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that's a beautiful start. Good luck and keep us posted.

You've got a very good start. You need to leave your build in the mold until you close the box from here on out.

Thanks Diane. I am currently using the mold to glue up my laminated linings (with shim wood to replicate the side thickness). Meantime, the rim is resting in a spare guitar case, padded and go-barred to accurate shape. In hindsight, lining glue ups could have been done first. Learning curve, ha!

I just finished installing the lining. They are laminated cedar with birdseye maple veneer on the inner edge. Since I don’t have a side bender, I improvised with a form made from my mold’s innards and a clothes steamer. I pre-bent the laminate strips individually before doing the glue up inside the mold (with shims to simulate the side thickness).

I originally tried bending mahogany, but my skill level didn’t permit it. The cedar was much easier to bend with my set up.

Bending rig.

I have completed the side reinforcements and glued them to the rim. I used some scrap mahogany I had on hand. After tidying up some glue squeeze out, I did a seal coat of shellac. I am slowly getting a feel for the fish glue, but so far I like it a lot.

Moving on to the back and soundboard.

That spare table in the garage will have a temporary job as my go bar deck. Table saw made fast work of go bar production. Test run was successful.

Hi Kevin. Very pretty looking inside your guitar. Nice.
When you use the go bar deck to glue up your braces, what do you have planned for supporting the radius on the braces?

Thanks for the compliments, Kevin. On the radius question, I am using the index card method, outlined on the archived KMG website. The cards are quite thin (.055), so doing some math I was able to plot the spacing of them, subtracting the .003 tape thickness. When I gently apply pressure to the back, the pre-radiused braces evenly contact it perfectly.

Back braces glued, go bars/index cards worked well. I will fit the center reinforcement strip after this all dries.