Acoustic Guitar Construction

Great work and excellent pics! I have gotten lazy and use my phone for progress pics. I should bust out the good camera from time to time.

More photos of the bracing process.

Using my small ruler to line up the location of the notch for joining the x-brace pieces. Line marked. Now joining the vertical lines across the top of the x-brace. x-brace pieces glued together, but not glued to the soundboard yet. Gluing on the bridge plate. Placing the clamping cauls (3x5 cards) on the workboard. Now with the bridge plate glued on and used as the anchor point, glue on the x-braces. Top bracing glued and carved.

Fantastic!!! I’ve learned a lot from viewing your logs. I just ordered a J-200 kit,,,, inspired by your last build.

Thanks for posting such great pictures.

George

Very nice job on the lap joint. That is one joint I take extra time with to ensure it is nice and tight. I like when I need to sand the side of one brace to make them fit together.
Is this a KMG kit? The bracing has such tight grain lines. Looks like top notch stuff. One time, I placed an order with Ken for something, I forget what, but in the conversation we got to talking about bracewood and such. Ken sent me some of his reject braces to use for whatever I wanted. He rejected some because of pitch pockets that were revealed in the milling process, some had a small grain deviation because of the proximity of a knot when the tree was whole, but all in all, I have been able to salvage a lot of the brace stock by making shorter braces out of them. All of the brace stock has straight, tight grain, exactly what I would pick for my own use, and all of it was light and strong. I wonder how much material Ken rejects because it does not make the cut (see what I did there DaveB?).
I have yet to see a bad piece of wood in any of his kits that have been built here.

Yes indeed Tony, that's a KMG product. All of the bracewood is great. And so are the rest of the components of course!

Time to update my building log. Most photos are self-explanatory, but if you see something and think "what in tarnation is he doing there?" then just shout.
Thanks for looking.