Body

I installed the carbon fiber stiffeners for the tops of the neck and end blocks, let it set and glued on the top without thinking that I should take a picture. Sorry, I'm still getting used to this whole "documentaton" trip. Here's the body fresh out of the mold. Note the overhang around the top.

Some tools are just a miracle of ingenuity. To me, router bits with bearings fall into this category. I use a flush-trim bit to kill the overhang. It has a little bearing (and by that I mean not a single ball bearing, but inner and outer steel rings loaded with ball bearings in between, so that the two rings roll freely of one another) whose external diameter matches the diameter of cut of the blades. The bearing reads the bent sides as the rotating blade cuts the overhang to perfectly (or close enough) match the shape of the sides.

And, here's the result. I've also routed a channel and installed a bit of cocobolo (cut from a discarded fingerboard extension) at the top of the cutaway. This gives a very defined edge there and will provide a nice transition from body to neck heel.

At this point, what's been just a gob of sticks and glue not only begins to look like a musical instrument, but commences also to give utterance. It's certainly not singing, or even talking, but gives a sort of shrill cough. I used to think of binding as trim and nothing more, mere decoration to define the edges of the guitar. When I began this quest I read someplace that the purpose of binding was to protect the guitar, that stiffer rosewoods around the rim can protect softer cedars and spruces from breakage as the guitar receives the inevitible bumps it will receive. If the binding breaks, the guitar can be re-routed and new binding installed, then re-finished. Certainly the binding performs these two functions, but its primary purpose is much more central, and one I couldn't have guessed prior to building. It does bind the top and back to the ribs. The aforementioned router with bearing-tipped bit is used to cut a rabbet (shelf to receive the binding) around the edges for binding installation. That channel cuts through the top plate into the sides. The binding binds both to sides and top (or back), actually surrounding the top (or back) plate. I know that this has a structural effect on the instrument because the voice changes from a cough to a speaking voice once the binding is in place. The box will talk.

As the wood relaxes, it starts to sing.