Acoustic Guitar Construction

Ha ha
Herman that is the first mold I ever made for my first scratch built guitar. I didn't know any better!!!

Since I'm not in full production I just keep using it. It's heavy but it works.

Good for you Kevin. If things work, it's ok!

I'm in the midst of making my first mold similar to this one, and my rough drawings look like the one pictured. I regard Kevin's mold as about as small as it could be and still do the intended job.

The kerfing is all in and both sides sanded flush to the rims in the sanding dish.

My neck block extension you see is for my bolt down fretboard extension that I've been doing on my last 3 builds. I had cut with chisels that slot for truss rod access.
Once the top is on the truss rod wrench will go through the transverse brass, through that slot and to the truss rod nut at the end of the neck tenon.

I made a back strip up of maple with purfling on either side of wenge/holly/wenge. Then glued it in when I joined the back. I just use close pins to hold the purflings to the maple and wick in CA glue.

I use a jig I made up for joining backs and tops that uses wedges on one side to apply clamping pressure.

In making my fretboard I like to do bound fretboard so the fret ends don't show. If I'm not used a contrasting binding then I cut 2 strips from the blank and thin them to the desired size. Then I cut and plane the fretboard to shape, cut the fret slots and the glue the same wood bindings to the fretboard using a very simple wedging jig to apply the clamping pressure. This works really well. Just apply the glue to the bindings, attach them to the fretboard and slide them into the jig. As you push it in more pressure is applied and a nice tight joint is achieved.

Your back strip looks good. I have been making purfling using clips and it has worked OK but I am never quite happy, but I look at your setup for the fretboard binding and think that I am going to setup something like that next time I need to put purflings or back strips together.

That backstrip hasn't been leveled yet. I think it will be much better once sanded flat.

When I glue edge purfling to binding I do it the same way, but my purflings always wider than the binding so I try to glue it up with overhang, then I can run the bindings back through the drum sander and clean them up. I use rubber band reinforced cloths pins to get a tight clamp....CA still wicks in

These come out of the bender better than when I've glued them up with Titebond.