Acoustic Guitar Construction

I suppose that would work well for a 7,8, 9 stringer as well? Hmmmmm....

Not a video but a pretty well put together tutorial for the 12 string bridge: http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?t=354

Also thanks all of the comments!

The second side bending went OK as well but I had a close call. On the cutaway the non-cutaway side goes about 29 mm beyond the center line. I thought my template had taken that into account, it probably did but I cut my prebent sides closer and closer to actual size as It gives me useful bits of wood. In any case when I put the side in the mode the upper bout was just exactly the right size. No trimming.




I glued up the heel block with the block of wood for the bolt on bolt off neck extension.




I also made a batch of heel blocks out of plywood.







I used my band saw and my belt sander to follow the template to shape the heel block





I then glued up the rims to the blocks






Lastly before I profile the sides I index off of the top and make a couple of parallel white lines that I can use to realign the rims in the mold. Also while profiling I can make sure that I am profiling the rims symmetrically.

Wow, you are courageous John, looking fine! I see you are still building barefoot....be careful and don't drop a chisel. :)

Thanks Kevin, I have dropped chisels luckily so far I moved my foot out of the way. I am off to Japan for a couple of weeks so I will leave the project for a bit. I did get the sides prepped, 30' Top, upper bout flattened and 15' back. I used reverse kerfed linings and made and glued on my side mass mounts.

The side mass mounts allow me to lower the top resonance some after the guitar is assembled. Adding mass to the sides in effect stiffens them to vibrations as seen by the top.

The pictures are pretty self explanatory,





Scraped the inside rims clean



Spritzed the kerfed linings with some water and clamped them on the outside to shape them



The mount for the side mass is just a bit of mahogany. I drilled them just deep enough to seat the brass insert. I nothced out the linings to fit them in.






I notched out the linings and glued them on

After a couple of weeks of touring around japan, I have started to make progress again.

With the rims completed I turned my attention to the back and the top. The back wood is really a bit too dense to have an active back so I made it with four lateral braces.

Having built a series of jigs for my falcate guitars and fine tuning them making and shaping the braces is turning out to go a bit smoother than in the past.

First off I joined, profiled and glued the center reinforcment strip to the back















I jointed the top and and installed the rosette. On the rosette I start with a router bit the same size as the purfling strip I use. I route a channel for the inside purfling strip and without changing the router I route the same cut into my wood rosette blank. I then do the same for the outside purfling line. I then route out the waste between the two channels on the top. Now I have a ring routed perfectly for the ring and the purflings.

I run the rosette wood blank upside down through my belt sanded to the ring drops out. Now I have a ring the exact thickness for the channel I routed in the top. Here are some pictures to make it clear. I learned this Kevin on this forum.



















I do not use my table saw very often so when I pulled it out to rip the back braces and the lamination strips for the falcate braces I made a bunch of them. I have a nice blade on the saw and get close to a planed cut. I cut them very close to the final size.



I use this jig and a 27.5 degree router bit do make the back bridges gabled house shaped



I laid out the back braces and use a square and the brace as a template to first score and then chisel out the rebates for the braces.







I mark out the bottom radius (15'), plane them close and then use this LMI jig to finish the radius on the back braces.





I used my vacuum box to glue the braces on the back.



I finally made (it took all of thirty seconds) a small template to get the tails of the braces the correct thickness. Given how quickly I made it and the consistency of the brace ends, I felt bad I have not made it before. I just cut a slot into 1/8 plexiglass.





To make the laminated falcate braces with 1.7 mm spruce strips I first had to bend them close to size. I usually use Lutz or Englemann spruce with no problems. These strips are European spruce and they were hard to bend. I would get so far and it just would not want to bend. By hook and by crook, as well as a few cracked strips I got them all close enough to laminate on my forms










I laid out the braces, glued on the sound doubling patch and them routed out the sound hole. I stop routing when I still have a bit of wood left and tap out the waste.







I chiseled out a bevel on the sound hole patch to clean up the look.



Also I decided to cut out a mylar template to protect the top before I started working with it.





I need to locate and drill the bridge pin holes very early. The main falcate braces need to go between braces pins on a steel string guitar with a pinned bridge. I also bought a hole stack of aluminium bars last years, so I pulled one out and made a bridge pin drilling template using my existing bridge pad template.



After some very careful alignment, I drilled one hole and pinned the top, bridge plate and hole template, I checked and rechecked the alignment and drilled a second hole and add a second pin. With the two pins I drilled the remaining four holes.



My radius board has the inside set of 4 holes so that I can work with the top pinned while epoxying the bridge plate and ultimately the braces. The bridge plate is epoxied on a cut out piece of carbon fiber fabric. I will use my template as the gluing caul.



I mixed up some epoxy and put it all together.





Finally I ripped, fitted and epoxied the falcate braces to the top.











Note in the next picture the falcate braces are expoxied on top of a 3k 5.7 oz carbon fiber tow.. Also note the teflon strips used to properly space the falcate braces between the bridge pin holes.

Coming along nicely. I appreciate the detailed pictures and explanations. I'll be following closely.