Learn to build a guitar

The main cross braces of the soundboard have a curve sanded  along their length, so when they are glued on, you will have to use a flexible gluing caul on the opposite side of the board. If you make a soundboard with flat braces, when you string it up, the top will look like it is concave. I use a 5m radius  ’railway’ curve. It is used in a drawing office where the draftsman has to draw railway lines. You can make your own curve template using a length of string with a pencil at the end of it. Draw the arc onto a piece of wood and bandsaw along the curve and sand up on the disc sander.

Trace the curve onto the blank bracewood, take to the disc sander and sand down to the lines. Alternatively, put two blank braces in the vice and use a small palm plane to take away the excess wood. Work slowly, as the wood comes off fast. Finish sand by hand. The half lap join at the center of the braces is done before the braces are glued down.Take one brace and place it onto the soundboard in its intended position, draw a short line either side of the brace at the top centerline. Take it away and add the other brace and draw the short lines either side of the brace at the centerline. You are now able to mark the direction of the brace across the other brace, and do the half lap cutouts.Be careful to mark the section to be removed with an ‘x’, and check 2 or 3 times before you make any sawcuts. A small paring chisel will remove the wood between the sawcuts. Place the joined braces in place on the soundboard to make sure there is 100% contact at the join area. Only glue down one brace at a time, but have the 2nd one in place to make sure everything is in alignment. It’s good that the bridge plate helps you keep things where they should be. Leave to dry several hours.

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Using a pattern to mark the outline

It can be quite a task making your first guitar. I found that the more books I read, the easier it became to get my head around all the different processes. To this day, I still run out of time because I forget some of the processes that have to be done, and I run overtime. I will now begin to show the process of building an acoustic dreadnaught guitar.

The first is wood selection, so you have to first decide which woods you will use. Not only will the type of wood be a factor, but the colour scheme of the woods also comes into play. To see a selection of back/side wood and top wood, go to www.desanthony.com/workshop and woods.These are the main timbers that I use, and I try to use wood that is available within Queensland. Soundboard woods( Spruce and Western red cedar), are not available in Qld., but other woods like King Billy pine, Bunya pine, Hoop pine are available in Qld. Importing spruce is not all that expensive if you are prepared to use a lower grade. Soundboards are available from www.stewmac.com and www.alliedluthierie.com and The Luthiers Mercantile. You will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the lower grade board.These pre-sized boards (thicknessed to 3mm) certainly save you a lot of work. Otherwise you will have to bandsaw the soundboard from a block of spruce, if you were able to buy it like that.

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