On day two, I veneered the head, cut out my plantilla, based on the Friederich plan in Roy’s book, and made the solera.
Today corresponds to Roy’s book pp. 162-165; 171-72.
We prepared the head for the walnut veneer. The two surfaces must be perfectly flat.
Dark patches indicate low spots where the plane or sanding block are not touching.
The left side of the neck was used as the datum point. Exactly 90 degree angle for taking other measurements to be taken from.
The burred walnut veneer had been glued onto a thicker piece of walnut veneer. The nut end of the veneer needed to be planed at the exact angle for the nut.
The veneer was clamped to the head and then with the low angle block plane on its side on the neck, I planed the veneer end that would sit tight against the nut.
The centre of the neck was marked out, as was the width of the nut and the width at the 12th fret. The outline of the neck could then be marked on the wood.
The neck marked up.
We routed a groove in the neck to take a length of graphite tone truss rod.
We then taped around it to protect the neck when gluing the rod into the neck.
We then made the plantilla by tracing the Friederich plan onto thin plywood.
The outline of the plantilla.
The cut plantilla. This was cut with a bandsaw, then chiselled and sanded to its finished shape.
With the truss rod glue dry, we returned to the head and clamped the veneer into place, making sure it didn’t slip.
The back of the head is the finished surface so we were careful to protect it and the veneer from the clamps.
Six clamps for the head veneer.
We then moved onto the MDF solera. Cut using the plantilla with about 50mm border to take the rolling pin clamps. The slots were drilled and then sawn between the holes.
The front of the guitar is convex so about 2-3mm needed to be scraped out below the sound hole.
It’s 2-3mm in the middle, decreasing towards the edges.
The edges need to be flat to take the kerfed lining.
With the veneer glue now dry, we trimmed it and then gave it a coat of french polish to see what it looks like.
We then started to fill the grain and will continue this another day.
