Official Luthiers Forum!

This guitar is for a friend in Eastern Europe. Per his request I kept him abreast of my progress and showed him how I build. I did it via Photobucket with captions for each picture telling him the process. I thought I'd put a link here for anyone interested. Therefore, my photo comments were intended for a player more so than a builder. The pictures are in various folders by type of activity.

This is my second guitar build and, prior to the first, I had no woodworking or shop experience. Both builds were scratch builds where I resawed all the woods except the top and kerfings. I glued, cut, thicknessed, and bent the perflings and bindings. I made the vast majority, but not all, of the jigs and fixtures required. I learned mostly from reading books & and this forum. On the first guitar I also had some help from Barry Daniels and Matt Jacobs who, unfortuantly, live about 60 miles away.

Overall link: http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 2712914454

Back plate jointing & stripe http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 9757037117

Spit Bracing Rough Sawing & Shaping Preparation http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 8232509707

Back plate bracing http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 9238190626

Top plate jointing http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 0679254168

Top bracing http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 0679254168

Rosette http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 4608718692

Neck block http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 5053486401

Tail end block http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 4958341325

Rims http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 9164375126

Rim side braces http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 1873534099

Sound port http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 2988758698

End graph http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 2263384874

Closing the box http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 6116424482

Neck resaw http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 6414368976

Neck glue up and routing http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... %20routing

Neck shaping and fit-up http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... d%20fit-up

Fretboard http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... /Fretboard

Binding http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 7058181542 Note that this section shows the bender I made. I studied all the benders out there that I could find and settled on one similar to Mike Doolin's, but with some significant improvements. Compared to a Fox bender it has some nice advantages: 1. You can accurately cut sides to shape and lenght before bending (faster) 2. Safer and easier (not handling a wood, heater sandwich with loose sharp spring steel sheets and electric chord). 3. It is MUCH smaller for storing in a small shop and the bender itself has storage. 4. Easy to fix a thermocouple for accurate temperature control.

Peghead: http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... 5345622161

Finishing http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... d%20fit-up

The finished guitar: http://s456.photobucket.com/user/SUGARL ... d%20Guitar

Thanks for putting this together Ed!

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

The guitar was completed in August. Lots of in-process pics in the links above.