Sheli's Angel Guitar

Overall Status

It's Finished!

Click here for some photos of the finished Guitar



This guitar is being made for Sheli Anthony AKA Guitar Princess from the RMMGA Newsgroup fame

  
     

Description:

Grand Auditorium Body Size Moderately flamed KOA back and side, Engleman Spruce top, 14 fret to body mahogany neck with Ebony headstock veneer, Ebony fingerboard and bridge, Angel inlay on headstock and signature inlay on fingerboard

   Gebeaux Guitars
     

 

Material

Making the Sides

Bracing

Making the Back

 

 

  

Making the Top

Making the Neck

Putting it together

 

 

Material

All the material for this guitar

has been received

 

  
    Here I have the material that will be used for your guitar laid out on my work bench so you can see what goes into one of these things!
 

Here are the sides! Nice color and figure IMHO!
     

Here is the back set. Again I think they look great! Nice color and figure. Should make a nice body.

  
     
   

 

The Sides

  Here is the form I will be using for the body of the guitar. It will help hold the sides after they are bent and before the head block and tail blocks are glued on.
     

One of the first steps is to reduce the thickness of the plates. For the back and sides I thin them down to nine hundredth of an inch.

Here I am feeding one of the sides through my thickness sander. It makes a lot of noise and a lot of dust.

  
     
  I check the progress with this gauge I made. It can measure down to .001"
     
  Here you can see the drum sander a little better
     

Once I get the sides down to .09" I can bend them to shape by using my Fox Side bender or by hand. What I usually do is a combination of the two.

First I wet the wood in hot tap water for 10 to 15 minutes.

  
     
  Then put in the bender and turn on the lamps.
     

I use a Hot Iron to make the final adjustments to the shape and then put the sides in the form to keep them in shape until they are glued to the top/back

  
     
  Here is a side just about finished bending. I have drawn the profile on a board and am checking the shape against it as I go. When I am satisfied I will clamp it down to dry and then put it into the mold.
     
Here are both sides in the form. Now I make the tail block the the neck block and then glue them into place.  
     
  I am making and couple other guitars along with yours Sheli so here you see two sets of blocks.. Yours are the ones to the right.
     
 

Here the tail block is being glued to the sides while the whole mess is clamped above the work bench. The head block is glued down in the same fashion.

 

The next step is to trim the excess wood off the sides and contour them to accept the top and back
     
Here I have marked the height of the sides with a red pencil and trimmed the excess wood away with a coping saw down to near the mark.  
     
Now I place the form (with the sides) on to a hollow dish (15' radius for back and 25' for top) that has been lined with sand paper. I rotate the whole mess sanding down till I reach the red line and the sand paper makes contact over the entire surface. This gives me a contoured gluing surface for the top and backs, which will also be contoured to the same radius.  
     
  Here is an out of focus shot of the back edge lying on the sandpaper. The area of light shows that I need to continue sanding until the entire edge lies flush with the dish.
     

After I sanded the sides down to fit smoothly on the radius dishes I glued on the lining that will give a good glueing surface for the top and back

 

  
     
 

After gluing the linings the whole thing is taken back to the sanding dishes and leveled again before gluing the back and top in place
     
You can see here that I have used spruce lining for the top and mahogany for the back  
     

The Back

The back and top center seem joints are critical steps in the process. I made a jig to help me get the joint as perfect as possible

The two plates are sandwiched between two boards and clamped in place. I then run a router down the track and take wood of each edge.

When the piece are removed from the jig they should match up really nicely and can be glued together

  
     

 

    
 

A guide rail lets me run a router down the joint and cut a smooth edge on both sides at the same time.

     
Here the two back pieces are being glued together  
     

 

The back will have a center seam stripe of ebony and maple to match the binding and endpin graft. I am routing a 1/4" wide by .045" deep channel in the back to accept the ebony and maple stripe.

The straight edge is used as a guide for the router

 
     
  Here is a close up of the router resting against the straight edge.
     
Here is the ebony and maple stripe lying in the channel prior to gluing.  
     
  Here is the set up for gluing. the stripe in place
     

After the glue sets I scrap the stripe level with the back.

 

I then trace out the body shape on the back and cut out the back leaving about 1/4" extra all the way around

The next step is to layout the bracing pattern and glue down the center seem reinforcing graft pieces.

  
     
 

Here you can see the back has been cut to form and the bracing patter laid out in pencil (hard to see), The reinforcing pieces are laid out prior to gluing.

The straight edge will help keep the piece in a straight line.
     
Here the pieces are being glued down.  
     
Here the back is receiving its first brace while resting in the 15' radius dish and go bar deck.  
     
  Here is the back with all four braces glued down
     

Bracing

    

Based on an article I read in the ASIA journal. Guitarmaker I have made several jigs to make the contouring of the braces easier and more consistent.

First I cut the braces out to their rough dimensions from a blank of stock.

  
     

Then I need to contour the bottom edges of the braces to match the radius of the top and back. 15' and 25" for the back and top respectively

To do this quickly I have made a series of jigs that allow me to cut the contours with my table saw.

  
     
 

The jig consists of a series of dowels that are aligned to the desired radius set back a distance equal to the final height of the brace. The straight blank piece of wood are bent to conform to the radius of the pegs and clamped in place. Then taken to the table saw

 

 
     
Here the cut has been made while the blank is held in the bent position. When the clamp is released the piece will have a 25' radius cut in its bottom edge. I then take it to the radius dish with some sand paper and make a few passes to insure I have the correct radius  
     
  Here are all the braces for your guitar after being cut to dimension and contoured
     

Overall Status (last updated 8/7/05)

  1. Planning (Complete)
  2. Making the neck, cutting the scarf joint, gluing the veneer, routing out the peghead shape and truss rod slot(complete)
  3. Inlaying the logo(complete)
  4. Making the fretboard (complete)
  5. Gluing the fingerboard, and any fretboard inlay (complete)
  6. Fretting (Complete)
  7. Final shaping of the neck(complete)
  8. Jointing the plates and gluing the center seam (complete)
  9. Dimensioning the plates (complete)
  10. Inlay the rosette and cutting out the soundhole(complete)
  11. Bracing the top(complete)
  12. Bracing the back (Complete)
  13. Profiling the sides (Complete)
  14. Bending the sides (Complete)
  15. Gluing the lining and contouring the sides (complete)
  16. Making the Headblock and tail block (Complete)
  17. Chladni testing and plate tuning.(Complete)
  18. Assembly of the body(complete)
  19. Binding the body, (complete}
  20. Setting the neck angle(complete)
  21. Making the bridge(complete)
  22. Filling the pores of the body and neck (complete)
  23. Finishing with lacquer(complete)
  24. Polishing (Complete)
  25. Attaching Neck (Complete)
  26. gluing Bridge (complete)
  27. Set up and final adjustments (Complete)

 

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The Angel Inlay was done by Harvey Leach.

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