I almost wasn’t going to do this post but after how simple it was, I thought I would note a few things. This (body 3) is the first full body (no cut away) that I’ve installed kerfing on. My first guitar was a kit and the kerfing was already installed. A cutaway guitar only has [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Sanding’
Kerfing installed – body four
I’ve decided to keep my 3 guitar’s in progress straight that I want to term them. The guitar I’ve been working on for the last few days has been body 4. This is an orchestra sized guitar with a cut away. See the previous post on how I prepared the kerfing. The installation went great. [...]
Bodies – 2nd, 3rd and 4th
Today I wanted to discuss the bodies that I have in my shop. My second guitar body is something that has bothered me for a while. As mentioned in previous posts, I had serious issues and actually used a heat gun to take apart glue joints on it. After cleaning up the glue joints, I [...]
Rosette for Top
I’ve actually been very busy though what I’ve been busy with wasn’t really worth a post by itself. I’ve been working on installing the rosette on the tops of the guitars. The rosette is a decorative element that goes around the sound hole on guitars (you can see them sometimes on high end ukes too). [...]
Back on Sides!
I had a crown done on Monday and surprisingly it made working on my guitar challenging. Today (Thursday) is the first day I’ve gotten back into my shop. Today I had several small things to do and thought they would fill up my time. First, I had to trim the ebony accents on the wedge [...]
More Body Work
A guitar front and back have slight curves to them. Remembering back on some physics classes where we studied sound waves in relationship to surfaces, I’m guessing these dome shapes predominately give the resulting sound from the guitar more volume. It is possible that they also give it some resonance and other acoustic characteristics. I’ll [...]
Neck – Shaped and Thicknessed
Well, actually I have finished shaping and thicknessing 2 necks. The first step on shaping the necks was using a draw knife to begin shaping and thicknessing the necks. In using the draw knife, you quickly figure out grain direction and how to best approach the neck to get the least amount of tear out. [...]
Started the finishing process
My chosen finish is a shellac finish using a french polishing method. I’ve sanded everything and started the first part of the process – pore filling. Pore filling is the process of filling spaces between the grain of the wood. It’s very important on the wider grained wood (usually the sides, back, and neck). I’ve [...]
Guitar Building Class – 4 of 5
Sunday I went to my 4th of 5th guitar building class. As I stated in my previous post, I did a lot of pre-work so felt that I would be ahead of the game and that turned out to be true. I discussed a few minor imperfections with Eli, my instructor and he helped me [...]
Guitar Building – Homework
In my previous post (Guitar – Headstock), I talked about the homework that my guitar building instructor gave us. In that post (an update specifically), I told about the problems I had with the headstock. Well, I worked on my backup option and used only hand sanding to finish it. The results are nice (OK, [...]
Guitar – Headstock
This past week in my guitar building class at Woodcraft, we worked on the neck and fretboard. We also got some potential homework. We had the option to do 3 things. 1) Add a different wood to the top of the headstock 2) Shape the headstock (it’s a simple rectangle at this point) 3) Shape [...]
Sanding
… and more sanding. I’ve got the top finished and now I’m on to the frame. Sanding a frame … is hard … and time consuming. I start with 80 grit and move to 220. As I said the top is finished but I’ve just started the frame. It’s going to take me into tomorrow [...]
