Acoustic Guitar Construction

I have found a lot of the reverse kerfed linings to be very fragile. I am not sure why it is more fragile than the normal kerfed linings.

Perhaps the fragile reversed kerf linings from more than one vendor come from the same source? I'd be surprised if Grizzly made the stuff they sold me, or LMI made what Kevin bought. Maybe they share a source.

This weekend I was able to get the rest of the kerfing installed and the rims re-radiused on the radius disc.

I also got the back plates thicknessed and joined with a 1/4" wide east indian rosewood center strip. This will match the EIR bindings.

I have an old Ryobi 13/32 drum sander that I picked up for a song about 10 years ago. It has worked fairly well, but since purchasing it I've had to replace the circuit board in the conveyor speed control box, the on/off switch itself, the drum and the bearings it runs it, one of the conveyor belt tension adjustment setups.
Now while running the back plates through, the conveyor motor stopped working. My first thought was a broken coupling which is housed inside a box, but the coupling is okay and secure on both the motor shaft and the conveyor drive roller shaft. However, with the motor running, I can hold onto the coupling mounted on the motor shaft and stop the shaft from turning.....the motor itself is still on.
I am not a motor guy. Perhaps someone here can tell me what is going on. My suspect is the motor brushes have gone bad?????? If they are bad, the armature/shaft won't turn right????
This Ryobi sander has been out of production for many years. Parts are near non-existent. I am hoping the DC motor is standard enought that brushes can be found, if this is the problem.

Anyway, so I got out my hand plane and took the back plates down from .0170" to .0110 with the plane and RO sander. No picture of this but I used my #3 Fulton plane made in the 1930's to do this. Made a big pile of shavings on the floor. I forgot to take a picture of this step. The back looks good.

Next step will be to finish the rims with reinforcement strips inside, then brace the back, join and brace the redwood top. A job for next weekend.

Hey Kevin.`
That looks good. But why do you use such a massive mold? You'll get yourself a hernia.
Herman

That's a BEAUTIFUL mold. Ain't gonna move nowhere.

Ha ha Herman,
That was the first mold I made. Believe me, the next two were made much lighter.
This one is heavy, and its also not super accurate. I've built, lets see, 7 dreds with this mold.
When I retire, I think I will make a new dred mold and ship this one to Holland for this guy I know who builds guitars there.

Progress is slow, too hot in the shop to spend alot of time right now.
My drum sander conveyor feed motor broke a couple of weeks ago, so I was able to find a new gear motor that would work for this sander and got it back up running Saturday morning.
Then I cut some spruce bracing stock and got the back braces made and radiused. I use my double sided radius dish to sand the radius onto the bottom of each brace after tracing the approximate shape with the brace setting in the dish, then rough cutting on the bandsaw.

That's as far as I got this past weekend. Not too exciting, but just a step in the process.