What is involved in doing a cutaway?

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MaineGeezer
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:14 pm

What is involved in doing a cutaway?

Post by MaineGeezer »

Somebody is actually willing to pay me to build them a guitar..and they want a cutaway. What is involved in doing a cutaway? John, do you have a video (I hope)?
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Kevin Sjostrand
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Location: Visalia, CA

Re: What is involved in doing a cutaway?

Post by Kevin Sjostrand »

I've done one, before I had my fox style bending machine so I bent the cutaway on the pipe. That went okay
Next fitting it to the neck block, and getting the width just right so the fretboard extension would be flush with the side when done, this part was hairy for me! I spent alot of time checking, rechecking, and doing more checking, but in the end it came out just about right.
John J
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Location: Saint Paul, MN

Re: What is involved in doing a cutaway?

Post by John J »

I've just started one. That tight bend is a little nerve wracking. I did one florentine cutaway and I agree with Kevin that getting the neck block right is a lot of very careful measuring and re-measuring. I'll be working on this neck block the next few days (I'll post).
Learning every day.
johnnparchem
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Re: What is involved in doing a cutaway?

Post by johnnparchem »

You really need to think through the neck join. As a player I like a smooth transition from the neck to the cutaway. Some build in a bit of a shelf and use a traditional heel.

If you go with the smooth transition. Care needs to be take early on when making the heel block to properly establish the both the center line of the guitar and the cutaway edge as it needs to be exactly 1/2 the width of the fret board at the body neck join.
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