Learn to build a guitar

Now that the two soundboard halves are joined, run the board through the drum thickness sander, but only take off enough to flatten out the board. If one half was sitting up a tad, then work to sand that half down to the level of the other. I use 120 grade sandpaper on the drum, then switch to 240 grade. The soundboard is thicker than it needs to be still, as the next step is to mark out the soundboard rings, carefully scribe the circles, either  with a handheld circle cutter, or a dremel tool with a circle cutter attachment. The handheld cutter does a great job, but a little skill is required to pear out the narrow wood channel. The dremel tool practically lets you do it with your eyes closed. The adjustments on the dremel let you very accurately set the radii for the soundhole rings.Cut the ring depth to the same size as the pearl or abalone you are inlaying, or half the depth of the soundboard, if you are using  purfling.

I inlay the soundhole pieces bit by bit. If I am using abalone for the center ring, surrounded by a plastic border, then I anchor one end at the centerline starting point, and allow the two plastic border pieces to flow ahead, and the abalone is squeezed between them. I used to glue it all in with Franklin Titebond glue, but I would rather use superglue, as I can quickly do a short length at a time. The white glue doesn’t hold things down too well, whereas the superglue anchors everything almost immediately, and as well it disguises the abalone edge joins really well. As you learn to build a guitar, you will try all these things out for yourself. The other benefit of using quick drying glues, is that the entire soundring area can be sanded level twenty minutes later. The nice thing about using a drum sander when you do this, is that any black decoration in the ring is nicely smoothed, and no residue is left in the surrounding white spruce. If you sand by hand, it is difficult to stop the residue being ground into the spruce, and hand sanding tends to wear away too much of the softer spruce, leaving the harder abalone sitting proud.

Use the 240 grit paper on the drum to final thickness the soundboard. I leave my soundboards 2mm thick. This thickness will make a responsive top. The handheld cutter is now used to cut out the soundhole, with a radius of 50mm. Hand sand the soundhole edge to make it smooth with a rolled over edge.

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• BuildYourGuitar.com – Guitar building books and guitar making … – Find books, CD-ROMs and plans on how to make electric guitars and lap steel guitars. Lots of useful stuff for guitar makers like guitar building related links, supplier addresses, tips and articles on guitar making and more.
• How to Make a Guitar – Learn to do it yourself with this guide. Guitar making is an excellent hobby for the musically inclined do-it-yourselfer. It takes some tools and precision, but a guitar can reasonably be made at home.

Technorati Tags: acoustic, build, clamps, custom, guitar, learn, soundboard, spruce, wood

Tags: acoustic, build, clamps, custom, guitar, learn, soundboard, spruce, wood