Acoustic Guitar Construction

Thanks Paul,

While I impatiently wait for the bridge glue to cure I have some time to post a few more photos.

I fretted the neck, sanded and polished the guitar, installed the tuners and am current gluing on the bridge. All of this is pretty straight forward. I think the only thing that I do different than most is to not tape off the bridge. Taping the bridge with an undersized piece of tape would save me a bit of time, but I find it very easy to scrape the finish out of the middle of the bridge area. Working to get a clean edge is the same in either case. I position the bridge, screw it down tight and trace the bridge using a brand new scalpel blade. Once i clear the bulk of the finish out of the bridge area I use a sharp chisel to remove the finish right to my traced cut line. Some of it is in my pictures.

Oh by the, I am using the new LMI instrument glue for the bridge. My old procedure when using a vacuum clamp was to wait 10 minutes remove the clamp, clean up the squeeze out (it use to be soft but held together and easy to remove.) With the new glue the squeeze out was hard after 10 minutes, I used a bit of water to soften it and remove the squeeze out. It is a drag to be cleaning cured glue off the finish. I think I will clean up after 5 or so minutes now.

Well I strung the guitar up this week.











Here is the tap spectrum with the strings on. The Air is at 102, the top is at 184 and the back is 152. I have mounts for side weights so I will add some weight looking to move the top closer to 180. The back is not very active, but I have the bottom brace tall so I can start shaving it to move the back down a bit. It might resonate a bit more then as well. It was a dense plate of cocobolo so I did not think I would get a very active back. All and all the guitar is starting to sound pretty good. Not as nice as my build of a Gore Medium size steel string, but with the smaller body and 14 fret to the body I was expecting some compromise sound wise. I have had it sitting with a tone-rite running. It has a rough setup now. I will get it properly setup up this weekend.

John,

I keep noticing this metal rectangle on the wall, just beside the cat perch. What is it?

And the tone-rite - do you feel it makes a difference? (I have one and can't say I can hear a difference, though I continue to use it.)

Oh that a modern art "encaustic" painting!

I notice the guitar get better to my ear in the first few days after that I am not sure. I am not sure the tone rite is doing anything. But I was too busy to start playing it.

John,

All along I thought that rectangle was an unusually good looking "accident" of some solvent or another on a piece of metal that appealed to your eye (it certainly did to mine), so you hung it up. But it is the result of human aesthetic activity so now I understand how it got to be appealing. Thanks for solving the puzzle.

About those Tone-Rites: I am wondering what would happen if, say, an instrument was "buzzed" for a couple of months. Have you ever tried that? Seems like that could be the equivalent of several years of playing.