Acoustic Guitar Construction

Peter -That backstrip is from Stew Mac. It has a nice crisp contrast. I've tried some from Grizzly, but it is much lower contrast as the "white" looks more like light mahogany.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bindings,_t ... strip.html

The nice thing about this .25 zippered strip, if you are routing a back strip after joining the back it, is that it will fit snugly in the dado cut by a .25" bit. I used a downward cut solid carbide bit for a really clean cut. Slightly relieved the back edges of the back strip, glued, pressed into place and clamped.

Purty purty

I'm back to working on my walnut 00-12.

Last night I started work on thinning to perimeter of the top around the lower bout. I started work by using my precision router base to drill a series of approximately .020" deep holes 1 inch from the perimeter. Then a series of approximately .010" deep holes 2 inches from the perimeter. I went back and drilled another series of .020" holes right along the edge to ensure that I would not be dishing the top.

I then used two different sanders to carefully thin the top until the holes were gone.

I've routed the back binding channels and installed one piece of the figured maple binding. Everything went in well, and I I scraped it down and wiped with a few quick coats of shellac to get a sense of how the woods are looking together.
Unfortunately I'm not seeing the find of figure in the maple that I hoped for - just one of two little waves if that.

So now I'm contemplating routing this piece back out before going any further, and replacing it with wood with a little more character. Since the router is still set up for the channel it should be quick to remove it.

Photo edited to show grain better.



Photos as shot:

Nice pics of great wood Daniel. The binding looks real tight. Well done.
Herman

Yeah really nice install. I have a bunch of maple bindings that I cut look just like that. A nice natural look!

Thanks guys. I decided to stick with that maple binding, and finished binding the back last night.
The seam at the neck block isn't quite as clean as I hoped, but still feel very good about the progress.

A quick wipe with shellac after scraping the bindings gives a good idea of how it will look.