Hector

I love the shape. is that your design? looks classy.

I would say do it. but do it cheap, not for free. you're not supposed to work for free, but u can make a good price. maybe just the price of the parts+wood+100 or 200 bucks, this money would pay some router bits, some sandpaper, help with the eletric bill, and buy you some beers. but be very clear by saying that you do it as a hobby, and that this is one of your first guitars.

in this last pic it seems that you might have some problems with the bridge placement. is that box long enough to fit the classical scale?

chisel, sandpaper, files, small saw. you name it. I like to use a sharp chisel to remove the excess wood and then use sandpaper with a rubber block.

+1. I would recommend using a dovetail or a bolt on joint. and highly recommend using molds for the sides.

Yes, if the outside is radiused, then, the inside radiused too. just place the back on the sanding dish and glue the radiused braces. I made my sanding dish with the router just like the picture on the other tread. but you can buy them in lmii if you don't wanna make your own.

do you have the neck already? if not, then you should've waited to have the neck done and then route the neck cavity.

nice one andy! you inspired me to build a workbench for myself. thanks for the drawing rick.

that is plywood! that's why it was painted black. now your natural finish will enhance the plywood body. maybe you could do a burst to hide the edges.

hey wes, I don't think that heavy is better either, but in this case it was. just because as xanthus said, all mahogany guitars can sound mellow. and after tapping both pieces, the denser one sounded better for what I wanted. It was much brighter than the other piece and to me, it would work better in this particular case. for this particular guitar. as an acoustic builder I learned to always tap and listen well before using any wood, and not make my choices based only on visual aspects of the wood. I do have other boards of mahogany that are lighter, both in weight and in color, and they sound awesome. they plane, sand and finish nice just as this denser one, but the board that the top came was not as good as I would like. I'm gonna take some pictures soon.

believe it or not, the finish is spray can PU. lol! and that is after just one coat. I chose the denser piece to be on the back because I considered the guitar as a whole. and by that, the mass of the back is probably more than 80% of the total mass of the body. so I thought that it would be better for the tone to have the nicer piece of mahogany as the larger part of the instrument. don't know if it makes any sense or not. And the countersink I made using a forstner bit first and then used a brad point 10mm drill to go all the way. using the centermark of the forstner as a guide. worked almost perfectly, now the problem is to find a wrench that fits in there to tighten the damn thing. I might have to make my own.

thanks guys, I used 2 pieces of mahogany because I can only get mahogany that is 4cm thick. to do a carved top, with prs dimensions, I had to use 2 pieces. the body is not chambered at all. solid! and the funny thing is the difference of the 2 pieces, the back one, is the best mahogany I've ever seen. very dense. heavy as a rock. and the color is dark red. and the top is the exact opposite. light, not dense and kinda orange. I got both pieces in the same place. and paid the same price for them. one thing a luthier friend taught me is to look for the pieces with lots of mineral deposits on the pores. the more, the better. he grades his mahogany in 3 grades. the worst one is " hairy" because well, it is hairy, doesn't sand of plane well, not very dense but sounds good. " normal" is everything that falls in between the 2 other categories, and the "export" grade is this dense wood, with mineral deposits on the pores (a white stuff, i'm gonna take some pictures later) and he says this one sounds awesome and makes some pretty amazing instruments. here's what I did today. this one is going fast! new pics here

I might change my mind on the finish! check this out!

here's another one, I didn't take many pictures in the beginning but here's some that I took today. more pics here. specs: mahogany back and mahogany top. (the back is denser than the top) mahogany neck. Rosewood FB duncan JB and 59 pickups. gotoh tuners. dots inlay or no inlay at all. all black hardware. The idea was to do a replica of the prs standand satin stain all the mahogany black. but I wanna try to finish it with oil. Don't know how stains and oil finish go together. any ideas?

yes! that`s it. recurve!! thanks wes

If the two boards are flatsawn pieces, I would glue them up to make it quartersawn, and then, cut in half to make 2 quartersawn necks, instead of having 2 flatsawn necks. but that`s just me. I have no problems having glue joints on my necks. I would even cut the glued piece to have 3 necks if that`s possible.

PRS uses this technique too. I think it's called the recarve

I never saw a table saw being used as a jointer also. and the gaps on the pic seems huge! what kind of glue have you used? and i would have done it with the glue line in the middle (considering that a nice joint was made). a 2 piece body seems more reasonable to me since your wood was wide enough to do it. and I disagree on the 3 piece sounding better than a 2 piece. lets see some more pictures!

seems like a scarf joint that failed. I have a question for all the repair guys out there, would thin CA glue work well in this case? CA works well for gluing maple?

a toothpick and PVA glue. like this: frank rules.

I'm one of those builders. Don't know what's wrong with me, but a lot of times after hammering in the frets on a new board, i don't need to level. maybe i'm lucky.

I think that most commercial semi hollows use laminated tops and backs just because they can. because they have the technology, and have ways to do it, and that saves a lot of wood and money. If they used solid wood, the amount of waste would be huge. I don't think the sound difference would be gigantic in a semi hollow. but I know that for archtop guitars a solid spruce top gives a much nicer sound. and that's why archtops with solid top/back&sides are so expensive. they have to start with a large block (wedges) of wood, carve most of it out, and then you're left with a thin top.

I love the pacifica shape. makes me want to build one. where did you get that pickguard? nice job

how about using the ash for the body and the mahogany for the neck? lol btw, I've never seen anyone use ash as a neck wood.

off topic?