17" Archtop Jazz Guitar finally starting it 5 years late!

[Diane Kauffmds]

Wow, nice job Kevin. Your routed pocket is perfect for your inlay.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I typed this twice and lost it twice. ARG.
I'll let the pics do the talking this time

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Pic

[TEETERFAN]

Binding is looking good. I see you came up with an effective way to cut your channels and navigate all the aching and curves (my nerves would be shot). Thanks for the pictures!

[Kevin Sjostrand]

That's it Kevin, what I explained twice in what I wrote that kept going off into LA LA land.

That orange HF router is what I used on my first 3 or 4 guitars before I built my tower and cradle.

They channels came out pretty good. The pic with binding is just taped on to see the fit. I'll check this way all the way around top and back before gluing in so I can adjust the channels if necessary.

Now I need to see if using the same cutter will work in my small routing table to cut the headstock binding channel.

[Morecowbell]

Wow, if you look away from this thread for a few days you miss a lot!

Really impressive progress, Kevin - it's looking great

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Glued in the top binding/purfling and started scraping it flush on the top. I made it about .010" proud.

Then I also routed the headstock for its binding/pufling, same scheme as the body only 1/8" tall.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Body binding is installed and scraped flush on top and bottom. I began to scrape in the recurve on the back. May go a little deeper.
I started sanding the sides flat. I left the binding .010" proud not much and the plastic sands easy. I have about 1/2 the way around done.

I finished scraping/sanding the headstock binding. I vairly happy with how it turned out. One of my boo boos....I assumed and did not check to be sure my side purflings matched up at each intersection. Well all but one of the 4 corners is off a tiny bit. I'll live with it but wish I'd been thinking about that when gluing the binding pieces in place. Maybe next time?????

Then I glued the fretboard to the neck and I've attached the purfling which is also .080" BWBW to the sided. The same white binding with BW side purfling will be used here also.

I need to remember to excavate the area on the headstock face for access to the truss rod. Not sure yet how I'll do this but will probably make a template and use my dremel plunge router to cut it out.

[Morecowbell]

Kevin,

This is looking great!

I wanted to ask since at this point you've done a fair amount of archtop type carving, what tools have been your favorites for carving (& scraping?) the top and bottom plates? Lots of interesting options out there so was curious what you've found most useful?

Thanks!

Clay

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Clay
I cut my teeth on the violins. Much smaller plates but the same basic carving needed.

On the violin plates gouges like these I use to remove most of the material. Then I go to the little planes and scrapers. There are mini scrapers you can buy that are very useful on the violin.

On this Archtop. I did use gouges on the spruce top but it was also profitable to hog out wood with the larger curved bottom plane in the pic.

On the maple back.......the gouges were practically useless. That flamed grain was terrible so I used the planes. It was a lot of work.
I found once Bulk of wood was gone, 40 grit paper on small sanding blocks was the best to take more and even out. Then scrapers worked great.