Page 3
The top has been joined and is ready for thickness sanding.
The top has been sanded to the proper thickness.
As you can see, it's just barely wide enough.
We just made it.
Once the main shape is cut out (slightly oversize) I can lay out the sound holes.
Look how the bookmatching cause a mirror image of the grain lines on the top.
38 holes later (and some hand cutting) we have a top.
But wait What are those 3 long holes?
Remember how I hollowed out the fingerboard to make it lighter?
These holes connect that airspace to the airspace inside the body.
Once again, the customer will never see this little detail. But it will
help open up the sound of the instrument.
Required Shop Tools
My iPod is hooked up to the shop stereo.
Now I have 3000 songs ready to play at any time.
The next step will be glueing on the top and building the headstock.
Then I route the channel for the binding and glue that in.
Then I finish the fretboard and glue that on. The comes more sanding and the shellac.
It's a lot of work, but once the box is together it starts to go more quickly.