And here we go

Go a lot done today. I bent up the sides for a new guitar — Ovankol, which is related to Rosewood, but is not endangered– and glued up the back.

320 degrees.

The bending went “OK” but not perfect. Some minor cracking on the inside bend at the waist, which I believe I can repair, but may rule this one out as my tour de force guitar. I don’t think I had the heating blanket set high enough– I’ve never worked with bending Ovankol before. I found some nice backs in Cherry in my wood stash, which bends beauifully and sounds great, so maybe I’ll zip around this afternoon and source some cherry boards to mill up for a set of sides. It never hurts to have more than one guitar in the pipeline.

 

The last thing I did, since the shop is nice and warm and good for gluing, was glue up the Ovankol back. First I plane the edges where the 2 halves go together, closely enough that when I hold them up pressed together to a light I can’t see light through. Then I glue them in the jig below.

The trick is, you set the 2 halves together so they form a triangle, then clamp wedges on each side of the 2 halves. You apply glue and then (first removing the support stick) press them flat. The fact the edges are stable means the 2 halves exert pressue on each other. You clamp it down with a gluing caul and let it dry. Done.

As long as the planing was done right, and none of the clamps move, you can’t even tell there’s a glue line there.

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