Finished construction on my Koa Parlor Guitar.

[johnnparchem]

Remember, I dug my under the house or at least my teen aged son and his friends did.

[David L]

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Don't you know the whole reason your wife has a quilting room is so she can get away from you for a little while. Instead of man cave, that would be a she-cave! Nice try though.

David L

[johnnparchem]

I glued on the top of this guitar last night. It helped that I read the other posts Tuesday about gluing on the top and back. Ken and John mentioned the fit, and if the geometry was correct it should not take much. Checking the geometry before gluing the top I found that the rims had more of a top to bottom bow than I wanted. If I had glued it up that way I would have struggled the rest of the build to compensate. The top itself had the correct geometry. I took the body back to the radius disk and sanded down the waist a bit, deepened the rebates for the braces and then recheck the geometry. After the glue-up using a straight edge I have a gap of 2.5 mm or 3/32" inch at the bridge saddle location. This is the number I was shooting for.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Spot on John.
That is going to be a fine looking guitar. You have to love that Koa.

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

I bought the Koa at the GAL convention this summer. I think I may have bought it at the auction. I bought a bunch of stuff from the vendors tables as well so it could have been from one of the vendors. My memory is not as good as it use to be.

I was really happy to come home with it.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I am going to build with Koa one of these days, but it will be a plain set, this really nice stuff is too much rich for me right now. I've looked at some sets at Volcano guitar wood, ( I think that is the one) that go for under $100. It still looks nice, but nothing like yours John.

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

I made it through the scary parts routing out the binding rebates and the purfling rebate. I am excited about the binding as it is setting perfectly flush on the side and top, so I can avoid ending up with thin bindings.

As you will see in the picture I am using purflex (from the makers of zipflex) on the top. It looks like a laser cut pattern in wood glued into a rubber base. The back I am using just ebony bindings. I glued up the bindings on the top with two thin teflon strips that made up the same size as the purflex.

The final picture shows the purflex just sitting in the slot. When I finished my second (and last) glass of wine I thought I would stop for the night.

I taped 4 strips of ebony binding togther for bindings.


Using my Blues Creek bender.


While waiting for the bindings to set I cut the rebates for the back bindings. I use the stewmac tool with their bearing router bits as well. Becasue I am using standard sized bindings from LMI they the kit had the perfect bearing


Here in my growing mess are the bent bindings. I rushed them so there is a lot of spring back. But no problem as they will easily bend into the rebates.


I fit the binding before gluing them on.


Rick taught me the trick on the ends with the extra long cam clamp. It helps assure nice joints.


Before and after routing the for the bindings and purflings on the top I coated the top and the purfling rebate. I am going to use CA for the purflex and I do not want to ruin another top.


Here is the look I am going for with the purflex


One side. Note the teflon strips in the purfling rebate.


Let the second side cure. I only have enough teflon for one side at a time


The purflex is just setting in the rebates now. I will glue and fill tomorrow.

[johnnparchem]

A slightly better close up of the purflex.

[Jim_H]

Wow, that is pretty nifty looking stuff.

Nice work John!

[David L]

I like that purflex, looks good!

David L