Beginning the Top and Back

Friday, July 9th, 2010:

I didn't get a whole lot done today. Part of today was spent getting together with the decking contractor who will build my new deck in the back yard. I also decided to have him put up an arbor over one section of my deck, so I could get some shade from the sun.

Anyway, here's what I did today. First I thicknessed the back to its final thickness (.090"), cut it out and marked the bracing locations. Below is the inside of the back; you can see in the lower left-hand area, the dark marking I couldn't avoid. But at least it's on the inside, and will be partially hidden by the kerfing.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the outside of the back. There's a tiny bit of the dark marking in the lower right-hand area, but it will be totally removed by the binding.

 

 

 

  

INDEX:

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  13. Scatterbrained — Odds 'n' Ends
  14. Soundport and Closing Up the Box
  15. On to the Binding
  16. Beginning the Neck
  17. The Neck, Day 2
  18. The Neck, Day 3
  19. The Allen Wrench Dilemma and the Peghead
  20. Bridge Shaping and Neck Fitting
  21. The Deck is Finished! The Fingerboard is Glued!
  22. Neck Carved, Finish Sanding, Wash Coat, Pore-Filling, Sanding, Sealing, Tru-Oil
  23. Paraffin Oil Polishing and Finishing it All Up!
  24. Saddle Compensation Jig
  25. REALLY Finishing It Up Now!!!

 

 
     

 

Here I have glued the top bracing pattern to a piece of tagboard and have marked all the brace ends and the center hole for the soundhole.

  

 

I took the template to the drill press and drilled through each brace end dot with a 1/16" drill bit. That way I can just mark the brace locations with a pencil dot through the holes.

 

This doesn't show it very well, but here I have marked the brace locations on the cedar top, joining the dots from the template.

 
     
   

The thing I need to do next is to figure out how (or if) I am going to do the oval soundhole that is called for on this plan. I have no idea how to go about making an oval soundhole. I would kind of like to rim the soundhole with a 1/8" ring of bloodwood (my bindings will be bloodwood), but I'm not sure how to do that, either. I could do a round soundhole, but it would be a lot smaller, and the oval shape would seem to fit the design better.

So the first thing I should do tomorrow is to do some research on the internet to see how people do the oval soundhole..... Stay tuned.

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