Acornhouseworkshop

With the box closed up, some decorative, but functional, details need to be tended to. The major one, that causes the most night sweats, is routing the binding channels. After all the work so far, one little slip of the router, one grab of a weak grain, can ruin everything. Plus, with the Spanish heel construction, you have to work around the attached neck, and do some delicate handwork to bring the channels into the neck. No pics for that procedure, I was too focused on the doing to do any recording. Suffice to say, I, and the guitar, survived.

Bending the binding, on the other hand, proved to be ridiculously easy. The rosewood’s grain was straight, and it seemed eager to conform to the guitar’s curves. I chose some simple black and white alternating purfling lines to accompany it, white-black-white-black on top, and white-black-white on the back. This, with the rosewood binding with just a maple line, gives a very clean, modern look, with no unduly extravagant ornamentation.

One thing I decided to do differently on this guitar, is to inlay the end graft after putting the binding on. Typically, this would go on first, and the the accent lines would connect with the binding’s accent line(s). But I want to use more of the buckeye burl to form a sort of mini framed picture that extends over the binding. So I used some purfling to frame the rectangle of Buckeye.

Then, after routing it’s shape into the end of the sides (snapping a too-small bit in the process, and having to wait for a larger replacement to arrive), the framed “landscape” was glued in, tying in with the soundhole rosette.

Next, the fingerboard was tapered, and the end shaped. Most classical guitars have 19 frets, but some add an extra fret for the high string, allowing a high-C for those pieces that need it. This added outcropping requires a partial fret slot hand cut.

After the fingerboard is glued on, the neck can receive its final carve, the bridge made, and the guitar finished. All after much sanding.

And sanding.

And sanding.

This entry was posted on October 13, 2018 at 1:56 am 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.