I made up a label for the inside of the guitar (I forgot to take a picture). I made the label up on my computer and printed it out on cardstock with my new logo, model and serial number, and I signed it. I sprayed a light coat of lacquer on both sides of the label, andused white glue to glue it to the back of the guitar. Then last night was exciting because I closed the box! I prepared the top of the rim using the same sanding method as I did for the back and notched out the sides for the top braces. I knew I did a good job of fitting the top to the sides because the top actually clicked into place. I glued the top to the sides in the same manner as I did with the back. I forgot to glue a reinforcing cloth to the intersection of the X-braces so I'll have to do that today, and then I'll trim the top and back flush with the sides and prepare to do the binding!
Traditionally the neck for a guitar like this would have been made from 1 piece of wood, but I don't have the capability to deal with wood that thick since I have no bandsaw, so I decided to go with a scarf joint. I figured out the angle and cut it with a backsaw. The surfaces were cleaned up with a block plane, and then I glued the piece I cut to the rest of the neck blank. For the heel of the neck, I glued together a couple pieces of mahogany to created a stacked heel. The final pic shows the rough neck blank along with the east Indian rosewood fingerboard blank I'll be using.
I radiused the back of the rim using a tool I made. One side is radiused to 15ft (back of the guitar) and 28ft (for the top) on the other side. I can use this as a template when making braces, or attach some sandpaper to it for making the rim. After that, I fit the back bracing to the kerfing, and glued the back to the rim using a bunch of clamps and some plywood scraps as cauls. Eventually I'll come up with a more elegant clamping method, but this worked out great! I multi-tasked a lot of this project. Well glue was drying on the back, I worked on the top. I cut the soundhole out by hand and carefully used my oscillating sander to make sure it was the right size and perfectly round. Then I cut braces from quartersawn sitka spruce, radiused the X-braces and long tonebars to a 28ft radius, and glued everything to the top. The bridge plate is a piece of maple. Then I shaped all the braces using a block plane and chisel, and finished up with some sandpaper. I also signed and dated the top. This guitar will have a bound soundhole just like the old L-0 I'm copying. I sealed the spruce with shellac, and used CA glue to glue on the white ABS binding. After this pic was taken, I scraped the binding flush with the top.
The back center strip was cut out of crossgrained spruce that was cut from scrap of the top. Here's a pic of it glued in place. I made the braces out of quartersawn sitka spruce. I radiused the bottom of the braces to a 15ft radius as per the drawing specs using a handplane, notched the center strip, then glued them to the back using similar methods as my kit guitar. I did end up with a small crack in the back (why is this mahogany so brittle?) but I repaired it. I hope this guitar will be nice and solid when it is complete! Then I used a block plane and chisels to shape the braces. Here's a pic of the completed back bracing: I decided to make my own kerfing. It took me a long time and was quite a pain so next time I'm either going to buy kerfing or figure out a better way of making it. I ripped the pieces to width on my table saw then cut the angle on them on the table saw, which didn't work out very well - the angle wasn't consistent along the length of the strips because the thin strips weren't easy to control passing through the table saw. I used a hack saw to cut all the kerfing slots. This seemed to take FOREVER!!! I made up neck/tail blocks and glued them to the sides. The next pic shows the rim with kerfing glued in place as well as some side braces. I was going to build this guitar historically accurate with cloth side braces, however since I already had a couple side cracks I decided to use strips of mahogany for extra strength.
Next I sharpened my planes, built a shooting board, and jointed the top and back. With light cuts and a well sharpened blade, this plane gave me a perfect joint line in only a couple passes. Next I glued the top and back together using the method shown below. Since I had perfect joint lines, I didn't need much force to hold the joint together. The pieces of wood on the sides holds the two pieces together, the piece of wood on the top of the center joint ensures the joint remains flat and doesn't shift. Wax paper of course was used so I didn't glue anything to my bench or to that 2x4. I cut the back and top to the approximate profile of the guitar. I left both oversized by about a 1/2" to allow room for error. Then I used a handplane, scraper, and sander to get the top and back to the proper thickness.
I'm building this guitar with a sitka spruce top, and mahogany back and sides. I'm not going to lie, the part that scared me most of building a guitar from scratch was bending the sides. I started by using a handplane, scraper, and random orbital sander to get the sides to the proper thickness, after which I cut the sides to the correct profile. At this point I started getting worried, because this set of mahogany seems to be a bit brittle - I ended up getting a rather long crack in one of the sides which I had to repair with CA glue. Next was the bending process. I the idea of heating and bending sides on a hot pipe intimidated me. I didn't think I would be able to do it. I'd love to buy a heating blanket but can't really afford it right now, so I built my own lightbulb bender.
The base of the fixture has three 200 watt lightbulbs for a heat source. The half body mold is made to be slightly smaller then the profile of the guitar to accomodate the thickness of the sides. The mold is covered with aluminum flashing inside and on the bending surface. In about 10 to 15 minutes after turning on the power, the mold reaches temperatures between 250 and 300 degrees! These lightbulb benders can be hazardous if left unattended, so my plan will be to get a heating blanket with a timer in the future as soon as I can afford it, but at least this will get the job done cheap a I wiped the piece of wood down with water and wrapped it in kraft paper, and proceeded to SLOWLY bend the wood. After the side cooled down, I bent the second side. Overall, my first attempt at building went well, except for one spot where the wood seperated a bit on the lower bout, but since I plan to paint this guitar black it should fix up well. My sides fit my body mold quite well! Working on and building guitars is addictive! I think I'm officially hooked! There's something very rewarding about playing a guitar that I built (my 000 kit sounds and plays great!) and my next project will be built completely from scratch! A number of years ago I missed out on the opportunity to buy a vintage 1941 Gibson L-0 acoustic. There's just something special about those old small bodied, lightly built guitars, and so I thought that would be a great guitar to build, especially since I know the person that ended up buying that old L-0, so I have access to it for verifying dimensions. The construction of the L-0 I have access to seems to be built the same as the L-00 drawings that Christophe Grellier has on his website, so I am using his drawing for this build. I started off by making a few templates: one for the neck, one for the sides, and one for the body. Then using 3 layers of 3/4" plywood, I build a body mold. I started this guitar a few weeks ago so I've made a lot of progress already. In the next couple posts I'll show what I've got done so far!
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