We are moving right along in our 2nd year guitar courses! These past two weeks we have been busy working on our arch top projects, while learning more CAD skills and working on repairs on the school instruments.
Today I finished the nut, saddle slot re- rout, saddle, intonation, and set up of the school owned guitar I have been working on and began gearing up to re-fret my trusty Stratocaster!
Once this baby has her new frets she'll play better than the day she was born plus have that nice worn in feel!
Arch top class has been busy busy these past few weeks. After coming back from our Labor Day weekend, we began by flattening the inside face of the joined top. this was accomplished by hand with a block plane checking on a flat stone with a 0.010" tolerance. Once the bottom was flat I used the joiner/planer to bring the top down flat and the over all thickness to 5/8" to leave enough for carving.
The shape of the mandolin was traced onto the top wood using the template made the first week. That shape was then cut out with an extra 1/8" around the edge to accommodate the thickness of the ribs and a bit of wiggle room. Cutting around the scroll area proved to be very difficult. The cut was made using a coping saw, and jeweler's saw. While making the cut the saw tends to drift to an angle leaving the face of the scroll out of square to the top. I left enough room to clean it up and square it using files and sand.paper.
The sanding around the scroll is done using a copper pipe cut in 3rd's lengthwise, with sticky back sand paper attached to the inside and outside.
Another step to complete was making and shaping the inside blocks. The blocks will give support to the rib structure in the points, neck, and tail areas. I constructed the blocks out of poplar. Poplar is a stable hard wood used for guitar bodies, blocks and bracing. It is a light colored wood that will blend well with the maple, and spruce used in the instrument. The blocks are fit to the inside mold, rough cut to shape, and spot glued in place to the bottom half of the mold. Once the blocks are firmly in place the template is place on the top and bottom sides and the shape is traced on. The final shape is cut on the band saw, and shaped with spindle sanders, chisels and files. The scroll area is cut very closely using a fine cut band saw blade.
The next step is to start carving the top! Now we are really working wood! First the top is routed to 3/16' thick around the edge. This will be the starting point for carving and almost the final thickness around the edges. There are steps cut into the outside edge of the scroll increasing to full thickness. Then the top is roughen into shape using a combination of scrub planes, block planes, chisels and finger planes. All the time checking with contour gauges, visually, and by hand feeling the curvature. Each step and tool leaves finer and finer results. The scroll is left raw until later in the process.
That's a lot of shavings! And that's all you get till next week! Thanks for reading!
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