by hand with a chisel. Actually only took about 1/2 hour so not too bad.
I also went back to making the neck block with a mortise in it before gluing the sides to it, and cut the tenon on my neck on the table saw and band saw.
I'm also using barrel nuts in the tenon for bolting on the neck instead of the threaded inserts, as I've not had great success with those in the past.
So I'll be bracing the back tonight and by the weekend I hope to have the box closed.

[Dave Bagwill]

That's going to be fun to watch!

What problems have you had with the threaded inserts?

[John Parchem]

sweet looking start. A lucky grandson.

[Kevin in California]

Well I've probably been using the wrong inserts, but they crumble the end grain more than cut in threads, so I always flood them with CA, but I've had them fail on two guitars, and one was in England and the owner had to fix it himself....embarrassing, although he did DROP the guitar on the headstock, but the inserts pulled free.

[Kevin in California]

I got the back in the gobar deck gluing in the bracing last night.

[Will Reyer]

Ah, Kevin, you appear to be a man after my own methods of work. I do a mortise and tenon with the mortise built into the head block when I glue it to the sides. On the neck glue-up I make the neck angle cut at the end of the tenon with a miter guide on the tablesaw, and then, if necessary, clean it up into one precise plane on a 12" disc sander (very carefully). I make the mortise in the head block 1" deep so I use that 1" on the tenon layout. Then, if it requires using the disc sander to get the surface perfectly flat, it doesn't matter if I take a little off because I'm aiming for a 15/16" reach on the tenon into a 1" deep mortise.

Then I cut the tenon to width on the table saw with the neck angle face down on the table and the side of the assembly against the rip fence. After that, I use the neck angle face against the rip fence to cut off the cheeks.

I'm making 5-piece necks and it's important that the two pieces on each side of the center strip are all each exactly the same width, in order to use the table saw to cut the tenon and have it centered.

I also run a 1/4" dowel vertically from the bottom of the tenon past where the barrel bolts will go to reinforce the tenon for tightening the bolts. This may be paranoia on my part but it's easy to do, giving the tenon some cross grain. Photo attached of this feature, on my current build, #5. I'm doing Spanish V headstocks so the neck glue-up shows the male part of this joint.

You're way ahead of me in builds, skills, and quality. I take it that's your splendid new bench in the photos? And what better thing to give your grandson? Splendid. Nice work.

[Kevin in California]

Making quicker progress than is normal for me.
I have the braces on the back and top, but I still have alot of material to remove, so the carving will commence.
The rosette is the same wood as the back and sides, ambrosia maple.