Acoustic Guitar Construction

If you are in a hurry, and don't want to wait overnight for your RR kerfing to adapt to the shape of the guitar, I've found that brushing a little super soft 2 on the solid side of the kerfing, letting it dry for an hour or two, and then just gluing it on works easily without breaking the kerfing.
I did hear a 'snap' right at the waist bend, but all that happened was something like a stretch mark appeared - you'll see it in the pic - but no break and not unsightly. Around the big curves of the bouts there was no problem at all.

Ken might want to comment here. I see the kerfing being asked to go around some very interesting curves, and I also saw what I interpreted as the kerfing taking a sharp bend at each segment, so that it didn't go smoothly around sharp curves. Maybe some extra cuts in between the kerfing's as-delivered cuts would help it bend without cracking/breaking.

Pete - I took the pic only to show the bend at the waist, and the fact that it did not break at that bend. With a longer piece of kerfing you would have seen that it just laid right into the bouts with no problem at all. No extra cuts needed, and no reason to let it form overnight if you're in a hurry or just want to get it done without the extra day's step.

Thanks, Dave, for the clarification. Nice to see a demonstration of what we can expect the materials to do for us. I think I picked up on what turns out to be an unimportant detail.

On my J-185 the waist curve is quite severe. I had to widen a few of the cuts in that area to allow the kerfing to make full contact going around the bend. Otherwise the sections touched each other preventing a proper contact.