Acoustic Guitar Construction

I forgot to take a pic of the final deal Ken, I'll get that tonight and post it.

Kevin

Here is the donut I ended up with. Looks like it should work great.

Kevin

I got the neck mortise routed last night using my Simpson jig. (thanks John P)
Tonight I scraped the end wedge down flush with the sides, and low and behold, about a one inch area of the maple purfling on one side was about gone. The strip had apparently not stayed down along side the wedge when gluing it all in, and when I took the wedge down, the maple disappeared.
So tonight I chiseled the wedge out, made a new one and glued it in place with maple purfling lines again, this time being sure everything was clamped down.
I'm moving pretty slow on this build.

Kevin

Did a little work this week but the time got away from me.
Installed the new edge wedge, the purfling lines look good this time.
I glued on the back bindings, inserting the Teflon strips and one of the black lines as I glued. The Teflon comes out to leave a channel for the abalone purfling. I started to install the abalone and the other black line. I got about 5 inches done and it is going well. My abalone is about .010" too wide so I'm to sand the strips some but it is not bad. It is going to look really nice I think. The picture is just shows the abalone in the channel, there is not CA glue applied yet and of course it is not finished flush with the top. The abalone is actually inlayed about .005" below the spruce and binding so they will be take down to the purfling when all done.
Anyway, just a sneak preview. I'll show a picture when it is all in and sanded down.
Oh and I did have an opportunity for a design flare. I preinstalled the maple bindings, dry fit and taped them on the back to check the fit and to mark the ends for length. Did this and always cut them a little long, maybe 1/16" or so, so I don't end up short. I know the real deal when taped down tight they always get longer. So I glue down the one side, and it is a an 1/8" long....not unexpected, so I trim it off to the center line of the guitar. I glue the other side in, bring it around to meet the joint, and it is an 1/8" short! Ugh! I don't know what I did...never had this happened before. So, what to do. This is on the heel end back side so I know the side is not going to really show but it will looking down, and two seams in the maple is not going to look good. Soooooooo, I cut out a 1/4" piece of EIR binding cut out a 1/4" space on center in the maple, and glued in the EIR. It matches the body, and the neck heel cap will be up against it. I think it will look fine. A good reason to always start at the butt end and work around to the neck end as it would have shown a lot more obvious on the butt.
I could have pulled the binding off (all glued in place) and worked with the mess, made a new one, etc.......ugh.

Kevin

Clean, attractive work. It's going to be gorgeous.

I got the back purflings all scraped and sanded flush last night and it came out pretty good. There is one place about an 1" long that must have been a little high and I sanded through the top layer of shell, and lost some color....oh man, but it will be okay.
It was good practice to do the back first. When I do the top I'll be more carefull and make sure no areas are high so it doesn't happen there.
I tried to take some pictures, don't think they show the abalone very well, but I'll check it out tonight and post.
I like doing the installing of the abalone.

Kevin

Is your mortise and tenon wider than the standard 3/4" ?