A new OM about to be born

[Herman]

Yes, nice work Kev'
Herman

[Kevin in California]

Bent my bindings today. They came out perfect. Fit the guitar channels near perfect.

Controller shows 244 but I bend at 275...it was ramping up.

Routed the binding channels top and back.
Top gets binding and abalone purfling scheme. The back gets just binding....no purfling.

[peter havriluk]

That all looks familiar!

[Jim Ebert]

Great work as always! Thanks for posting and making me want to quit working on the house and get back to guitars.

[Kevin in California]

So I taped the binding in place on the top using Teflon stips in the purfling channel to secure the black line that goes against the spruce edge. This allows me to really check the fit of the binding and make corrections before gluing. Then I wicked in CA along the binding between the tape. Pulled the Teflon out and wicked in CA down along the inside where the binding met the sides. After that I pulled the tape off and wicked in CA in any spot that didn't have any.
Once that is all done I started inserting the abalone. I put the second black fiber line in the channel against the binding and start inserting the abalone. I set it about 5 to 10 thousands low in the channel so I can later flood CA over the top, filling any voids and making it so when I scrap it all down flush I'm scraping CA instead of the shell. Also the binding is about .010" proud.
I use laminated shell sold in curved pieces for rosettes.
This is WAY cheaper than solid shell which has gotten so expensive now, like $1.50 to $2.00 per inch for straight pieces. Too much for me.
I get 15 inches for $9.00 shipped on Amazon.
Anyway I didn't take pics this time of the process but you see it in my last guitar build.

The binding and purfling is now scraped down flush. I like using my favorite scraper for this....utility knife blades. They work great.
The back and sides are also proud about .010" and have scraped flush. All done now. My bindings end up .070" thick in this scheme.

Now I'm moving on to the fretboard and the headstock plate.

[John Parchem]

The shell looks great! I understand the price, my last Ukulele had over $80 of shell.

[Kevin in California]

Yeah John I switched to this stuff about 8 years ago. I couldn't do abalone otherwise.

I made the fretboard today, Indian Rosewood. Bound in Koa to match the body.
Then started cutting out the channel on the meck blank for the truss rod. I usually do this on the router table but just felt like doing some chiseling so I'm going at it by hand. I now have it almost done.
Next I'll work on the head stock plate...Ebony with my "Sjostrand" logo.