Acoustic guitar build

[Cary Falk]

A couple of weeks ago somebody brought up the question about building a guitar. I was starting one at the time and I thought I would post some pictures of my project to let anybody that wanted to make one know that if I can make one they could too. The top is Cedar. The back and sides are Mrytlewood. The neck will be maple and walnut. It is for my neighbor. He picked out the woods.
I have about 75hrs into it. These are a few of the highlights.

The walnut and maple rosette



Me bending the sides

Glueing up the back

gluing the front



gluing the kerfing to the sides

the soundboard glued to the sides

all glued up and ready for the trim

a shot of the back after glue up


I have a ton more pictuers but don't want to bore everyone

This is the the most challenging project to date but is going surprisingly well. It has been been fun and relaxing.

[John Dodson]

Congrats Cary, looks great!

[Don Eddard]

The myrtle looks like it will make a nice-looking guitar. Great job so far.

[Walt Caza]

Hi Cary,
I am very interested in progress pics of your guitar build...
I am sure many other Creekers would be as well.
Your work and pics are excellent!

We are addicted to wood pics and can't get enough.
In no way would it bore us to see more pics of your first guitar project.
Please post all the pics you want to...Creekers are pic hungry!

If there is any way I could build myself a guitar someday, then I
gotta add that to my long wish list.
Thanks for showing us,
Walt

[John Thompson]

It's coming along nicely Cary and you certainly have more patience than I. Building instruments to me is harder than building chairs from what I've see as I haven't and probably won't attempt it.

Keep up the good work...

Sarge..

[Jim Becker]

Umm...post the "ton" more pictures! No boredom ever in that respect around here...

This is a great project!

[NICK BARBOZA]

luthier is an art that i have toyed with for a while now.... but i think i should probably be able to play the guitar before i build one... so that is a project on the to-do list.


Great work! keep those pics coming!

CHeers,
Nick

[gary Zimmel]

Great job Cary.

I too would like to see e few more picture of the progress!

[Anthony Fields]

Very nice. Please keep us posted. Any tips on the design?

[Cary Falk]

Very nice. Please keep us posted. Any tips on the design?

I don't really have any design tips. This was from a book with full size plans. It is a Kingston or 0000 or something like that. Once I dug into the book I noticed that the top and back are slightly arched. I tried to go that way at first but the back split on me so I started new with a flat back and soundboard. This makes life soo much easier. As far as woods and stuff goes. I am trying to pick stuff out of the book that I can execute well. My neighbor is doing the wood selection. Did that answer your question?

[Cary Falk]

Well,
This got more interest than I though. Thanks for the kind words. Here is the progress today.
I cut the back end of the guitar adn inlayed a maple triangle. I don't know what it is called.



I made a Jig to route the edge for the binding. The back is curved a little by the neck so that is why the need for the jig.




The neck is glued up

[Matt Ranum]

Thats one thing I really enjoy out of this hobby, you can take plain old pieces of wood and turn them into something that not only is seemingly impossible to build, (like this very guitar) but end up with a beautiful piece when your done.

Beautiful work, keep us posted please.

[Cary Falk]

Here is an update. Not much happened today. Progress has slowed because vacation was over and work is getting in the way of my progress.

I put the bindings and purfling on at the beginning of last week but I did a maple/walnut/maple pattern. It looked great till I cleaned up everything and trued up the edges. I guess due to a less than perfect routing job and a less than perfect clamping job on the bindings the outside maple strip wasn't even all of the way around. Since the walnut was next to it it stuck out like a sore thumb to me in a couple places. An oops on the back binding didn't make me happy either. I spent today removing the bindings and redoing. The bending job on the new bindings this time made the attaching job easier. I also went with walnut/maple/maple. I think I did a little better routing job also. Better to execute something something well then something complicated ok. I don't think the pattern looks as sweet but on a whole it looks better.

This is the old clamping picture. notice the maple/walnut/maple pattern.








The rest of the time was used up strugging with setting the neck angle and making the dovetail joint jigs for the neck attachment. The jigs aren't done yet but there is always tomorrow. The plan for tomorrow will be to get the dovetails done and the neck roughed out.

Thanks for looking.

[C Scott McDonald]

Really cool. Thanks for posting this!

[Jim Becker]

That's really fine work. Thanks for keeping us posted on your continued work!