00 Sitka / Hawaiian Koa falcate steel string.

[John Parchem]

I am starting a new commission. I am going to use a great Koa back and Sitka top. This is only my second guitar this year.

Here is the set I am using:





Starting out I tested the plates to get the target thickness for the top and back.









I also gathered up the templates and mold that I need.




Enough for this post

[John Parchem]

I actually got started today making a neck blank. I love that I have a nice new bandsaw so when I cut out the scarf the result was so clean I almost did not need to clean the face with a plane.







Glued the scarf joint and cleaned the headstock face









I laid out the neck head stock and neck taper. I started to do this work before add the heel block as it is esier to run through the tools.



Ultimately I will use a SafeT plane but I got close with my band saw to avoid mess.





To finish the taper on the neck I added 2.4 mm shim near the nut to create the taper under the SafeT planner.







Lastly I plane the head stock to the correct thickness.

Lastly today I cut out a heel block and glued it to the neck.





Enough for today.

[Kevin in California]

Great start on this one. Koa is such a pretty wood.
NEW Bandsaw???????
What did you get sir?

[peter havriluk]

John, I love these work-in-progress pictures. There's so very much to learn!

Thank you!

[John Parchem]

Great start on this one. Koa is such a pretty wood.
NEW Bandsaw???????
What did you get sir?

Whoops forgot to write bandsaw BLADE.

[John Parchem]

Sorry for the posting delay, I had an issue when web.com bought up mydomain, so I have not been able to read my pictures. Basically I have been getting all of the components ready for the build before I but it all together. Not my normal process, in cooking it would be call mise en place. Here are some pictures.

Heel and Neck block.

The neck block is designed for a bolt on bolt off neck and a cutaway.
It is a two part block, one is an extension that will ultimately routed out for the neck extension.
In the past I struggled cutting out the combined block so this time I profiled it separately on the bandsaw glued on the heel block and used the profiled extension as a guide to profile the heel block.














I just cut the heel block to size and use my luthiers friend to profile the edges to about the thickness of bindings. I then clean it up on my belt saw.

[John Parchem]

Top and Back braces

I ripped and thicknessed some brace stock and then used a 27.5° to give the back braces a gabled profile









I ripped a bunch of 2.2 mm strips and thicknessed them to 1.7 mm. I use three of these to make the falcate braces. I bend them on an iron and ultimately use epoxy to laminate them together.







I also joined the top and back