A classical guitar for Wayne!

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I glued up the scarf joint for the headstock last night, then after an hour dry time, I had to thickness the headstock from 1 inch down to 18mm. I hand planed down from the face, which moved the spot where the nut will go toward the heel, and I need to bring it back, so I hand planed the neck shaft top surface, tapering so the heel end remained at 1 inch, but brought the angled intersection back where it needed to be. I made lots of shavings. Next is to glue on the headstock veneers.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I spent a few minutes last night making an indian rosewood veneer to go under the curly koa headplate. I took some 1/8" scrap pieces from another guitar, glued a center seam and hand planed the piece down to about 1mm thick, but when I placed it on the headstock under the koa, I didn't like how it looked, so I used a thin maple veneer under the koa instead. I like to pre-angle the leading edge of the headplate that the nut will rest against on the disc sander before I glue it on, so I did that and glued the sandwich of maple and koa to the headstock. I used a caul faced with packaging tape, clamped in place right at the line where the edge of the headplate should be then glue the veneers on up against that caul. This works really well as long as you let the glue start to grab before you screw the clamps down too much so the veneers don't slide. I always had trouble trying to cut that nut side edge of the headplate nice and straight and square with a hand saw, so this method works better for me.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Cleaned up the sides of the headstock, and glued up the stacked heel.

[Diane Kauffmds]

i think u r right about the irw. koa and irw don't have enough color shades in common; they don't compliment each other. maple is a good choice.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I pretty much have the neck done to the point where the sides can be attached to it. Trimmed the end of the heel on my bandsaw. I shape the peghead using a drill bit stock "router" bit in the drill press with a template attached to the back side. This works really slick, you can check it out on Robbie O'briens Youtube videos. I also use a drilling jig from LMI to drill the tuner holes, quick and accurate.

I slot the heel of the neck on my table saw using a thin kerf ( about .070") circular saw blade. Again this takes a few minutes to set up but works really well and is quite accurate. The neck shaft is reduced in width close to where the fretboard will be so there won't be as much to remove later, and the heel area is relieved of some of the excess using a handsaw.

I also cut out the sides to near finished size with the taper on the back, and jointed the edge of the two back plates ready to join with a center strip of I think about 1/8" wide indian rosewood. The side and back plates still need to be thicknessed and I'll do that on my drum sander right before I'm ready to bend them, and join the back together. It was a good weekend.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

more pics

[Kevin Sjostrand]

more pics

[Kevin Sjostrand]

still more pics

[johnnparchem]

You are moving right along on this guitar. Great photos of your process.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Weeeeellllllllllll,
My friend wrote me the check, then told his wife he was having second thoughts (he didn't tell ME this), so at this point I don't know if he is still going to take this guitar. I have the check, but it is un-cashed. Hmmmmmm. Almost 2 weeks and still waiting for the final word, but they have a lot going on right now so their focus is on LIFE.

I'm going to go ahead with building this guitar as planned anyway, so I might have one for sale when I'm all done.

I did rough cut all the braces for the top the other night, and tonight I'm going to at least get the sides ready to bend, maybe even get the first one bent. We shall see.