Acornhouseworkshop

With the delivery date of the dining table fast approaching, I had to switch focus back to it, and away from the guitar. The top is just about finished in the finishing room, so I had to fabricate the extension slide mechanisms. It will have a two-part system. Runners will slide in grooves in the side aprons, providing the bulk of the support. In addition, I have made two dovetailed slides to bridge the center gap, giving a little added support. They will extend through the notches in the end aprons, and also help to keep the table tops flat.

I was able to get a little more progress on the guitar neck (when not watching the coverage of Le Tour). I connected the two holes in the head (the guitar’s head, that is) into the slots using the scrollsaw. Because of the myriad angles, I prefer not to try to use a router. Aside from the added work of trying to get a jig set up, I am much more comfortable with a paring chisel and scrollsaw. If a slip happens with them, there is not much damage done, but with a router, one errant slip, and the neck would be ruined. EVERYTHING would have to be redone! A commercial shop, with an endless supply of mahogany, can afford to trash a neck or two. I’ll take the tortoise’s approach. So the slots are finished, save some sanding, and the final ramps for string clearance. I also was able to shape the fingerboard, and get it glued to the neck; and then inlaying the MOP dots. (I buy my fingerboard blanks preslotted. The frets have to be precisely positioned for accurate tuning, and it would cost more for the tools to do the job than to have my supplier do it. If I get to the point where I am making enough guitars to make it economically feasible, then I’ll do it myself. That is the only non-self made, wood, aspect to the guitar.)

The astute amonsgt you may have noticed in the pic below, that there are only four tuners. No, I am not making a ukelele. My commercial self-centering dowelling jig is to large to fit near the angled neck, so I will have to make another jig, to get the last two tuner holes drilled. Ah well. I’ll get back to the shaping soon enough. In the meantime, Go Lance!, Go Alberto! Get well soon, Jens.

This entry was posted on July 21, 2009 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Acorn House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.