Acoustic Build 2013/2014 ( Mark Bailey Course)

ArchtopDave

Spent the recent Bank Holiday Weekend making a start on my third guitar build with Mark Bailey. Arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday, and initially did a bit of planning. Somethings I had already planned, but nothing was totally fixed. I thought I'd make an OM with a Cutaway. The OM fairly rapidly changed slightly to Mark's Bootlegger design which is a little wider than an OM, but there's a big plus in that he obviously has templates, and a shell to build the body in available. I knew that I wanted a 1.75 inch (45mm) Nut. But then he asked what string spacing did I want at the Bridge? Hadn't really thought about it, but after a bit of thought, and checking my Archtop which has 54mm, I've decided on 56mm spacing.

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The Cutaway was simply drawn by me. I've based it on the shallow but curvy style of the Bourgeois OMC.

ArchtopDave

The Wood for the Back and Sides i'd bought a couple of months ago - Amazon Rosewood.

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I'd also bought Adirondack Spruce for the Top.

TTony

Looking forward to loadsa pics

VimFuego

looking exciting, but stop teasing us, show us shinies. SHINIES!!!

ArchtopDave

The next 3 days were spent working on the Wood.

First job - Bending the Sides. The lower Side was bent using a Bending Machine. The Wood was first sprayed with water, and then wrapped first in Brown Paper and then in Foil.

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ArchtopDave

The Bending Machine!!https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-BevH8lhicGo/UiDibQ928GI/AAAAAAAAA3I/SmHCMguOgR8/s800/DSC_0012.JPG

ArchtopDave

In the photo above you can just see the temperature gauge which shows the the temperature setting in green, and the temperature under wood in red. The temperature reading under the wood comes via the wiring inserted under the wood, as in the photo below.

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ArchtopDave

The top Side with the Cutaway was bent by hand, which is a bit of a hairy business. The Cutaway area is pretty testing, and you never know for certain whether the wood will allow the kind of bending that is necessary. The wide curve of the lower bout is relatively easy to do ( says he doing bending for just the second time ever!).

First the Bending Iron.

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ArchtopDave

Here's part the way through where I've made a start on the Cutaway.

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ArchtopDave

Completion of the Cutaway - using the Plan for comparison.

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ArchtopDave

There was just one small area of superficial splitting of the wood at the maximum point of bend. This is reparable.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zFWPsyOnyzM/UiDl0RCio0I/AAAAAAAAA44/12DA6XYvzU8/s800/DSC_0050.jpg

TTony

Busy few days!

Andyjr1515

Looking great :-)    Those kinds of splits repair well.  I find it's the ones that go "!!!!CRACK!!!! " that are a little more challenging  

ArchtopDave

Next job - book matching the Back Wood. Simply rest each part of the Back in turn on a flat board, then hold the wood flat, and use a Sanding Block to steadily remove the high spots.

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ArchtopDave

Took me a good 3 hours to get this job done properly. Worth it in the end. When the glued Back had been sanded, it literally took both Mark and me 10 minutes to work out where  the Centre Line was!! Here it is straight after gluing. You can just see little blebs of glue in the centre of the photo.

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ArchtopDave

The Back was then roughly cut to shape on the Band Saw.

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ArchtopDave

The Sides are clamped in a Body Mould to help keep their shape.

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ArchtopDave

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ArchtopDave

Here's the inside of the Back after sanding to thickness, and then further sanding up to 240 Grit Paper. The Template is being used to mark the position of the Back Braces (there are 4 cross braces - the rearmost one isn't very visible in the photo).

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ArchtopDave

On the last day, I started work on the Rosette. This is going to be 3 rings of wood, one inside the other, and the inner part of the Rosette is going to form the Sound Hole Edge. This is going made by filling in the whole width of the Rosette first with pieces of the Rosewood. Then this will largely be routed out and the next wood inserted. Then this will be routed out for the central ring of wood. 

The Rosette area of the Spruce Top was first sprayed with Sanding Sealer to minimise any damage from using the Router. It also starts to show up the cross banding in the wood of the Top.

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ArchtopDave

First I drew circles for the full width of the Rosette on a block of wood to create a Template. Then I cut out 6 sections of Rosewood with one Spare just in case.

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The next part of the process is to sand the ends of each piece to match the line on the Template, as in this photo.