Guitar No. 1 - The Top
The making of the top wasn't a big problem. The handling of the soft spruce is very easy with sharp tools.
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At first I nearly got crazy planing the joint until I finally got it: Use a very sharp plane, adjust to very thin shaving, and try to make only one cut without stopping. |
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Fixture for gluing the joint |
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The top after gluing the joint. |
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Now I'm planing the top to the final thickness. This work is much easier than doing the same for the bottom. I used a soft cloth between workbench and top, to protect the soft spruce from scratches. |
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The top is now planed and sanded to a thickness of 3.6 mm. This is the thickness Cumpiano suggests for a 12 string guitar. |
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Conclusion: It's not very hard to plane the top to the desired thickness. My strong advice is to chose FIRST the later outside of the top, and then plane the top to the desired thickness from the inner side. The advantage is that you will only have scratches and planing marks on the inner side of the top. |
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The sound hole cutter in action. The first attempts with my Dremel and the fixture to cut circles were frustrating... That's why I made this cutter. It cuts rather precise circles. |
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Excavating the groove for the bindings with a chisel. This work has to be done with great care. One time slipped off... You have to take your time and have to be fully concetrated. |
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Ready! |
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Before gluing the bindings I soaked them for one minute in hot water. After that I bended them to a circle and let them dry over night. I used much (perhaps too much ;-) glue. |
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The scraping of the binding was quite tedious because you shouldn't touch the top (what is nearly impossible). It wasn't that easy for me to control the scraper in that way. The best way for me was to use both hands and bow the scraper a little bit. |
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A noticable scratch in the top from the scraping procedure. I don't know how to handle it at the moment.
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The outside of the top. |
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I had to improvise a little bit, glueing down the braces, because I don't have appropriate gluing clamps. But the method you see on the picture worked well. The tap tone changed dramatically after gluing on the braces. |
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All braces glued to the top |
Last Updated (Tuesday, 25 October 2011 18:13)