Resonator

[ColestineGuitar]

I have not seen such a rosette before, but doesn't it just look "right?" Your carving reminds me of some metal resonators I've seen, but it looks great in wood.

[ruby@magpage.com]

Making progress:

Flattened the sides

Bent the purfling

Installed the purfling/binding

[ruby@magpage.com]

More progress

Scraped the binding

opened the neck mortice

Screwed on the cover plate

Ed

[ruby@magpage.com]

Too bad you can't attach more than 3 photos to a post:

Cutting frets in my Walnut board, from a piece that has been in the shop for about 25 years. I made the miter box to hold the S-M fret template out of shop plywood scraps

The fretboard binding will be cross-grained Ash from the top and back pieces - with thanks to all who had an opinion about which of the options to use

And now for a start on the neck - I have kept it in a mini-kiln in the shop for 2 months - a 100 watt incandescent light bulb kept it at about 115-120° and below 16-20% RH

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Looking good. I've wondered for so long why we are only allowed 3 pics per post.
Nice setup for cutting get the frets. I use similar, a large plastic mitre box from Lowe's for $5 with an indexing pin installed, and one of LMI's slotting templates.
Why are you cooking the neck?

[Diane Kauffmds]

Wow Ed. This is a very neat project.

[ruby@magpage.com]

We had all three kids with significant others and grandchildren for the weekend - early Christmas. So back at it today

Cut the tenon

Install the single threaded insert - I believe that the area of the second bolt is in compression and therefore the bolt does nothing but provide some alignment which I don't think is necessary

I used my light combination plane to cut the truss rod groove, then dressed it with a router plane. The shoe of the combination plane did not let me get too close to the nut end, so there was a lot of hand work. I used an electric router to cut the 2 carbon fiber rod grooves to make it easier

[ruby@magpage.com]

More on the neck

I made templates off of my favorite neck - a modified "V", 12 fret neck with a Martin heel and a volute, made by Andy Birko.

Here I mark the heel from the template and remove most of the waste. Then I recess the area near the tenon so that the neck joint bears on the body at the edges

Fresh off the saw the centerline is only about 1/8" off and the set is about 1/8" too high

[ruby@magpage.com]

This is my #7 instrument. #6 was a uke and the first one I did from scratch. This guitar is my first real one all from scratch. Everything seems to take longer than it should, but the work is very enjoyable - music in the back ground, no rush. I have never made the same mistake twice - why bother when there are so many new mistakes to be made.

So more on the neck. For neck binding I am cutting cross grain piece of the top and back, then thinning them to .060". Pictures show

The pieces laid out and trimmed

My tapered jig for gluing fretboard binding

The finished product - I love it

[ruby@magpage.com]

Radiusing the fretboard with a sander I made

Love the shavings

I set the neck - it was a hair off left to right and up and down - and now I locate the fretboard. Usually you set the neck with the fretboard installed, then locate the bridge where it should go. With a resonator, you locate the bridge before the box is assembled, so you have to locate the fretboard on the neck after it is set. This is the bridge locator I made for a 24.9 scale length, which I am using on this instrument