Archtop Pictures

I know, I know, I'm a bit slow with the updates right now but I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the archtop photos thus far.  I am currently waiting for the guitar to off-gas from being sprayed last week.  The guitar will be finished late next week.  The guitar will be finished as a blond (natural) instead of the normal two tone burst the school usually does.  The finished guitar should be excellent.

Here is the wood.  I will make this a great guitar, oh yeah, I will.

Maple Sides

Close-up of the side

Getting the back ready to glue

Maple back

Spruce Top, very nice!

Spruce top under a different light

Adding pencil lines to the back so that when it is sanded I will know when it is even when all the pencil lines are gone.

Adding a piece to the spruce so that it can be placed through the thickness sander.

Close-up of the maple

The top has been joined and glued

Bending the treble side

Clamping in the cutaway

Bending the bass side

Spruce, up close and personal

Spruce has been leveled on the opposite side and the side that is showing currently will be duplicarved

Head block (left) and end block (right)

Blocks are made of mahogany

The maple back has been duplicarved and now I need to bring down the excess with...

...a finger plane.  These are fun to work with once you get the hang of them

Ebony fretboard

Fret slots preliminary cut

As you can see from the carved back picture above, the brown streaks are wormholes.  My piece had a bit too many so I get to carve my back again.

However, this piece of maple is SO much better

Putting together the sides, head and end block

Using scrap blocks to clamp the head block on so not to damage the mahogany

Same with the end block

Spruce top has been carved

The holes at the right and left on the wood are locating holes to hold the wood while it is being worked

On an archtop guitar, not only is the top and back carved, the inside of both pieces are also carved to certain thicknesses

Adding the x-braces to the top.  The f holes have also been cut out.

The side braces and kerfing have been glued

Close-up of the side braces and kerfing

Maple neck as well

As you can see, the neck has wings glued on to add enough room for the peghead

The bridge will sit on top of the top and is not glued on.  This device helps keep the bridge level as I  sand it to the contour of the top.

Peghead overlay with the inlay in place (say that 3 times fast)

Fitting the fretboard to a roughed in neck

The neck will be slightly angled as well as it needs to conform to the tops contour

The fretboard is being glued tot he neck

Adding the binding to the peghead

Looking nice!  Closer to spraying the finish

This neck just radiates a bright, almost white color

The peghead with inlay, binding, and the tuner holes finished

The f holes have been slightly rounded to help the finishing process

A couple coats of vinyl to start the finish process

You can start to see the flame of the wood coming out

This is the saddle piece the will sit on the bridge.  Made of ebony and fun to carve.

You can see the angles that are carved into the saddle.

Saddle and bridge

A view from above