The Tenor Guitar Project: Part 2

For Part 1:

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-yearnew-project-tenor-guitar-project.html


My work on the tenor guitar project has been progressing quickly.  Luckily I have been taking lots of photos to show my work on here.

In my previous post I had just glued up pieces of mahogany for the guitar body.  My next objective was gluing the pieces of mahogany together.  I used my planer/edger to put a nice clean and even edge on the pieces of wood.  I also ran the pieces of mahogany through a thickness planer so they would be the perfect thickness.

Next up I got serious.  I broke out the pipe clamps.  For those who don't know pipe clamps will squeeze anything together.  Anything.

I ended up leaving this clamped for five days.  Mainly due to bad/cold weather, and the fact that I was working on other things during this time.  So while the glue dried it was time to work on the top plate.

I glued the pieces of spruce together, and gave it two days to dry.  Now came to the fun part.  I was finally able to put a template down on the spruce, and draw the outline.

I cut the top plate out with a bandsaw, and smoothed the edges with a spindle sander.  

Next it was time to start cutting the arch top.  If you read or saw Robert Bennedetto's book and/or DVD, "How to build an archtop guitar," he uses this method to help guide a luthier on how to cut an archtop correctly.

I measured the edges at 1, 2, and 3 inches.  I marked it with a pencil.  

Next, I took the smallest drill bit I had and marked the depth using a drill press.

Next it was time to break out the hand planers.  

It looks rough, but I kept at it.

Can you believe it looks like this now?  Well, it took a lot of sanding to achieve this look.  The good news is I managed to cut the top very proportionally.  In other words, one side matches up perfectly with the other.

Admittedly, cutting all that wood made a heck of a mess.

Now it was time to cut out the body.  First, I sanded it down smooth.  Next it was time to draw out the template on the body.  

The next step was to cut out the body on the bandsaw.  After that I used the spindle sander to even out the edges.

It was now time to sand the body down a little more.

The woods' grain is really starting to pop now.  

Next I flipped the body over so the inside was face up.  I marked the body one inch from the edge.  

Now it was time to do some serious routing.  Let's just fast forward to where I am knee deep in wood shavings.  Just know this step took a while.

Yeah, I was able to toss some of the shavings around the yard.  This is what I am was working with after using the router.

It was now time to use a hand/palm sander on the inside of the body.  That cleaned it up a bit. 

And here's a shot of the top and sides.  I had just sanded the sides with the spindle sander.  I also used a hand sander and a hand/palm rotary sander to sand the entire body.  

Please realize that for it to look the way it does a lot of sanding occurred.  I know these photos may make it seem like it magically came out the way it did, but that's pretty far from the truth.  A lot of time and effort were put in.  And a good amount of that time I spent sanding.  Thank goodness for all my mechanical sanding tools.  

I managed a lot of work in a short period of time.  But the work is still ongoing.  Stay tuned for part three.