Acoustic Guitar Construction

Very nice Herman. I agree with the nastiness of the Ebony sandings

Looks great Herman! When I can I like to finish the guitar with the neck off the body. I hate spaying into right corners. Since I make Spanish style classical guitars I have done it both ways.

Coming right along Herman, I bet it feels good to be back working on this guitar.
I've always sprayed with the neck off, but I'm thinking I might attach the neck on the crossover and then spray and see how it goes.

Before attaching the fingerboard, the binding of the head must be in place. Because it ends under the fingerboard. And I want it to allign perfectly with the binding of that fingerboard.
So first the layout was drawn of the headplate. Pay attention: The perfect radius on top of the head is created ingeniusly with our eggboiling pan.



After that the tunerholes were drilled. I do this in three steps.
One: Drilling with a little 2 mm drill straight through the head on the marked positions.
Two: Drilling with a 8 mm bratpoint drill from the top, about 3 mm deep.
Three: Drilling with a 10 mm bratpoint drill from the back, about 11 mm deep.
This way both the tuner (10mm wide) and the tunernut (8mm wide) will sit almost snug into the head.



The excess of the wood is cut off. The sides are now planed square and the topside sanded square.

Binding of the headstock.

First make the perimeter of the headstock to its final dimensions. 'cause when the binding is on, you can only take off tiny bits. Then with the dremel the slot all around was made.



Crucial imo is the allignment with the fretboardbinding. That looks best.



I glue them with CA. It has a minimum waiting time. I start at the topside with oversized binding. Then, as with the bodybinding I take off the excess and miter the corners with a scalpel. Then work down to the fingerboardside.



If you work slow, with some dryfitting, you can make it almost perfect in line.



Plane off the excess and make thing flush with a scraperblade. be careful not to hook into the buttjoints of the bindings.

Yes with maple they always show. I hate that! Why do people always want curly maple for a binding. Please choose a nasty grayish/brownish wood for that, and I make you an immaculate edge. But here maple it is...........



So when all maple-discontent is gone, the fingerboard is glued.
-trussrod in place with a few drops of gelly photoglue. Veneer on top. Be shure the topside of the neck is flush with that.
-Little nails through the 1st and 12th fretslot into the neckwood for alligment. That way the fingerboard cannot slip out of position during glueing.
-I still use titebond. I did use epoxy before, but found that even a bit too much glue wasn't squeezed out enough and leaving a too thick visable glueline. I know lots of us like epoxy for this, but this is how I do it.
-Also I do not clamp with a flat caul like many of us, but still use my firsttimer innertube. Works for me. Next time I tell you if the fingerboard is not twisted of curved. Cause that would be the reason not to rubberband the thing.

Thanks your posts showing the binding on the head stock and the intersection with the fret board binding. I have yet to bind a head stock so seeing it done really helps.

Look great Herman. I too drill my tuner holes from top and back, this way no tear out troubles!
Nice job on the headstock binding, I haven't tried that yet, so nice to see how you did it with the maple.

Kevin