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Do you have any large throat clamps, like cam clamps or deep C-clamps? That might be faster. And you should not be tightening (loosening??) the turnbuckles based on the amount of squeeze-out, but rather on the amount of pressure. If you put on more glue, you get more squeeze-out. Just do an even firm pressure and use your straw to take off what comes out. Then a wipe with a damp paper towel to get rid of the residue.

The #1 brace is not radiused because you want that area of the top to be flat for your fingerboard. If I recall, Martin will sometimes put a very large radius, like 60 feet on that area. The short finger braces won't make much difference, but I bet they are radiused if you look closely. Also, the tone-bars should be radiused because they are pretty long and that area of the top wants the dome..

On another forum, there was a fellow who built an entire guitar using Titebond, and left the clamps on for 10 minutes - worked fine. I leave them in for a minimum of an hour because there is no real strain on the joints for a while. The exception is the bridge - I give it 24 hours under clamps, but again, the 10 minute guy.

Ed

ruby@magpage.com wrote:Do you have any large throat clamps, like cam clamps or deep C-clamps? That might be faster. And you should not be tightening (loosening??) the turnbuckles based on the amount of squeeze-out, but rather on the amount of pressure. If you put on more glue, you get more squeeze-out. Just do an even firm pressure and use your straw to take off what comes out. Then a wipe with a damp paper towel to get rid of the residue.

The #1 brace is not radiused because you want that area of the top to be flat for your fingerboard. If I recall, Martin will sometimes put a very large radius, like 60 feet on that area. The short finger braces won't make much difference, but I bet they are radiused if you look closely. Also, the tone-bars should be radiused because they are pretty long and that area of the top wants the dome..

On another forum, there was a fellow who built an entire guitar using Titebond, and left the clamps on for 10 minutes - worked fine. I leave them in for a minimum of an hour because there is no real strain on the joints for a while. The exception is the bridge - I give it 24 hours under clamps, but again, the 10 minute guy.

Ed

Thanks, Ed! I am not adding a lot of pressure, just enough to keep the brace tight and give me some squeeze along the entire length. And I guess my 17 hours was overkill! I've left the second X-brace clamped now for 3 hours. I'll pull the clamps and move on to the #1 brace, clamped flat.

STEP 7: Finish up braces and correct more mistakes.

My next step was to finish up gluing all the braces. Just about done with that. I still need to shape the four small tone bar braces for the top and glue them in. The brace process was pretty straight forward with two exceptions. First, I did not take into account the cutaway when I glued in the top-most anti-split brace on the top. Second, I moved forward a bit too fast without triple-checking my process. I used the rim to mark the top braces and I cut back the tone braces just shy of the kerfing... except I marked my shoulder structure brace and ended up cutting that too. ARGH. So I had to spend over an hour with a fine-tooth saw and a chisel to remove the excess on anti-split brace and the shoulder brace. That was NOT something I want to do again. As you can see from the pic, I need to work on my ultra-fine sawing/chiseling skills. Left a few scratch marks on the inside of the top (though I did use index cards to try and protect the wood.). In a nutshell, I learned a lot on this step and I got a chance to learn how to remove braces after they've been glued. Luvly. In addition, while I had the rim out of the form, I installed a tail piece using a bit of rosewood binding (thanks to a prior recommendation). Again, my ultra-fine saw skills need a bit of work. I'll have to add a very thin line of mahogany dust and glue to fill in some gaps.

I've ordered a replacement brace (and my K&K Pure Mini) from John. This gives me a little time to triple-check my process for radius-sanding the top/back rim edges.

STEP 8: Prep Back Rim and finish re-bracing top

Not much earth-shattering to report here. Used sanding bar to put a radius on rim back edge. This was pretty straight forward. Ended up putting a slight radius onto the bottom of the neck block to match. Notched kerfing on rim for back braces. Notched braces on back to fit. Fits pretty snug all the way around. Ready for gluing, but I need to re-engineer my glue press and figure out how to use a single plane press to glue an entire back at once. I think I've got that set, but I need to set up the dry fit to prove.

Glued in my replacement shoulder brace after having trimmed the original too short and the four short tone bars (had to shape these prior). Piece of cake. Hoping to move to the next step without any more error corrections.

You may feel frustrated, but it looks like things are progressing properly

Ed

Thanks Ed. Not frustrated yet...more like antsy that I'll make a mistake I can't correct. Fingers crossed!

You're doing a really good job Jim. Your build is clean, and the bracing looks beautiful. I was anxious with my first build too. You'll do just fine, of that I have no doubt. I still do dry runs before gluing; that's the ticket to avoiding a lot of mistakes.

Thanks Diane! Keeping my fingers crossed. :-)

QUESTION:

I now have some time to get back to the project. But now that it's gotten colder and drier out there, my basement workshop is running steady at about 32-34% humidity and 65 degrees. It probably isn't feasible to heat/humidify the basement long term to maintain a steady atmosphere. So, is it okay to continue working on the guitar in the current condition or would that be problematic?

That's pretty low humidity. You're running the risk of cracks and problems with seams coming apart, unless you live in an arid area with low humidity as the norm. Do you have electricity? You can run a stand alone humidifier. Walmart, big box stores, and Amazon carry them, to name a few places.