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Well its bank holiday and I couldn't help myself so on with the backstrip. Made of offcuts from the top, it's forced into submission on the go deck and sanded to a nice polite round. Once dry channels were cut to accept the braces. This time I cut first with a dainty Japanese saw and then went at it with chisels. Much less tearing than the first time, but still not my favourite job - hence the lack of pictures. Heads down to the finish. After about an hour of messing around getting the braces to fit, onto the go deck it went. Still tight enough to need a shove into place before the go bars go on. Amusingly as soon as the glue went on Mrs 1038rings the dinner gong. No tea for Mr 1038 until this is done. Less amusingly the humidity shot through the roof as soon as I finished getting the bars on, Also one of them went on a bit off centre and split one of the longer braces. No biggie it'll glue back fine. One tip though. don't add bars from front to back. This is what we have now. My Mkii potato camera hides a multitude of sins, but its looking ok. Matt

Me too Mike. The box on the first one is making all the right noises when tapped so fingers crossed. I weakened and capped the lattice. Maple and off cuts of rosewood from another build. radiused on both sides to 25'. I'll take some sandpaper to the glue stains once in situ on the back.

So this is where this morning's tinkering got us. Bracing lattice for the back and a bit of an experiment. Thinner, lighter and taller than the first, but more coverage and therefore (hopefully) more support. The plan is to leave this at near enough the height it is. As the bracing is quite visible through the offset soundhole, perhaps I'll cap with some of the maple cut for purfling.

Do you think you'd gain much advantage using toothed pattern cutters them with wood? Took the No7 plane for a spin this morning while cutting back braces. This thing always brings a smile to my face.

yeah, one abortive tear out filled experience trying to plane figured rosewood turned me on to these things. Haven't used it for anything other than thicknessing backs and sides, but for that, its ideal. Still want a drum sander though.......

burn? no, blisters? oh sweet lord blisters. The red weed has descended again - all scraped, thicknessed and sanded. Thumbs up for toothed plane blades. The 4 1/2 made short work of this.

So it turns out I cant be trusted to finish one before starting another, though at least I finished the clamps. Top and back joined for the cutaway guitar. Same basic design as the first, but with a cutaway, bevels and purfling on the back. I've to ditch the white veneer for purfling and cut maple stripes instead using a nicely flamed neck blank that's wide enough to lose a few mm. happiness is a sharp scraper, though my thumbs will have something to say about that tomorrow.

THis may a bit premature, but Ive started practicing cuts for the next one of these. This time around I'm going to try adding a cutaway and a couple of bevels. The plan is to angle the cutaway section to meet the heel flush and to further bevel. Perhaps an armrest bevel too. Both bevels set at 25 degrees from the top. will lead to about a 10-15mm drop into the sides. Practice for today will be cutting the supports for the bevel's veneers. First off in offcuts of pine. The little saw grumbled a bit, but got almost there in the end. Pretty happy that I know how to do this, application is another thing entirely.

Nice. Funnily enough I've been looking at those for gluing necks. The two geriatric g clamps I've got work fine , but I think I'll be wanting to add to the family.

I am starting to appreciate that you can truly never have enough clamps

Yeah, these'll be on hooks or perhaps looped on string. I simply haven't got the drawer/box space at the moment to have them hanging around. The thought using cheater bars with these is a bit scary - if plates don't fit under hand tightening, somethings wrong......

Well, not much to show for a weeks worth of kicking round the house. I've decided to try building a bending machine, so am awaiting a heat mat and slats from various places. In the meantime I wanted a set of 24 spool clamps for the next build and was a bit horrified at the price of some of them, not to mention shipping costs. After nosing at the stewmac design I've come up with these. Threaded inserts in the handle and base, cork pads, c. 35mm oak dowels. c. 14x150mm max clamping depth. I'm 15 in, only another 9 to go and amazed at how much cheaper this has worked out. I'm a big fan of octagonal handles......

Well I'm now looking at a week of night shifts so I'm putting this this away until I've recuperated. This is where I'm leaving this - probably should have brushed off the dust first . First thing on the to do list when I'm back is to level and fret. the board. I also have to find a decent source of shellac and buy some cow bones (as I've got a few builds in the offing decided to try and dry and degrease my own bone for saddles and nuts). As always, thanks for reading. Matt

looking great. Sympathies with the levelling, I almost checked out sanding sides on my radius dishes. Totally worth it to be assured of a dimple free surface though.

haha nope. not nearly as clean as I'd like it to be. Got up stupid early this morning as it was lovely and bright here. Doesn't happen often, but when id does it's glorious. So I set about the neck and I have to say I kind of just attacked it without marking up. With this kind of thing the more I think about it the more I panic. First I roughed out with a small spokeshave (currently tool de jour) carved in the volute thing then refind with a half round file. Almost there and yet to sand. With the width of this neck I was worried that it would just turn out to be a flat rectangle. Happily I was wrong and its currently bordering on a nice chunky C shape. Ebony board left pretty square. Time for a cuppa and a ponder on whether I want to take a bit more off.

Well heel could have been better, could have been worse too. T'will be fine. Thanks Scott, certainly no mastery here... but it is a maple and ebano collage. The black nicks in the pic above are small bits of filling I've yet to level.

Thanks mate, I'll take you up on that when the time comes. Truth be told I'm undecided on even what shade to go. I'd like to keep the top a nice contrast with the sides, but I'm guessing an amber would tie everything together nicely. Really wish I was more decisive. Bricks were passed yesterday evening. Neck glue time. All seemed to go fine after after a few last bits of tweaking of the joint for angle. To save fiddling around I engaged both bolts, left loose, smeared a good dollop of epoxy into the join then cranked with gusto. Felt solid as a rock this morning. The fretboard went on this morning in a blizzard of hernia inducing clamps after a bar was routed and set bridging the neck/body join. Don't think this thing is going anywhere soon. There were a couple of small gaps when the board went on, but nothing significant that can't be filled. Last job of the day was to add the heel cap. I wanted to give the illusion with this that the binding was carrying on round the heel. Not sure how successful this was. Guess we'll see when the clamp comes off.

Not much office time today and what time there was was spent effing and blinding. Everything seemed to be a bit of a struggle. This afternoon will be spent apologising to the neighbours for the uncouth language . First job of the day was to make some holes. Same idea as the first neck, but this time I left more meat around the heel area - made it easier to position and hold the neck on the press. After that the effing and blinding started. Fitting the neck. It went eventually, but wasn't arf stubborn about it. I've left this heel chunkier to increase gluing surface. The plan is to string with a high a, so no one;s going to need to be going up the dusty end anyway. I also rough cut the cutout in the fret board. This section will be taken back flush with the edge of the soundhole- not bound but fret tangs hidden with dust and CA. Next in line - finish the heel, then I think get the neck I place, level again and get the fretbourd on. I was going to fret before attaching the board, but I think theres more than enough support there. I was going to have this sprayed, but after watching a few videos on it, I'm going to try French polishing - perhaps

The + points for me are speed, consistency and supposed reduced cupping, cracking and warping. I'd also be building an extension to cope with bending cutaways (not something I want to try on the iron). The - are I haven't got room for one. I'm talking myself into it damn it. How not to fit a neck #2. relieved the central portion of the joint with a router, maybe a bit generously. Spindle sanded to a rough profile while the heel is still square.. Surprisingly good fit and going to leave it there until its time to fine tune and mess it up. Will now look into carving the heel, or at least the part the buts to the body. The plan is to glue and bolt, flatten, then run a channel in the top and epoxy in a bar to act as an ersatz tenon/truss. Plans though, as always change.

Thanks mate. I wish I could claim good vision, more like happy accident. Looking at the headstock last night, I can see that I definitely went a bit mental with the file when cutting the slots. I spent a bit of time straightening then out this morning with a wide flat chisel.. Consequently the central bar (?) is a bit thinner than I would have wanted for the tuners I have in mind. If necessary the solution will be to wait till I have them in hand and then take a mm or two off the outside edge + rebind. no bigie. The real question that's been bugging me is whether or not to build a full fox type bending machine. I'm half convinced that I want to for the sake of building it. I'm also not too sure how much it would add to the bending process over and above just using the blanket over a form clamped down with cauls. Pretty sure I know which way Prostheta would fall on this

oh fiddlesticks. literally. I think my reluctance to get into this is also driven by my small work space, though I bet with a but of thinking there'd be a way of increasing storage. See any excuse...... Joking apart another thing on the list is trying to sort out some sort of drum sanding solution for thicknessing. I can see I need to meditate on this. I'm walking away from this today. Time for a quick play and a couple of blisters getting the fretboard levelled. Its going to work out a but thinner than I'd have wanted, but should work I think with a lower action and the strings being closer to the top than planned. If I keep it together this is what were shooting for. The sound hole is going to be continued into and through the fretboard. Who plays up there anyway?

OK that's rather cute.

Its probably just the concentration and uncertainty that make it tiring. Fretboard bound. Small victories. Think I've decided to use this one.

haha I'm completely the opposite. I quite like the flexibility of making it up as you go along, though if I were doing this for cash, I daresay I'd feel a lot differently about things. One thing I do want to put a bit of effort into is a heat blanket bending set up. Not necessary fox bender style, but something similar. Bending this one fully manually was unnerving slow and knackering to say the least - but then I've not had nearly enough practice.

curses. Don't you get me jig building