Acoustic Guitar Construction

I got to play with my little mini mill. I used it to help make a template for classical string holes and I used it to do a bunch of the carving on the bridge.

First off I forgot this picture in my last post but it is a pre-layup photo for the bridge blank


The first thing I did with mill was to drill a series of 1/16 holes in a drill template for classical guitar strings. It was fun to play with the mill I learned to square the vise and deal with backlash in the x and y table. Also I had to learn how to use the various clamps. Once set up it was fun to not mark the holes, rather to just dial in each string space and moving the x-axis. When I was finished the last hole was spot on, closer than my ability to measure and mark.




I used the mill to separate the saddle block from the tie block, I cut the rebates for the bone strips in the tie block and I cute the saddle slot. I used a luthier's friend to make the wings.







I think I have enough royal lac on the back and sides and neck. I will start the top tomorrow.

The guitar is all strung up. I still have to really set it up, and do a final sand and polish in another couple of weeks.



From the last post I finished the french polish of the top with shellac and Royal-Lac on the neck, back and sides.

After a couple of day, I decided to glue on the bridge. I re-located the bridge and drilled a couple of holes to pin it in place. I had a undersized tape mask in the bridge location to make it easier to clear the finish. Not shown in the pictures, with the bridge pinned in place I used a fresh scalpel to trace the outline of the bridge in the shellac. With the tape removed I had about 1/8" inch wide strip of finish all around. It was really easy to peel that strip off using a very sharp chisel from the cleared area inside of the bridge outline to the line I cut with the scalpel. I used my vacuum clamp to glue the bridge down, remembering to clear the squeeze out after about 4 minutes.







Today I fretted the guitar with some EVO fret wire made a nut and string it up.







My top resonance target,T(1,1)2, is 190 Hz, At this point I am at 194 Hz strung up. The back is high at 159 Hz, and it does not really have that big of a peak. I will start shaving the back braces, until I either hit 4 semitones above the top or the top hits 190 Hz.



A lot went right on this build, My neck angle was spot on, the bass action is 4 mm with the string 11 mm over the sound board at the saddle, right on target. So my initial setup of the saddle and the nut both built to spec off of the guitar are really close to being spot on.