I need more clamps. This is barely enough. It will do, but frankly I’d rather have clamping pressure along every single inch of the seam. If anybody wants to know what I want for Father’s Day, or any gifting opportunity for that matter, it’s this: more bar clamps.

I glued the maple bridge patch on here yesterday and now I’m starting the top bracing. I’m using Sitka Spruce, in an X configuration. This picture is of the first spar of the X.  This involves a lot of careful whittling, lots of patience, taking only a little wood at a time so it hugs…

I caught up the maple-bodied boomer while waiting for the fingerboards… and today those came, so I am putting together a neck too. The last thing today is making up a rosette, based on a new pattern I have been working with… using a laser engraver. Once it’s engraved I’ll cut it out. This one…

I tried. All weekend long. I really did. But it’s over 100 degrees Fahrenheit here in Minnesota,  and it’s only the end of May. What is July going to be like? What is 2025 going to be like? The guitars will have to wait a few days.

Light duty day. I sanded the top and cut it down on the bandsaw. Also added another brace to the inside of the guitar, after tap testing it and deciding where it would be best. Discovered I’m out of fingerboards so there will be a pause in the action until they come. Can’t lay out…

I took the guitar body out of clamps and routed the back flush to the sides. It looks nice. It almost looks nice enough to skip a binding. I’ll have to think about that. Next, I glued up the Sitka Spruce top the same way I glued the walnut back. This set has been sitting…

I sanded the back after it came out of the clamps, laid the guitar body down on it, marked it with a No.2 Ticonderoga pencil (very important) and cut it out on the bandsaw. I sanded it with a drum sander.   I chamfered the edges of the tail block and head block with a…

I pulled all the clamps off the sides today and started sanding them. I have about an hour more of working the surfaces that the back and top will attach to. But it takes a day to glue the back up, and the same to make the top, plus time spent on making braces… so…

Today I tapered the sides so the body will be shallower near the neck and deeper near the tailpin, by marking the sides and cutting this slice away.  I love the weird looking objects one generates as a biproduct of guitar building… Then, I glued the bent linings in to what will be the bottom…

Tonight I put linings in the first side of the guitar. I do this differently than anybody else I know: I use bent wood strips, instead of saw-kerfed linings like the big makers. The big names all use those notchey cut-through strips and it’s what everybody else does too. Above: strips readied. I don’t. I…