New workbench!

20200716
I ordered a new workbench and it finally arrived after 1 month of sea shipping.
I spend about 2 hours assembling the workbench and it's quite easy to assemble it.
Weight is not that heavy which is good for me since I am the only person around to carry it.
I assemble the base with cabinet first and then leave the top separate.
In the next good half of the day I spend the time to clean up the workshop to make space for this new workbench.
Some thinking was done to see how better to organise the workshop.
Finally I was able to carry in the base and install the top on the spot.
With the new workbench I need to figure out how best to clamp the work pieces.
The table isnt of uniform thickness; so I need a caul at the below surface in order for my cam clamp to work properly.
Also there is limited space due to the cabinet so the F-clamp doesnt work. I had to make some dog hole clamps which work fine

After several weeks of playing around I finally figure out how best to make use of the workbench.
Normal workbench caters for thicker pieces of wood to work with while guitar making make use of thinner pieces of wood.
So there need to be some modification of the workbench in order to use it efficiently.
But I was happy to have some extra space to work with.
Especially now I dont need to disassemble my go-bar deck after use.
But my old workbench 's free table top space was fill up pretty quickly.

The package

Opening the package

The workbench top

The base parts

The base cabinet assembled

Base is done weighs not too heavy

Clearing the workshop

Space cleared

New workbench moved in place top assembled with the base

In use, new features will be shown later.

New vise 6" width

Dog hole clamp that I made

Dog hole clamp in action.

Full view of the dog hole clamp.

Assemble the guitar

20200219 - 26
One of the most exciting stage is the assembly of the guitar.
This is because you get to see the guitar taking shape
But before the assembly process starts, quite a fair bit of things need to be prepared.

First I need to fit the sides to the top shape.
This is because of the elevated fingerboard design.
The upper bout actually dips down and the sides need to conform to the shape.
Once the sides is fitted properly, I also check for squareness of the sides to the top.

Cutting the sides to length

Fitting the sides to the mould and the top.

Checking the fit

20200306
Once the sides is fitted nicely, I began to work on the neck heel block too.
I needed to cut the side slots and fit the wedges accordingly.
Once fitted nicely I also drilled alignment hole for the top and neck and the heel block.
This will ensure the neck is centred properly with the guitar body.

Cutting the sides slot

Chisel the waste away

Saw away the heel waste part.

20200318
Also I cut the peones block enough for filling the rim of the guitar.

Cutting the peones block

Peones block prepared

20200313
All is set for the assembly and I began the process.
First I glue the heel block onto the top.
This part is crucial in making sure the alignment of the centre line is done properly.
Otherwise the neck will appear crooked to the guitar body.
However this for this elevated neck build, only the heel block is glued rather than the whole neck.

Checking the alignment

Glue the neck block to the top

Checking the whole neck alignment

20200320
Next step is to fit the wedges into the side slots.
This will lock the sides in place onto the neck heel block.
The actual gluing is done later.
Next I glued the end block to the sides and onto the top.
Then I began to glue the peones blocks onto the sides.
The blocks uses is mopani blocks which is a dense wood.
Having a dense wood at the border of top and sides is a good thing for the sound.
I alternate the blocks with the usual lighter density wood.
Those junctions with the LTB and UTB and end block I try to fill in as much as possible.
Then I cut special blocks to fully fill the gaps.

Fitting the wedges to the slots

Glue the end block to the top and sides.

Gluing the peones block alternating between mopani and kiri wood blocks for contrast

All done

Upper bout

Lower bout

20200401
Next I shape the back rim using block plane and the radius jig reference.
The actual fine tuning will be done with all the back braces in.
Next I prepared the side braces and the 1st 2 back braces using my African Black wood stock.
This is the first guitar using the ABW as a back brace mainly to focus the back vibrations onto the lower bout.

Shaping the back rim

Checking with the radius jig reference

Gluing up the back and side braces using ABW

Checking out the 1st 2 back braces

20200517
The side braces are glued next.
The side braces are hard to prepared due to the hardness of ABW.
My saws teeth were ruined due to it.
The 1st 2 sets of side braces needed to be fit to the curved UTB and LTB profile.
These took some time as the cross section profile of the UTB and LTB is like a bullet shape.

Once the side braces are ready, I began to glue them to the sides.
The first 3 sets of side braces are glued which also act as support for the LTB and UTB as well as the 3 back braces.
My preference is for the 2 back braces to be aligned with the 2 traverse braces of the top.
This creates a sort of gate looks within the guitar.

Once these main side braces are done the back braces are cut to length and the back curvature are shaped into the back braces.
Further shaping is done with the curve rule to ensure the back is smooth thru'out.

Glue the 3rd set of side braces for the 3rd brace support.

Checking the side braces fit with the UTB and LTB and back braces fit.

Checking the back curvature

All 3 back braces prepared.

20200606
The back lining is glue to back rim and shaped together with the back braces to form the overall back curvature.
The curve must be smooth otherwise the back will have unnatural dip somewhere.
Some makers uses radius dish to make the rim confirm to the back radius dish.
For me I use more of natural curvature of a flexible rule as a guide to fine tune the radius.

Once the rims is prepared the sides braces are glued too.

Gluing the back lining

Gluing the back lining (lower bout)

The back rim prepared

Top down view

The 2 black gates!

Gluing the gaps in the lining

Gluing the gaps in the lining

Checking the back curvature

Making the sides

Making the sides

20191128
While waiting for some of the glues to dry, I began to thickness the sides.
At first I scraped one side smooth first.
This will be the outside sides with no knots visible
The other side with some some knots will be in the interior of the guitar.

Damn this wood is damn hard to plane, causing some tear out but luckily the stock is pretty thick so by the time I scrape them out the tear-out becomes level.
I switched to my high angle plane to prevent the tear-out and the HSS iron works wonder; remaining sharp after numerous planing.

Scraping the sides

Outer side of the sides scraped

Thicknessing the sides with HA plane

20200207
More thicknessing done on the 2 sides pieces.
Other than measuring the thickness by the thickness gauge, I also flex the piece.
When flexed the side piece has to be pretty flexible.

Both sides thicknessed

All the shavings...

20200219

Bending the Sides
After thicknessing, the next step will be to bend the sides.
Before bending I need to mark out roughly where the curvature points are.
i.e. which part is the waist which part is the upper bout etc...
Once marked I can start bending.

Recently I bought a properly bending iron.
The main difference is that it has a flatter curve portion on the iron as well as a tight curve portion.
This allows me to heat up more sides before attempting to bend.
This makes the bending job a lot easier and the bent sides are smoother in curvature.

Bending the sides

One side done

Both sides done

The bending set up - new side bending iron.