Acoustic Guitar Construction

I have not been blogging this as it does not have any new techniques in it. Unlike many of my previous builds this has pretty standard x-bracing. I have Kent Everett voicing a Steel String Guitar and I have been trying to follow his method of voicing the guitar. I will be interested to hear how it turns out. The top does have a good tap tone now and to my feel has the right amount of flexibility. We shall see.

This is the first time I have used Indonesian Rosewood. It is the same species as East Indian Rosewood just grown in a different environment. It seems and works just like EIR. I will bind the guitar with Australian Black wood with a BWB side purfling. I also used it for an end graph, instead of a wedge. More classical like trim. Here is where I am now with a few construction photos thrown in.

I used a shooting board, a jack plane and my LMI plate joiner jig to glue up the plates







No problem bending. I had the sides tightly profiled before I bent. I took a lot of care lining up the center of the waste. The top is profiles with a 40' radius dish and the back a 15' radius dish. This is my first use of the 40' instead of a 28' dish. I found I did not have to fuss with the upper bout angle with the 40' I usually find I need to flatten the angle when using a 28'







I used a 3/32' end mill to route the rebate for the rosette. It is just the right size to pack in 2 bwb prufling strips. Using the same router setting for top and the rosette assured that I had the right width rebate a rosette ring for my final rosette.











Did all of the brace glue ups in my go bar deck not bothering with the vacuum box I have.



Marking and cutting the notch for the x brace. The joint was very tight and for once straight.







I put some shellac on the redwood to protect it. I am also working with a 5 mill mylar template tape to the top. Here is a picture before I covered the top



Cut the channel for the end graph with a scalpel and a chisel.







I marked out and cut the notches in the linings for the top and back and am in the process of cleaning everything up before I close the box

Beautiful work (as always) and that wood is gorgeous. How thin did you go on the redwood?

John J wrote:Beautiful work (as always) and that wood is gorgeous. How thin did you go on the redwood?

Thanks John,

I ended up at 3.2 mm (.126"). It feels and sounds about right there.

So nice John. That will make a great sounding guitar for sure. Isn't it nice how the rosette cutting and inlaying works out doing it that way!!!
Thanks for sharing your latest project.

Beautiful rosette.

Thanks Kevin and John (I learned the rosette cutting method from Kevin many years ago now)

I just closed the box. This is the first guitar (other than an acoustic bass) I built using a 40' radius dish for the top instead of a 28' or 30' radius. When I have used a 28' or 30' radius I would always have to somewhat flatten the angle of the upper bout (mostly removing wood around the waist with a flat sanding bar). With the 40' radius I was right on. Given that the rims kept the 40' radius profile and all the braces except the center of the transverse brace were radiused to 40' the top fit like a glove (not OJ's).

My target is 2.5 mm from the plain of the neck to the top at the saddle.



Top on before gluing, when I did glue it on I started getting a bit of squeeze out just from the weight of the top.



Still a bunch of clamps were involved





I am all trimmed up but stopped for the moment, I am still waiting for a new batch of bindings from Australia and when I went down this morning to start the neck I realized I did not have a neck blank.

That's a shame John, no neck blank, you better just give up on this one and send it to me, I have some neck blanks and can finish it up. I'm sure you won't miss it. Ha ha.

This guitar is looking great.