Acoustic Guitar Construction

I wasn't sure where to put this so I decided this
may be the appropriate section.

Anyway, I bent my mahogany sides, cut them to size
(using the fixed dread mold from KMG), glued the
neck/tail blocks and reverse kerfing. Everything's
looking great so far. I'm getting close to sanding
the top flat and then doing the slope (described so
well in Ken's article) and......the rims won't go back
into the mold. I don't want to force it because
something may crack. Did I do something wrong?

Any suggestions?

Did you glue on the kerfing while the rim was out of the mold?

But no worries -- loosen the screws in the mold end blocks, put the rim back in squeeze it gently and re-tighten the screws. If you can't compress the mold joint completely its no big deal -- just try and maintain your center-line positions.

kencierp wrote:Did you glue on the kerfing while the rim was out of the mold?

But no worries -- loosen the screws in the mold end blocks, put the rim back in squeeze it gently and re-tighten the screws. If you can't compress the mold joint completely its no big deal -- just try and maintain your center-line positions.

Hi Ken,

I put the kerfing while it was in the mold. I took it out
of the mold after it dried for admiration (hahaha).

Okay, I'll loosen the mold and then put it back together
for sanding and slope.

thanks!

What Ken said. I frequently admire my work by removing it from the mold.

One minor bit of advice I got from Gore's build book that helps if you are going to remove the body from the mold: Before profiling of rims use the flat top side of the rim as a reference and use the mold to draw a set of reference lines parallel to the flat top where the body will set in the mold. That way if you remove the body you can place it back in the mold in exactly the same way it was while you were profiling the rims, avoiding any misalignment\twisting in the mold. Once the top and the bottom of the rims are profiled it is hard to find that line again. Basically you can use the reference line to make sure you are square in the mold.