Friday and Saturday - Intonation and setup

Well, I thought this would be another piece o' cake. Nope. But another great learning experience. George stayed pretty busy helping us through shaping the nut (where the string passes through near the tuners) and the saddle (on the bridge). I, being the lefty, created confusion at this stage, as everything was backwards. We used electronic tuning machines and check for perfect tune at bothe the open string and the 12th fret - (the string one octave higher). To be perfect required adjustments and filing. The height of the string also was a factor.

Setting initial intonation with the two "E" strings. This determined the placement of the saddle on the bridge.

All of this took a great deal of time, but the knowledge gained was awesome. On Saturday, we also dressed the frets and polished them. That meant more filing and checking for perfect flatness.

Flattening the frets. This also required smoothing, filing, and a final polish.

We then worked on final finishing, some of us also cut an extra soundhole in the side of our guitar. Kind of neat, and you can hear yourself play. I ended up learning how to deal with frets buzzing, as I was one of the unlucky ones to experience this. It meant another two hours of work.

Final setup and intonation. My upper frets were buzzing on the low "E" string. This meant more work! But worth it!!!!!!

All in all, this has been great! Long days, short nights. Probably the best learning experience I ever had. I hope all have enjoyed keeping up with this - I did it for two reasons - 1. to share with family and friends, and 2. to remember how to do this the next time.

My goal was to have something looking like a guitar. This looks and sounds awesome!!!!

The best to all! Home tomorrow. Monday it is back to thinking guitars as I bought a drum sander over the weekend! Got to drive to Portage to pick it up!

Thursday - The Bridge and Neck

Today we prepared for placing the bridge on the guitar. This meant that the neck would have to be temporarily bolted on to lay out the proper placement. We had some tooling to do and I also started carving the heel of the neck. We also shaped the bridge on the drum and belt sanders.

Positioning the bridge

The bridge was positioned and the two "E" holes were drilled through the body. This allowed a couple bolts to be placed prior to gluing and clamping. Then the bridge was glued and clamped in place.

Clamping the bridge in place

George then showed us how to radius the neck and using an ancient tool called the spokeshave (so named because it was used to make the spokes for wooden wheels) we carved the shape of the neck.

Shaping the heel of the neck

Wednesday - Frets and finish

Today we prepared the neck to accept the fretboard. This required some hand work to allow the truss rod to be installed. We then prepared the fretboard to be glued on by drilling a couple pilot holes and installing steel brads for positioning it in a perfect placement. Then we glued and clamped the fretboard to the neck.

Positioning the neck for gluing

After the neck was glued and clamped we "flattened" the length of the neck perfectly with a hand plane. We then also put a slight radius along the entire width of the neck with a hand plane. Hand tools and patience. Amazing.

After this, we cut and placed the frets in the slots with a hammer and slight pressure in the vise.

Placing the fret wire

I ended up resanding my top as there were several scratches that were bugging me. It looks a lot better, although it is a very soft wood and easily dinged.