Wednesday 25th July '07

It seems that more running around and quite screaming has taken place today than actual work, but I'm happy with the progress so far on the acoustic which is currently taking up most of my concentration

As this will be using the New Standard Tuning which starts at a low G I wanted to emphasise the lows and mids therefore I have chosen a particularly lovely bit of western red cedar for the top wood..

the front of each plate is planed flat

being held in place by little jigs made of dowel

then, using my largest Random Orbital Sander, the whole plate is sanded to a fine finish

My trusty old shooting board is brought out and the center joint 'shot' carefully

and then it just remains to glue everything in place.. after a test run of course!! 

these bits of ply are cut to size on the table saw

and so are these four pieces of dowel.  they are taped together in order to ensure a perfect 90 degree angle to each cut and also to make sure they are the same length.

Some time later and this jig is complete... what is it for I hear you cry??  I'll show you tomorrow!

after the glue has thouroughly dried I take the top out of the clamps and mark out the final outline

dusty puppy... probably hungry and tired too, but that's youth for you..

bored puppy...?

After roughly cutting to the outline the whole top is thicknessed carefully

and finally sanded to the correct finish for this stage.. this process obviously happens with both sides of the cedar...  Tomorrow will hopefully prove to be a much more interesting read.. till then..

Yours, Ben.