My first Classical guitar

[johnnparchem]

Looking like it is progressing nicely.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I should probably post more pics, but I keep forgetting to take them. I'll put up a pic of the bender and the sides in the form.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Here are the sides in the form. I had some spring back so the clamps pull the sides up tight until I get them trimmed and glued up. I actually got the sides trimmed to length, the end block glued in and the sides attached to the neck this weekend. I thought I took a picture, will do that tonight.
Next up is to radius the back rims in my radius dish, then glue in the kerfing...........

[Diane Kauffmds]

Nice bender! I don't have one, so I'll be sending my sides to John to bend.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Diane, you should make a bender if you are going to keep building. I always enjoyed the hand bending, but I get a better fit using the bender, most of the time anyway.

Okay so I have the sides attached to the neck now and the kerfing is glued to the top of the rims. I've sanded the radius on the back rims on my radius dish to a 15' radius and the back is now ready for the kerfing. I felt like I had a really close fit of the sides in the neck as I had to slowing sand the sides down to fit in the slots I'd cut, and then when it was all assembled I was seeing a little bit of a gap between the mahogany and the sides, at the top of the heel area on both sides..hmm. So I wedged in a bit of fibre on the "inside" of the guitar to push the sides out and tighten up the fit there. It is better. I'm hoping that when I carve away some of the mahogany when I'm forming the heel it will all be nice and close fitting. I can see where the better way may be to cut those slots oversize enough to PLAN on putting in a small wedge on the back (inside) so the sides fit really tight and close in slot on the outside. Hmmm.
After all the kerfing is in I'll cut the slot for the end graft piece, which will be curly maple bordered with the red and black purfling scheme that will be used on the back strip and the binding/purfling.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

All the kerfing in on, top planed down flush with the sides, the back re-contoured in the 15' radius dish. Last night I joined the back plates, thicknesed and cut out the perimeter shape.
I also made up the end graft, which shows what the binding/purfling scheme is going to be. Curly maple with red/black purfling. I'm doing this on the top, back and sides. Next step will be to make and attach the back braces, and make the slot for the end graft. I will be attempting to do my first mitered purfling joints on this one.

Kevin

[Kevin Sjostrand]

No pics but I have the back done this weekend, braces attached and carved. I also cut the slot for the end graft. I will be doing mitered purflings and I will install the binding first, then cut the end graft to fit.

Kevin

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Back is fit to the rims and ready to be glued on. I jointed the redwood top plates and they are glued up in the joining fixture.
Next step will be the install of the rosette. I will post a couple of pics when I install it, hopefully tonight.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Got the rosette installed last night. I went slow, discovered that me 1/8" down spiral bit was too long to work in the stew mac router base/rosette cutting jig I made so I reverted to the 1/16" bit, so it took many more passes. I also had issues getting the depth right for some reason. The channel was about .010" too shallow when I was done routing so I scraped it down with a chisel to about .048". The rosette was .050" thick. I got a very good fit on this one with just the hint of a gap in a couple of places that filled in when the wood and rosette swelled from the moisture, so it came out quite good I think.
My wife picked out this rosette, she loves roses.
Next I'll cut out the profile, thickness the plate from the back side, cut out the sound hole and be ready to start the bracing.

[Diane Kauffmds]

Got the rosette installed last night. I went slow, discovered that me 1/8" down spiral bit was too long to work in the stew mac router base/rosette cutting jig I made so I reverted to the 1/16" bit, so it took many more passes. I also had issues getting the depth right for some reason. The channel was about .010" too shallow when I was done routing so I scraped it down with a chisel to about .048". The rosette was .050" thick. I got a very good fit on this one with just the hint of a gap in a couple of places that filled in when the wood and rosette swelled from the moisture, so it came out quite good I think.
My wife picked out this rosette, she loves roses.
Next I'll cut out the profile, thickness the plate from the back side, cut out the sound hole and be ready to start the bracing.

First, I used the exact same rosette in the project guitar top, because I like roses! LOL

Second, I had the same problem with the bit lengths that you've had with the Stewmac base. While the Dremel has it's place with inlaying rosettes, I used my compact router to inlay the rosette on the 00 (which is much wider, much like this rosette). I made a simple base for the router and modified a dremel circle cutter. Perhaps you could do something similar, to use larger bits, so you could have both options available to you. I used a 1/8" bushing in the router to hold the dremel bits.

BTW, the guitar is looking really great.