Sen's Guitar Making Blog: Thicknessing the back

2016-01-12

Thicknessing the back

20151224
Merry X'mas to all out there!
Thicknessing used to be a chore for me, as my plane aren't design to cut too deep.
If plane too thick, the tear-out will be bad.
So I had to go thin and to plane a 5mm down to 2.x mm, it takes forever.
However, eversince I got the scrub plane thicknessing is breeze.
I plane down the 5-6mm thick back to 3mm region in about 30 mins or so, which is very fast for my standards.
(I didn't exactly time the planing just estimation)
Last time thicknessing can take several sessions.
Anyway the subsequent part is slower as I switch to my favourite wooden plane and my HA wooden MJF plane.
Both work very well.
I also use scraper to scrape smooth when it's near the final thickness of 2.3mm region.
Thickness is secondary actually more importantly is the tap tone.
Actually I tap and listen to the back it sound very nice.
Probably the best IRW I have used so far.
After that I weight the back which is about 294g

Planing the back with scrub plane.

Weighing the back using tare method

294g for the back.

Checking the fit of the back.

201601008
This is actually the 1st work done in the new year.
Anyway I have glued the braces to the back.

Scrape the back before gluing

Apply glue to the brace.

Glued the lower bout brace.

Apply glue to the centre back brace

Align the back to the brace and put weight on the centre brace region

After the glue grabs (a while later), I removed the back and apply clamp.
This way of gluing ensures more accurate position of the back braces.
I check the alignment it fits perfectly.

Gluing the 1st back brace to the body.

20160112
I glued the back seam reinforcement strips and the radial back braces for the active back.
After shaping the braces, the tap tone sounds very nice.
Still need to record and analyse the back tap tone.