Bracing the Soundboard

On the back or inside of the soundboard, hidden from view in the finished guitar, is a series of braces designed to add rigidity without dampening the sound.  The pattern for the bracings is pretty standard in modern guitars.

First, I drew the pattern on the soundboard.

I rough-cut the braces according to the book instructions and then shaped them as needed.  Each of the braces is arched on the bottom so that it helps hold a slight curvature in the soundboard.  Here's the main X-braces being glued:

And then when the glue dried and the soundboard was laid flat you could see the edges lifted up with the curvature.

After all the braces were added and shaped on top as well, here's the final soundboard.  The edges of the soundboard will be trimmed later in the assembly.  You can see that there are several diamond shapes that help hold the soundboard seam together and there is a flat bridge piece that will serve to secure the bridge later.

Installing the Rosette

Once sound hole is cut in the front face of the guitar, there is considerably less strength in that panel.  For that reason, many guitars add a rosette around the hole to bolster that area.  Rosettes come in all types of designs and materials and can have a big impact on the appearance of the guitar.  While some people make their own rosettes from wood or other material, I chose to purchase a prefabricated one online.  I was pretty sure mine would turn out poorly and ruin the look of the guitar.

The rosette I purchased is about 1/32" thick.  That means I needed to remove that much wood from my front panel in the shape of the rosette so it would sit flush with the panel.  I rigged up something so I could use my router to do the work.

First, I added a piece of wood onto the bottom of the router base for reasons I'll explain below.  I screwed it to the router base with countersunk screws and left an opening for the router bit to come through.

Next, I took what was left of the 3/16" rod I used for the truss rod and cut a piece about 3/8" long from it.  On a piece of thin plywood I practiced what to do by first drilling a center hole big enough for the 3/16" rod piece.  Then I calculated how far from the center of the 1/2" router bit I was using that I would need for making the first of two cuts for the circular groove.  At that location, I drilled a hole in the router base attachment to accept the other end of the rod piece.  So essentially I would have a common point of rotation between the router and the guitar panel.

Below is the plywood I practiced on a couple of times.  You can see the center hole of each circle.  That's where I had the small rod piece which also went up into the router base.  I spun the router around with the bit set to cut 1/32" deep.  Since my bit was only 1/2" and my rosette is 5/8" wide, I had to make two cuts by making a second hole in the router base in which to put the rod piece.

Here's the front panel with the rod piece installed:

 And here it is after routing the groove:

Finally, with the rosette sitting on the panel but not yet glued in.  I'll cut the sound hole opening later.  The rosette comes with a slot on one side so that it has more flexibility.  This will be covered by the fretboard later.

Carving the Heel

This part turned out to be not as bad as I had expected.  I started with the heel block which I built up earlier from several blocks of mahogany.

I marked the top where the heel cap will end up and I marked the sides so that I could take a rough cut out of the block.  You can see I marked the sides in the wrong place first and then I corrected it.  I used a coping saw and here's what the block looked like after the rough cut.

Next, I made a few intermediate cuts with the coping saw the take out small pieces of the wood. 

Once I had a good start by doing that, I used my drum sander bit on the drill press to smooth out the curves.  I'll finalize the heel later, but it is pretty close to what it will look like.

Shaping the Head

After the veneer was complete on the head, I used a scroll saw to cut the outline of the head that I had traced on.  The book suggested to cut down to roughly where the first fret would be so that is what I did.  I tried to be careful and not cut too close to my lines.  Once the rough shape was cut, I used a drum sander in my drill press to smooth the sides.

I bought some Grover tuners to use and drilled the 25/64" holes for those as needed.  The final head looks like this:

Neck Construction Part VI

I chose to add a veneer to the head of the neck.  Many guitars have this feature and I chose to use walnut to match the back and sides of the guitar.  I cut the veneer myself with a table saw to a thickness of about 1/16".  I used thin pieces of wood on each side between the clamps and the head/veneer.  Here's what it looked like when I glued it in place:

Then when I removed the clamps:

It will be trimmed to shape shortly.

Neck Construction Part V

After routing the opening for the truss rod, I made a spline to fill the top of the opening.  This was a little tricky to cut since it was so thin.  I cut a corner off of a larger piece with two cuts on the table saw.  I wasn't sure of the exact depth for the spline so I cut it a little large.  Then I used a hand planer to thin it.  Here's how it looks in the neck before gluing in place.

Neck Construction Part IV

I cut the tenon in the neck where I had marked it earlier using a table saw.

I'll smooth out the cut later.  One thing to note, the book says to cut the lines that are across the neck at 5 degree angles instead of straight across.  I didn't do that.  For one thing, I can do it later since what I would cut would take away some of what is still left.  For another, the pictures in the book really didn't look angled.  I've noticed several times that the pictures don't match the text.  Finally, the guitar body is supposed to be straight where it meets the neck.  So I don't understand the angle.  In any case, I can add the angle later so that's how I am approaching it.

The next step in the book is to add the veneer to the front of the head stock.  I have not yet purchased the veneer since I wasn't sure if I wanted walnut to match the back and sides or mahogany to match the rest of the neck.  I'll make that decision soon.  In the meantime, I drew out the template for the outline of the head stock and cut it out.  Here's what it will look like.  I won't cut it until the veneer is on.

One other thing: This template shows the hole placement for the tuning pegs.  I plan to go ahead and purchase these before drilling any holes in case the placement or size is not standard.  Some pegs come three on a strip while others are individual.

Neck Construction Part III

After I made the practice version of the neck a few weeks ago, I repeated the process with mahogany.  It was pretty straightforward after doing it once already.

I finally received the router bit I needed to slot the neck for the truss rod.  Here's what the neck looks like with the slot cut and the rod inserted.

From another angle you can see how the rod sits below the surface of the neck.  A spline will be inserted later to cover the top of the slot.