Acoustic Guitar Construction

The idea that you have to keep the sides crushed in a mold stems from the problem of suppliers selling poorly formed sides. You certainly need the mold as a first step in trimming the side panels -- Martin has two cool single screw block clamps, I am trying to locate my pictures -- they would be very easy to duplicate. Martin even glues in the linings with the rim outside a mold.

I re glued the neck block nice and level now.

I may have asked before but when I do get as far as shaping the braces for the top, I assume I will need to radius the braces first and just wondering what method would be easiest as I don't have a radius dish or a go bar, or indeed any of those wonderful jigs apart from the KMG mega mold.

I thought I gave you the website for a brace arching jig? Here it is if you want it:
http://liutaiomottola.com/Tools/BraceArchJig.htm

I've made one myself and use it.

Thanks dave , I am in the process of making one right now -almost finished.

There's something else that's puzzling me. When I ordered the pre -serviced kit from lmi I understood that the sides would be cut and shaped to size, and according to the plan that should be 4.06 down to 3.31
However the sides came at 4.5 down to 3 13/16th .

The neck block is 3.1/4 high and the tailblock is 4.3/4

I took it for granted that the sides had been shaped and never bothered to check unfortunately so I went ahead and glued in my blocks and also the kerfing.

Is it possible they send me the incorrect sides ?


This seems like a hell of a lot of material to have to sand off to get the rims down to the size on the plan so just wondering could I build it at the depth it came at and build up the neck block ?
I enclose a pic and sorry about the quality , but maybe someone a bit more experienced could figure this out as i'm baffled.
Rusty

The pic enclosed above is of the bottom side of the guitar--the top is dead level with the blocks

Thanks

Looks like the sides were not profiled from LMII just tapered --- more problems await you. The good news is that you have Mega Mold go here:
http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/si ... lates.html
Make a paper template, tape it to the rim to determine what has to be trimmed off the sides. Seems you'll have to remove the kerfing?

Will I need to remove the kerfing Top and Bottom ?

Thank ken.