Adeline The Archtop

The archtop is really coming along now. This week I finished up binding the body with ivoroid binding. The ivoroid is in some ways easier, but also proved to have some trickier parts as well.

Here are a couple pictures of what I've been working on aside from the body. This first one is the underside of the tailpiece which will anchor the strings on the bout-end of the guitar. The ball ends of the strings will sit in the furthest forward holes while the string passes through a channel and out the face of another hole on the top side... That may not quite make sense to you, but I'm sure it will once I get further into it and have pictures of how that works. On the other end of the tail piece are two holes where a cord will pass though and tie to anchor the tail piece to the end-pin.

Here I have the pickguard/finger rest and bridge components that I've been making on the side along with the body work. All are mostly made of ebony as you can see, but the pickguard has a layer of maple and then black fiber under that to make a nice highlight around the edge. None of these pieces are done, so no judging them yet!

This is my instructor this term, Jim. He's demonstrating here how happy he is with our guitars and the pace we are keeping. He got stuck a while back with some students who were very burnt out on guitar making and didn't put in their full effort, so hopefully this term is more enjoyable for him.

In the close up of the binding here at the bout, you can see that there is an inch and a half gap. This is not my sloppy work but rather where a piece of bone will go to support the crushing force of the tail piece.

Here is just another picture of one more of my guitars with binding slots cut. There is one slot that has yet to be cut in this picture... An extra binding piece goes along the edge of the end of the cutaway. The ivoroid binding process involves melting the interior of the binding in sections with acetone before applying glue. I believe this creates a better mechanical bond and also sort of allows the binding to form to any imperfections in the wood. Butt-joints also get a dab of melted ivoroid material to help, ..seal the deal.

Here is the body before binding. It was actually the easiest guitar to box up just because there were no braces to tuck in it underneath the kerfing. So, that knocked out a few steps and made for a very clean joint inside and out. We were actually shown how to bring in the excess overhanging plate material with the pneumatic random orbital sander which saves time for sure and does a great job.

On the inside of this guitar, there is a much less complicated brace pattern, I won't try too hard to describe it as you there is a lovely picture of it posted here. Just one X-brace and then a couple of cross braces. The only tricky thing is that the braces must conform accurately to the unique inner dishing of the plate. This is accomplished by tracing the approximate shape onto the brace edge, shaving the bulk of the material back and then bringing in the rest by pulling sandpaper between the two pieces until a tight fit is achieved. There are no braces on the back of this guitar.

Here are a couple pictures of the kerfed lining in this guitar. It's really no different from the other guitars aside from the addition of the cutaway side. So all we do here is shape the kerfing end to fit neatly between the headblock and the side. This guitar by the way, has no radius shaped into the sides since all of the top and back radius is carved into the plates, producing a flat perimeter.

I'm sure we will be starting on the necks soon, and of course bringing in the excess binding on the body. The neck will actually have a bound headstock on this guitar, so that will be something new for me