Nicco

Phew! Recovered it. I ended up clamping it between two cauls and leaving it overnight. Nice and flat and solid now. Also, for mum's soprano, the fret slots are almost done, and the fret board blank for dad's tenor is now cut

Unfortunately it's not looking great. The glue just started sweating in the sun, the inner layers have gone all rippled. ☹ I've clamped it to see if that works as final recovery method, but I'm not holding my breath. I think I'll be making another back tonight

I laminated the back face of the soprano last night, it doesn't seem quite right unfortunately. The guitar's I've done before I've used normal white PVA glue, but I managed to find Titebond Original to do this one. It doesn't look like it's as happy to cure in the vacuum bag. Hrmm. I'll sit it out in the sun this arvo and see if it becomes happier with a bit of heat

Bloody hell. That's gorgeous!

The rims are self supporting!!

I've been to the hardware store. Bonus, they had hardwood laminated discs discounted to clear stock. That'll make a perfect, if not a little over the top snazzy, base for a radius disc. I've also got threaded bar now for the waist spreaders, and the glue on the neck and heel blocks is drying

Looks really cool in that photo, mate. Well done

That back looks fantastic with oil on it. Very nicely done

Neck and heel blocks are now shaped using qld maple left over from the blue guitar's neck. It's bucketing down at the moment here, so I'll wait until the weather dries up a bit before I glue them in. Also made the waist spacer blocks at the same time. I'll be going for a toddler-less trip to the hardware shop after work either today or tomorrow to pick up stuff for the radius dish and some more mdf for tenor forms. Toddler-less being important as it's hard to critically think through stuff when you've got an 2 year old trying to "help" by grabbing everything, pushing the trolley or run off.

Awesome, thanks Dave. Very cool way to do it as well.

Router on a rope sounds sketchy as hell!! The book I purchased recommended cutting strips 50mm wide to the curve and arranging them around the circle, not solid, just evenly spaced like a 12 pointed star, then glue a sheet of 3mm mdf into the curve they form. I think this is the easiest (and safer than death router swing of fury) way to go, I just need to go and buy some timber to actually do it.

Very true, mate. Likely would have been fine. All good though, they seem pretty bloody rigid as it is. As I said, I'll definitely do cross grain for the back. I had to raid my old bolts bucket,; handy thing about doing lots of car stuff back in my 20's, I've got heaps of different bolts, long and short lying around. Ha ha. I realised though, interstingly, that the side bending process stretched the outer form a little! Ooft! Didn't expect that. I had to get a big clamp and pull it back into shape while I drilled and bolted, now it's holding itself in shape. Sides are both made, I've trimmed the ends and got them in the form together, and I've flatted the top edges. Next step is getting the neck and tail blocks in place to hold the rims together, then I'm waiting on kerfing strips. I need to make a radius dish next so I can get started on the back. That's got me a little flustered, but I'm sure I'll work it out.

Oh and both sides done, fret board blank cut out

No, they're all in the same direction for the sides. I couldn't get even close to enough width to do the side in one strip across the grain, and my gut feel is that the gain from the cross grain is offset by being non continuous. Maybe that's wrong though? I'll definitely do cross grain on the back plates though, no question about that

3 plies. The face and two, inner bunya pine layers

It worked!! Stoked!!

Well, fingers crossed here we go! First side is glued and clamped. I'll check it tomorrow. Eeek! I ended up sanding the male form a little smaller, then put in a strip of 3mm insertion rubber to take up any slight variation between the male and female parts

Yep, good call. Thanks mate. Had a play this morning and had a win. Soaked a test myrtle piece under hot water for a few minutes and it went into the form no problem. Pulled it out 3 hours later and it had dried into approximately the right shape. Slipped back into the form no worries after that. Phew! I've got my final pieces in the form now together setting into shape. Hopefully I can get the first side glued up tonight

Yep, there's some nice stuff here. Tried to bend my first side. It didn't go well. ☹ The two inner layers of bunya pine fit the form easily, but the myrtle on the face is just too brittle to fit the upper bout. Hrmm. I'll need to maybe soak it before I can bend it up. My form is MDF, so I'll need to up my sealing game on it too, because I can't get them wet. I spose the other option is to use some heat to pre bend the side to suit, but that kind of defeats the purpose of laminating them. Ha ha

Templates all done, so started playing around with fret board layouts. I think I'm still going to go with the salvaged mulga for mum's soprano, but I'm now looking at a piece of lace sheoak for the fret board for the tenor. It was originally out of bounds because the size is good for a guitar and it's pretty special, but bugger it, let's just go for it! Ha ha. For the bridges, I picked up a set of knife blanks off a local, speciality timber place. It's all local stuff, hard wood and either birdseye, flame or burl. There's one that closely matches the mulga fret board for mum's... but the bridge is so small it's probably wasted on it; I'll probably just grab a piece of mulga left over from the tea tray handles. Undecided on the bridge for dad's; from top to bottom is birdseye sheoak, lace sheoak and birdseye jarrah. The jarrah is probably closest is colour (less purple in real life than it looks in the photos), and closest in figuring is the lace. All good, don't need to have decided yet.

Got to laser cutting templates for fret slot cutting, fret board overall layout and neck layout yesterday. Far out these things are small, everything guitar related it's bigger than the cutter bed and needs to be in 2 pieces and glued together

Maybe it's an aussie thing? Ha ha. It's white chocolate on top of milk chocolate (and quite yum! )

Right, so the Soprano forms are all but done; just need to buy some bolts to bolt the two halves together. The bandsaw and spindle sander have been game changers for this, I can get so much more done in a chunk of time now than I could before. I might need to clearance the male part of the form a smidge more so there's enough space for three layers of timber, but I did a test run with one strip of veneer in there and it easily bent to fit the form, no cracking and no heating or water required, so very happy with that. Couldn't resist the urge then to pull out the veneers and see how they might look as the finished instrument. Interestingly, the bloody thing is so small I'm struggling to get enough figuring in there to actually be interesting. I think these veneers would look better at guitar scale. Finished form: Form all clamped up. I'll buy some better clamps for the actual job. Bunya pine sound board. I'm loving this. Interestingly the colour doesn't extend far into the timber, about 1mm. The other side is actually pretty plain. Queensland walnut top deck. (do you overseas people get what I mean by top deck?) Qld walnut Asymmetrical tiger mrytle looks better than I expected actually. Book matched tiger myrtle. Too much tiger for my liking. Ha ha.

Nah, I'll cut a rectangle out of each corner and just use shorter bolts, I don't need that much meat at the edges anyway. The latches would be easy, but I'll need access to both sides for sanding edges and kerfing, so on top or bottom they would get in the way. I spose I could chuck them on the end, that would work too. Bolts will be a stronger joint though.