Day 14: Reinforcing the linings, starting the arm rest, assembling the neck, ribs and soundboard

Today, I reinforced the kerfed linings with a strip of 1mm veneer, giving the ribs more stiffness. I also started to shape the arm rest, taking an off-cut from a rib and cutting it into three 25cm lengths, which were bent, laminated and clamped to the side of the guitar to retain their shape while drying.

I then glued the neck and end block to the soundboard, taking care to get the end block centred and vertical. I then prepared a rib for gluing to the soundboard, first by planing the edges and then sanding it on a sufficiently large sanding board.

Once that was done, I made corresponding cuts into the lining and the harmonic bars so they fitted together when glued.

At the end of the day, I cut the laminated back to shape on the bandsaw and three walnut bars to reinforce it. A ply template will be used for shaping the bars to the to the dome that the back will be forced into when clamped.

Today corresponded to Roy’s book pp. 240-252.