building class at Blues Creek Guitars

[tippie53]

I had 2 students this week so I wasn't as active on the Forum as I usually am. Tim Richter and David Chandler spent a week building and I also built a guitar. The 3 guitars are a 1937 BRW dred a 12 fret Honduran Rosewood and an OM cutaway.
I will spread this out for a few days and here are some pictures of the process.

After bending the sides and setting the blocks and truing up the sides we put in ribbon lining as was used during pre war period.
I like to use spring clamps when gluing up linings.

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Once the kerfing is added we reset the rim into the mold and true it all up. You can see I use a spring stick to set the neck and tail blocks to the side of the mold.

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We started gluing in the back cross grain support and made the braces.

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When we started the tops we rosetted them. Note that the inner most ring has a fitted joint. We did a under over miter cut , then we stagger the 5 layers so the joints of each ring are offset to each other. I do not use CA for this . I prefer Duco or weld on for 2 reasons.
CA will stain spruce and will show a yellowish stain over time. Wood glues will start to stick and make this a chore and they also add water to the top. Duco is a solvent based glue and it won't stain and will not grab for about 6 minutes. It also doesn't add water. I can then run them through the thickness sander in about 1 hr.

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Once the rosettes are installed I final thickness to .110 and proceed to gluing in the braces. I use fish or Hot Hide glue and allow to stay in the gobar deck over night. Note the bridge pieces to allow a better control of the go bar rods. Also note the halo fixture to set in the X braces and the truss rod brace.
This allows me to mark the position of the braces very accurately on the top and I can then take the halo to the rim and mark the kerfing and notch them so the top is center and square. We also only notch the kerfing. I don't go through the sides with the notch.

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Once the top and back are braced we can glue the box. I like to show the students more than one way to do things , so here you can see the box gluing in a go bar and the traditional clamp method. We let them set over night.

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Once we remove the mold and flush cut the top and back to the rim we have bodies ready for binding. I use a variable speed router and a combination of direction to avoid tear out. In this, think about the angle of attack of the cutter. You have 4 weak zones one at each bout area. You want to use this cutting angle to your favor. Climb cut where the angle of attach may cause a split into the body and rout where the split would be on the trim piece.

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Once the bodies were ready they got the binding. and we set the necks. The necks were all inlaid with the standard long pattern square and diamonds and all necks were dovetail. The class lasted 7 days and we enjoyed each other. I hope Dave and Jim Pop in and tell you the experiences.
Now they head for finish. David is experienced in this so he took his cutaway to NC to work on it at home. A long week but an enjoyable one.

[tippie53]

Here is the final shots of the students instruments. I will post some when they come back from finish.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Looks like a ton of fun. Thanks for sharing!

Kevin