Acoustic Guitar Construction

I used fish glue for the first time to glue down the top, although once I smelled it I am sure I used it in elementary school. I followed the clamping with a slightly damp cloth as it is water soluble.

John I've never used fish glue nor clamps like that. What's your appraisal of both. Is that fish glue an exciting experience or something to avoid. I know lots of people use HHG. I have some never been opened. I prefer the locktite or Elmer's merely for the open time. I just don't trust myself. I have a slight case of PTSD. Things like rushing to get things done give me the willy's.

Lonnie, The fish glue is nice as it has some of the repair qualities of HHG but has a long open time, and two year shell life. I mainly bought it because I am going to be making traditional classical guitar rosettes and it is a good glue for that.

As for the clamps, it really depends on the system you are using. Did you buy one of Ken's mega molds? I believe that the mold make it easy to use rubber bands as clamps.

The following picture illustrates what is different about Kent Everett's bevel procedure than others that I had looked at before starting. The purfling and the binding edge for the top and rims are set before the guitar is assembled. My fear of the bevel was how to get a clean edge on the purflings\top or the purfling\rim hand cutting on the finished body. Setting this up before assembly allowed me to use all sorts of tools to get a clean edge.

Once I start binding I will glue the top purfling in the bevel backed by the top cutout from cutting the top. On the binding side I will thin the binding height where I need to follow the bevel.

Once the guitar is bound, I can comeback, with rasps and or sanding to shape the bevel. Then I will have a smooth surface to glue a piece of veneer. The veneer can be loosely cut as I can trim and sand back the over hang and it should blend in to the thinned binding on the rim and can blend into the top purfling.

Although I am not using a purfling on the rims, this method would have allowed me to do that as I am bending the binding into the bevel.

To make life a little easier I am using ebony bindings and ebony veneer.

We shall see.

Thanks for your reply John. Yes I have the mega mold Ken sells. Can't move forward as my wife got injured then surgery. But when time permits I'll be jumping in. Love your guitar by the way. Back in the early eighties I made mandolins with homemade molds. I made one with a cut away. Sanded my wood by hand. Bent the sides over a candle crude but it worked. Now I have pretty much all the equipment to do it up right.

Lonnie, Hopefully things will settle down and I wish you wife a speed recovery.

Here is the next step of dealing with the purflings and binding in this process. This is a dry test before I glue the stuff down shows how I glue the binding and purflings in the bevel.

The top strip of wood, the cutoff from making the top bevel, up to the bindings will get sanded away up to the purflings. Because of the angle of the bevel this will end up as fill to back the ebony veneer.

The same with the bottom of the binding in the bevel. When the bevel is formed up to the rims, the remaining portion on the bindings will support the veneer. I had to sand the binding height down to get it to bend. I also let the bevel portion of the binding soak in super soft.

Looking at the picture, the binding could have had a purfling strip. You could see in the picture how that purfling strip would stay continuous.

Once this is all glued up, I will take a rasp and sand the basswood bevel support block, including the strip of ebony binding in the bevel and the cutoff holding in the purfling on top to form the bevel itself.

With the bevel shaped I will have a relatively flat oval shaped bevel outlined by the purfling on the top and the rim on the side. I will roughly cut a piece of veneer coat it with veneer glue and iron it on to the bevel. I will then cut and sand the veneer edges flush to the top and flush to the rim. Being ebony or any darker wood the veneer and the binding will blend together and I will end up with a clean purfling line on the top.

We will see!

A very interesting process - thanks for the postings. You do very nice work, John.

Thanks John, Carol appreciates all the good wishes as I do also. Still loving your guitar. I was able to get fluorescent lighting in my power tool shop. Actually my front porch I've converted so as to keep the messy tools out of doors. I've been following this thread closely as I've never seen a build like this. Nice job every step of the way.