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2007-07-12

Solera

Together with my knowledgeable luthier friend EJ, I source for some wood to make the solera at IKEA.
Originally I had called IKEA to find if they sell MDF board.
The sales person replied that they do when actually they were referring to particle board or chip board.
MDF or Medium Density Fibreboard is a made from a uniform medium density substrate.

which is quite different from a chip board (in terms of uniformity) which is made from compressed saw dust with glue.
In the end afer some walk around sourcing, we mananged to find a solid (actually not really solid - joint planks) pine cabinent at an affordable price of SGD18.
The 2 pieces after joining will fit in the guitar body quite nicely.
The additional pieces will cut up into the side reinforcement.
For the bottom piece I will route / gouge some depresssion into the solera.
This is because the lower bout of the guitar is radiused and not really flat.





Bracing
I had some changes in the original bracing idea.
I wanted to add a treble reinforcement bar to the left (treble) side of the top board.
This will make a asymetrical bracing pattern.
The bass part will have 3 struts (including the centre strut) and the treble side will have 4 (including the center strut) making a total of 6 struts fan.
Instead of bridge plate, I will be using a horizontal strut (aka Bouchet)



Tools Addition
I ordered the Stanley planes #4 Bench Smoothing Plane and Block Plane from Amazon.
They are real heavy compare to the China made block plane which I am using now.
So far I have not gotten around to calibrate the planes to the cutting precision required but I have utmost confidence in it look at how well it's made.
No wonder Stanley planes have so good comments.

I tried to adjust and tune the block plane.
The plane allows fine adjustment by turning the adjustment screw adjustment to remove very fine shavings.
Now I know why Stanley planes are so well-acclaimed.

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