This is a very large topic, and will be broken down into several areas.
- Preparation of the materials
- The back and sides
- The top
- The body
- The neck
- Polishing
- Tools and jigs
- Tuning
The first task is to collect all the materials and have a plan of the instrument you wish to build. Plans are available from many sources. Choose the one that most appeals to you. This site is more about how I go about the task of building an instrument than a step by step how to guide.
Now you need a list of materials and these include
- Top wood & rosette
- Back and sides
- Wood for linings, bindings, end blocks and braces
- Neck and Fingerboard
- Fretwire and tuners
The wood is cut into pieces that are just larger than the finished sizes and sliced
to about 3mm-4mm thick and kept "stickered" in bundles while air drying and ageing.
The rubber bands keep the pieces of timber under pressure and in place. The stickers are
thin pieces of wood that allow the air to circulate and the wood to dry and season evenly.
The wood is kept for many years in this state until ready for use. The timber for the top
and the back is cut from one piece and folded out to from the two halves. This is called
bookmatching. The sides are also treated in the same manner, but are not joined together
the same way, but must be from the same piece and preferably consecutive pieces. The above
picture shows "stickered" sides of East Indian Rosewood that are ready for use. The selected
sides are then sanded to thickness, cut to size and are bent to shape and placed in a mould
that will be used to retain the shape until the back and top are glued in place and the body
is a unit.
After the sides are bent and placed in the mould, the end block and linings are glued in
place. I use solid linings which give me the strength and rigidity I require. Some makers
prefer kerfed linings and some prefer the "tentellones" In this guitar I have also included
vertical bars on the sides, to again increase the stiffness and reduce the risk of splitting.
The notches in the linings are for the two "harmonic bars" on the top pf the guitar.
«Preparing the back»
