Acoustic Guitar Construction

No Kevin.
I'm about to polish her(?!).

I tell you waht happened. I thought I sanded it up to 2000#. I took it to work , because my sander sucks my compressor empty in 15 seconds. At work we have a Huuuuge one, so I went there for the job.
After some polishing lots of scratches stayed in the otherwise gloss finish. Grrrr. anger! So I stopped there.
On my back home I realized I did only the 800# sanding. The other grids did not pass yet. Stupid me.
Herman

This time sanded in the right order
Always looks messy.



Off to work and polish:



Back home. Have to work on some little details, but otherwise nice.

That finish sure looks good. Looks like it is ready for a bridge.

Beautiful job.

Ooooo, shiney. Looks wonderful Herman

Yes John, bridge to go for.
First I put the saddleslot at the right position (compensation 2,5mm high E, 5,5mm Low E). Fix the bridge with some masking tape on the perimeter. Then I allign the pinholes in a way the string run parallel to the edge of the neck. (Look better when ready). Here I admit the neck is 1mm off, so the bridge is a hair off the middleline. Oh yes, I make flaws all the time too. But you know, after 1 week of playing no one will notice again. Not that I don't care, but these things happen to amateurs.



Scribe the perimeter with the back of a scalpel.



Scrape the laquer off with a blade. Tiny work, not my favorite. Easy to mess with the edge.



Last week I got a video from SM, that shows a alteration of an Ibex bridgeclamp. I messed before with clamping due to the small opening of the clamp. After changing you get 10mm - 3/8" more space! Clamping isn't so clumsy anymore. Thumbs up for the tip. Here in action:



After cleaning up the perimeter, the other clamps were put on.

As usual: made nut and saddle. The K&K pure mini under the bridge.
Strings attached. Well:

The immediate sound of the cedar top is unbeleavable good for me. I'm used to spruce tops, these need a few days to weeks to become real pleasant. Most of the time I'm disappointed about the first tones.
But here: It seems to be true that cedar demands shorter breaking in time.
If this top still has potential to improve, I believe it will be a killer guitar. Not in volume, but in sound. Sorry, I'm getting cocky here. I'll be humble and wait a week, and later on you'll get some soundbites. And photo's of course.
Herman