Adeline the Archtop

This week, we finally started working on our archtop guitar necks. I was really happy to see how much curl was in the maple grain with the wood we received. In this first picture here, you can see that it is very nicely figured, and that the curl runs all throughout the neck. All three of us were happy with the materials we got, so that was nice. I didn't take pictures of the entire process this time around since you've all seen it with past guitars in past postings. However here's a few pictures just to show you how far I've come before the weekend. We Actually didn't get all that much done this week, since we had a couple do-overs involved, and the instructors are all still very busy trying to keep the newbies on schedule. In the second picture here, you can see the heel of the neck, and the first half of the dove tail joint that I have cut. There's a threaded insert that you can see is not centered at all, but not to worry! That is only there to support the finishing handle. This guitar, like the classical guitar, has a tongue extension that is glued on and you can it on the end of the neck there. As I mentioned with the classical, I have some ideas for constructing it a bit differently. However, we used wood glue this time around as apposed to superglue, and I think I will be much happier with the results. We'll see when I get it all cut back and shaped. Oh yeah, this guitar, (thanks to the Chinese supposedly) will be getting ears glued onto the headstock to accommodate the extra wide profile. Something about a new airport being built in China with LOTS of flame maple is affecting the supply and making it harder to obtain 6/4 stock. So we are making due with 4/4. But don't worry, cause you won't see the seam with the sunburst finish.

The body was already bound in my last blog, but now as you can see, the tape has been removed and the excess material has been filed and sanded back. It looks really good except for the burns from the router... They didn't go away or hide, and we all have them. I've never missed a sharp router bit so much. My F holes look pretty crisp. I'm happy with them, but I still need to do a bit of sanding on them to true up the profiles and get rid of any burns on the end-grain. Speaking of burns, if you click this image here of the F hole, you can see those binding ledge burns peaking out from under the binding. Our saving grace will be the sun burst finish. It will hide a lot of them, and distract you from the remaining ones. The sunburst will also cover the side seam on the bout, so no end wedge will be intalled on this guitar.

Here is the bridge I've been working on, just a little further along. We got all of our hardware this week for the guitar, so we took the time to fit the thumb wheel adjustment shafts into the bridge pieces. the bottom ebony piece still has some shaping to do, but the top just needs to be cleaned up a bit with a scraper and sandpaper.

Well here is half of the fretboard for this guitar. As you can see, we used ivoroid to bind this as well. It should tie in nicely with the rest of the guitar. Each corner you see here requires a precise miter joint, and also to be cut in such a manner that does not leave any ivoroid end-grain showing. They all turned out looking pretty tight, so we can put that on the win list. I should be carving my neck sometime this week, but I still have to glue on the fretboard and the peghead overlay etc. Got a ways to go. Hope all is well on the home front.