Adding backs to sides

Notching the sides to recieve the back braces.  I cut the notch with a small back saw then rout out the wood in between with a dremmel

Clamping the back.  Inside shot

Clamping the back, outside shot

Back joint dry, out of the mold with overhang trimmed off

Clamping on the back of the 000 guitar

Inside of 000 guitar.  Joint is cured.  Ready to have top glued on.

Braces, carving and gluing

000 top preliminary carving on braces

This is the brace carving jig that holds the brace (which is just visible) and acts as a pattern for the router table

Lyndsay's guitar side.  Gluing on a patch of veneer to strengthen the area where a sound port will be carved.

Lyndsay's L-00 back with braces glued on

Gluing on the back braces for Rick's 000

This is Ricks guitar.  Dark glitter has been sprinkled on the top and then the top is subjected to a loud pure tone to see how various parts of the top are vibrating.  The glitter congregates in the vibration nodes

here is the signal generator for that drives the speaker

here you can see the top held by the area that is under the fingerboard (and will probably not make a huge impact on the sound of the guitar) suspended over a guitar amplifier that is driven by the signal generator.  This generates the chladni patterns that are hard to interprete but over time give the builder some insight into the overall resonance of the top and braces before the top is glued onto the sides.

braces and reinforcement

Gluing on the back reinforcement using a go bar deck

Back reinforcement on Lyndsay's back

Top braces glued on in the square

carving braces

back plates thinned

the two guitars that are getting the most attention.  Cocobolo back for Rick's guitar and Koa guitar for Lyndsay's guitar.

Koa back exposed

working the plates

Cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa) is such an oily wood that it gums up the sandpaper in my abrasive planer real fast.  I am going to finish thinning Rick's back down by hand.  This is a scraper planer and you can see the fine shavings it takes off the wood 

Rick's Top

Gluing on the bridgeplate 

Clamping the bridgeplate down to the top (which is resting in a dished workboard).

This is a gobar deck that I use to clamp braces and such onto tops and backs

Some braces clamped into place using the gobar deck.  I am using hot hide glue as an adhesive for all the sound producing plates (top and back)

A few more rosette construction shots

Removing the teflon strip

Inlaying the abalone strips

Completed rosette of the L-00  (Lyndsay's guitar)

The rosette for the 000 guitar

Since the top is domed, the brace wood needs to have a uniform arch.

This is a uniform arching jig that uses a router table to cut the brace.

Braces cut and arched.  The are layed out in the approximate position for glueup.