Acoustic Guitar Construction

Thanks Dave.

The easiest thing of all would be to build a solid form that allows the sides to rest on top of the opposite form (a male form?) as yours and perhaps simply clamp the sucked-up bag to the form using a piece of scored and slightly padded Masonite. In that case the laminate would be squeezed from both sides.

If using several plies of veneer there would be no need to pre-bend them. I have some laminated sides by Michael Collins that are three ply and understand he does not pre-bend. Using thicker solid wood for a two layer side would make it necessary to pre-bend, especially at the waist, I think. I gots to look at the Collins video again.

I like the fact RR recommends Titebond instead of the resin Collins uses or the epoxy Somogyi uses. If it works on skateboards it should work on gits. But then, skateboards have more layers.

Here's the story on the back. It laminated perfectly in the TAP bag, has kept its radius.
However, the tapped sound was like tapping a wet skunk, (nothing to do with the bag) which we all have done, so you know what I mean. Like wet cardboard.

I decided to brace the holy crap out of and see if I could salvage it. So I made some 15' radius braces to brace in the usual manner, but before I glued them on I thought to myself " Huh. I want more braces on the floppy back. So I came up with the pattern you see, and made up a bunch of - get this - 15' radius braces.

Which, when I held the first of them against the back, at the angle I show in the pix - caused me to yell something along the lines of "Shite!!!!!!!". Like that.

Because, naturalemente, the radius in that direction is not 15', is it? No. I found out through extensive research, which involved my turning to my left and grabbing some radius template from KMG - and to my profound interest and thankfulness, the 65' radius, laid on the form in the direction of my fancy-pants bracing scheme - fit perfectly!!

Yes. 65' radius braces in that pattern, will yield a 15' radius back in the manner we normally check it.
- So I reworked the braces to the correct radius - these are 1/4" tall and thin, glued it up in the tap bag and after gluing, I started working the braces. The tap sound is what I was looking for, though at the tail end there was floppiness, so I double-taped a small brace down there and tapped and heard a good difference. So I glued it on. (The double-tape method can let you play around with braces and positions if you do a good job of taping.)

Good for learning. The TAP bag worked great and all went so well that I kissed Rosie on the lips. Maybe THAT'S why the body english is so negative today!!

I meant 1/4" wide, a little over 1/2" tall and thin.