Side braces and glueing the back.

Hey all!
So I got my top glued and then it was time to put the braces on the back... This was a little bit troublesome for me.
The main braces went on fine, but when I was putting the center braces on I caused a 5inch split in the back. It was right along the seam, and with some info from the people at KitGuitarsForum.com I was able to fix that. Not as nice as I would like, but I didn't see until after the glued dried.

So then I had to put the braces on the sides of the guitar, here are what they look like
As you can see I also filed for the back braces.


Then it was on to glueing the back.. Rather easy although I had to make a tool for it... My sides were not at 20in for the back so I made a tool that held the top and kept the sides at 20ins.
Thats this tool. The only thing wrong with it is I had to reck it to get it off after gluing, I had tried it before and it came off nice but once the sides were ridged it would not come off.

And here is how it looked gluing. I'll try to get some photos of it now

Gluing the top

Today has been filled with good news :) But, here is the news on my guitar.

I've be working on notching the slots for the braces on the sides of my guitar, finally got that done this afternoon.

Then all evening I've been working on gluing the top. First I did a dry run, just to make sure I knew how it would all work. Then I marked all of my spindle-clamps, Think that's what I was calling them lol, the way I put them on so I would know when actually gluing. I took them off in order so they would all be ready to go when I needed them.. The rest was pretty simple just applied the glue spread it out, put the top on and put all 30 spindle-clamps on.

here is what it looks like now

And now the rest of the braces.

I've been working on the rest of the braces was doing really good. I have all but 4 done, but I haven't been out to the shop since Wednesday... (been a little under the weather... again) 

I think I have enough go-bars to do all four at once, I just need to get out there and finish it. Still not feeling the best, but I'm not lightheaded anymore so I will probably head out there and finish them today.

I tell ya, I knew this would take a long time... I am not a perfectionist, but I love guitars so much that I knew I could do this. Unfortunately I find my self wanting to be so perfect that I don't get as much work as I need to done.

I might start working on some other parts of the guitar, that I can start on, so I get more work done. This guitar has to be finished by May, so I have a little less than 3 months to do this and I started in August. 

A little behind schedule perhaps?

X braces

So, I haven't done much on my guitar lately (been building the Go-Bar Deck), But today I went out and finished shaping my braces and got everything ready to glue.

<--weird face.
                Gluing the two together  -->

 <--- now adding the glue with a brush
 putting glue on the back of the top-->

 <---all set for the go-bars. Putting the first Go-Bars in --->

 <--- all of them in, some changes still need to be made. cleaning the glue-->




                    All done!

Not really, all those other braces still need to be glued in.

More tools.

Ok, so again... I am really bad at taking photos, it's kind of hard to work and take photos.
This past week I have been building a Gobar-deck. This is used, instead of clamps, to glue the bracings onto the top and back of the guitar. At the moment I have it almost all done, I just need to get the side posts secured.

kerfed linings and sanding.

Ok so it's been awhile and I haven't gotten much work done, but I am glad at what I have gotten done :)
so first I had to put in this kerfed lining on the inside of my guitar, this is so the top and back will have more to glue to.

This is the kerned lining.
I put glue on, trying not to get to much on, and then spread it out with my finger.





Once I had a nice even coat of glue I put the lining into place and used a few clamps to hold it there, I had to be very careful because I needed to leave 1/32 above the sides.

I then filled in the open spaces with as many clamps as I could

 And here is the end result!

Once I had done this to both sides I had to sand down that 1/32 I had left above the sides and make sure everything was even. I did not get any photos of this process, but I can tell you what I did.

First I had to make a tool to sand the sides with the right angle a 5 degree and 1 1/2 degree. This was a interesting tool because really those degrees are quite small. Once I had it made I just used 80 grit stick on sandpaper and I was ready to go.

I then started to sand both sides of the guitar using a white pencil on the sides to make sure I didn't go down to far. Once I got almost everything even I noticed a had a few really low spots, I wasn't sure what to do so I asked the luthier I talked about early. He said to take a small piece of wood and glue it into the low spots then sand that down. It's what I did and it worked great!

Guess that's about it for now. I am just getting ready to put in the rosette around the sound hole and then the top bracings.

The fix.

So, I seem to be saying this a lot lately, but again the reason why I haven’t posted any of the photos of the projects that I’ve tried so far is because most of failed…. Including gluing my sides.

After I took the clamps off I found a crack in between the two pieces of wood. So instead of being completely straight like this | the space between the two looked like this /\ (not quite that big but you get the point.) I went to a forum that I knew of “bluescreekguitars” and asked about this, I got a lot of info and it sounded like it shouldn’t that big of a deal to take the glue off and re-glue. So, that’s what I did. (Although one gentleman pointed out that I might be causing more harm than good. I see his point, but not much that I can do about it now that I started lol)

It’s kind of tedious work, because I’d rather not harm the wood, but I think I have it worked out. I had one of the sides off before I started writing this so I’ll talk about taking the other off.

 First I have to heat the spot with an iron, the only thing I had to heat the wood and glue with, I also had a piece of cloth between




the wood and the iron. Then I used this knife to slice into the first part of the glue. After I worked down far enough I used this tool, it looked rather dangerous but it worked, and just add a little water, heat it up, and work my way down… this way I took the cale off both sides of the wood.

The sides.

Okay, so I did take photos, but on a different cameras so they will be up later.
The kit I got has an internal mold that they say to use. I decided I wanted an external mold... And I am probably just making this harder then it needs to be but... I'm building one anyways.
I have one half of the external mold complete and now I just need to do the other side, shouldn't take to long and then I can start gluing the sides together.
As I said I'll have the photos soon with more details. 

Still waiting

Well now I'm just waiting for my guitar to adjust to the temp and humidity of the shop I will be working in... still no new photos, but I should get started soon... lol I need to get started... although I am a little nervous because I don't want to mess it up.

A little late...

I should have posted this two Wednesdays ago, but I guess I was just lazy... lol.
I GOT MY KIT!
It's awesome!
Although I have yet to start work on it, I had to let it adjust to the difference in temp and I'm a little scared to start.
Hopefully I will post a photo of everything tomorrow.

P.S. that's why I didn't do it right away! (because the camera battery was dead :p )