Guitar Box

The box is together!!

Finished sides

The sides are now completely finished and ready for the top and back to be glued on.

Side Bending

I was extremely nervous for the step of side bending. I have heard of horror stories about cracking the sides. So I set up on the bending iron and began bending. I was surprised that it was not as bad as I had thought. Although my bending iron crapped out on me halfway through the second side. I was ticked because I wanted to finish the sides so bad. I therefore though of everything I could think of to use to bend. I wondered if Meieli's curling iron would work, or if the toaster would work somehow. I then remembered that I have a wood stove and could possibly use that if I stoked the fire up. To my surprise, it worked!!!.

I thicknesed the sides close to .9" and began bending. Here is the finished product.

Rosette, top bracing, back bracing

After thicknessing the top to to 1/8", I feathered down the edges using random orbital sander and 125 grit paper. This worked nicely and the edges are about 7/64". The next thing was to cut out the channels for the rosette and cut out the soundhole. We used the stew-mac precision router base, and the stew-mac rosette jig to cut the channels. It worked very well cutting very good channels with little tear-out. After installing the rosette purfling, we first scraped the wood and abalone down, and then finished with sanding it down. There are a few problems, but overall, a very good rosette for the first try.

Next it was time to rough cut the braces, radius them, and then glue them to the top using the go-bar clamping system. We also used a 30' diameter radius dish to achieve the radius on the top. This was not rocket science. The hard part was the final shaping and scalloping of the braces using only a chisel. It was extremely fun, but a little time consuming.

Next we thicknessed the back to 3/32" and feathered slightly towards the edges. THen using a 15' radius dish, we clamped the braces to the back side of the back side!

Top thicknesing, jointing, and joining

Had some troubles with the top, learned a few lessons. The first thing I did was sand each bookmatched piece individually using a drum sander machine. I did this until I could see the grain pretty good on both sides of both pieces. Now that I could see the grain, I chose which sides should be joined (tighter grains for the joint).

I then ran the joint edge through a machine jointer to rough out the joint.


Next I made a shooting board jig, very simple version, using a couple of clamps, and a couple of spare boards of mdf laying around the shop. I tried using a cheap jack plane that I borrowed and it did not work well. I sure a lot of it was my skill too, as this is a very difficult process, but I just couldn't get the joint to have absolutely zero gaps when candeling. I then tried to put sandpaper on a block and sand the joint while still in the shooting board. I got close, but never could get an absolute perfect joint. ( I actually never tried to put sand paper on the plane while doing the shooting board, may try that next time).

This was as good as I could get it, but there were slight gaps still when candeling. I glued the joint together using LMI white glue and the baton and nail method. Next clamped a piece of wood on top of the joint (with wax paper as well) and let sit over night.

The joint must not have been good enough, or the glue was a bad batch, because the joint failed while I was thicknessing the top using a drum sander planer. While I was very frustrated, I was actually glad the joint failed then and not after the instrument was finished.

I built a new jig (got the idea from the sand paper joint jig method from luthier suppliers) using 1/4" plate glass, mdf, and sandpaper. It didn't work at first because I was trying to glue the sandpaper to the glass, the glue made the surface uneven. So I tried it without any glue and just used the fence as a clamp. This worked perfectly and I then had a perfect joint with no light when candeling.

This time I glued the joing once again using the baton and nail vise, but this time used titebond original, clamped, and let sit for 24 hours.

The joint was now perfect, and was undectible to the eye, and the joint felt much more stable. We then thicknessed the top using the drum sander planer until the top was approx. 1/8". I then sanded with a block and sandpaper until the board was flimsy enough that it made a sheet metal sound with shaking it. Final thickness is 1/8" in the middle, and slightly less than that on the sides.

Finished Mold

Step 2 Cont... Finished cutting out the mold and then flush routering for 6 identical halves. To glue the pieces together spread the glue on and then shot little brads into each side to keep it from moving. Next drilled several screws into the mold. No need to clamp as the screws act as clamps. The mold is now finished!! Approximate time: 1 hour

Started!!!

I have started my guitar project. I haven't actually started the guitar, but the project is started.

Step 1. Made a template out of 1/8" plexiglass. I have some plans for an OM shaped guitar. I traced a half guitar shape from the plans onto a piece of paper, then taped that paper to the plexiglass using double stick tape under all the traced lines. I then rough cut the plexiglass with a band saw. Then I sanded the the pencil line with a belt sander, and a drill press with a sand paper rod.

Step 2: Used the plastic template to draw a line on some MDF. I then cut the MDF board using the band saw and sanded it down to the pencil line using the drill press sandpaper. So now I had a perfect half mold of the guitar shape. I then rough cut out 5 more MDF guitar shapes, and then used a flush router bit to cut the exact shape. I haven't yet glued them together, but they are cut and ready to be glued, or screwed together. Appoximate time for steps 1 and 2: 5 hours.