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.

Bracing the top

20191010
The required braces were prepared before hand by splitting and ripping from the stock and then planed to size.
Usually splitting produce more waste but it can ensure that there is no run out on the brace stock
If the supplies were obtained from a good supplier, you can afford to rip it instead of split it.
Of course that depends on your guitar building principles.

When the braces are prepared, I lay them out on the top.
Also I draw the bracing on the top and cut the braces to length.
For this build, I will also be using carbon fibre in addition, in order to reinforce the top more.
I had some wonderful experience in terms of using CF on wood and would like to try out on guitar.
The first step using CF is to glue the tow onto the top first using epoxy diluted with alcohol.
Then the brace will glue on top of the CF tow.
Finally the brace is capped with the CF
This will produce a very stiff braces in general.
However a good tuned top is neither overly stiff nor loose, so the balance must be there.
When optimally tuned, the final mass will be lesser than the normal braced top.

For this build I also modified my go-bar deck.
I make it stiffer and cleaner easier to use.

Laying out the bracing pattern. This is my bracing pattern

My modified go-bar deck

"Painting" the carbon fibre tow onto to the top.

Carbon fibre base all done.

Gluing the centre 3 braces

20191022
The bracing stage is always done in stages, as we need to carve the braces.
If not sometimes the other braces are in the way of the carving.
For my case, I carved the centre 3 braces and next will be gluing the Bouchet brace.
The Bouchet brace need to fit over the centre 3 braces.
But for the outer brace the outer fan brace will fit over the Bouchet brace instead as it decrease i
n height at the ends

Preparing the traverse brace aka Bouchet brace

Carving the centre 3 braces

Fitting the Bouchet brace over the fan brace

Gluing the outer brace.

Gluing the lower bout traverse brace after fitting the centre fan braces. This brace also commonly known as the Bouchet brace.

Shaping the traverse brace

20191031

Gluing the last 2 outer fan braces

Another view. Note that the fan brace is overlapping the Bouchet brace instead.

The braces carved.

A closer look at the outer braces

From the other side

Gluing of the treble bar.

20191107
The braces were carved to shape and tapping measurements were taken and compared to ensure of the optimal stiffness.

Bracings carved

another angle

another angle

20191113
Next the sound-hole reinforcement donut is glued.
There is some difficulty here as the bracing extends into the reinforcement.
Also there donut need to cater for the gluing of the tornavoz.

Gluing of the sound hole reinforcement donut.

20191128
Next the tornavoz is made and glued into a ring.
And some reinforcement veneer is glued to the top which also beautify the top.

Glued the veneer to the top

Glue the tornavoz into a ring.

Tornavoz done.

20191219
The 2 side braces are glued next.

Gluing of the side braces

20191224
Silent night! Next the 2 main traverse brace is made.
I use a lighter material to make the traverse and intend to wrap it with CF to increase the strength.

Making of the 2 main support traverse brace

20200103
Next the 2 traverse brace is wrapped in CF cloth.

Traverse brace being wrapped in CF cloth

The final part being glued

20200116
The traverse braces is glued to the top and the entire top weight is measured.

Top total weight is about 197g which is within the expected range.

The 2 braces are glued to the top.

Thicknessing the top

20190905
I began to thickness the top as the tedious rosette process was done.
With my large kanna plane, I thicknessed the top and it leave a gleam on the top when seen under light.
As the top was being thicknessed, I also take note of the mass and the frequency response as well as the flex on the top.
When the readings reach my desired range, I stop the thicknessing and it was ready for the next stage.

Thicknessing the top with my kanna

Another view

Look at the shavings

Tapping the top

Analyse the frequency

Final mass of the top is 133g in line with my other tops of similar density