Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Never Again

A word from the wise. Making all the braces takes ages. I spent most of today working away at making the braces and that's not even considering that I cut the brace blanks last week. For those that follow, keep in mind that you need to cut the two braces in the lower bout of the back a bit thicker than the plan suggests. Otherwise, by the time that you sand the radius into the brace, you'll have no thickness left over.



I think in total I have already spent about 6-8 hours on them. I mucked up the cross braces by trying to scallop them both... didn't click with me until I went to put the pieces together. Not all bad seeming as it is day one of the last Ashes test match.



Yesterday, I put in the end wedge. It wasn't really a hard process but I still managed to muck up my cuts. I don't really trust my saw work and the fence kept slipping, I ended up reverting to the old Stanley knife.



I'll show the end result once I have sanded the surface down - my scraper is now so blunt, I couldn't use it on anything.

So now I have all the braces radiused and the centre brace on the back glued in. I have the back radiused so soon I should me heading towards getting my soundbox closed.... then I can start stressing about the neck set, the head stock, the frets, the bridge and the... and the...

Oh yer. I also put the rosette into place. I was very disappointed with the channel that LMI had routed or maybe it was the thickness of the rosette itself. Either way, it took about half an hour of sanding to get the rosette to fit in. I am yet to take the blocks off, I hope it has worked out okay. I do think however that fo the money one spends on having "services" done, they should be accurate.

Time taken : lots-n-lots
Tools used : all the sharp things, all the blunt things and all the things that hold stuff still.
AU$'s spent : nil

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ted,

I have been reading your guitar builds since the beginning. I started my Stewmac Dread just about the same time you started your stewmac kit so I was just a step or two behind you all during the build. I am thrilled to see you building a new LMI kit. You see, I am waiting for my LMI kit (OM) to arrive so I can start. Soon, I will be in the same place I was last year, just a few steps behind you watching to see how your build is going. Other than an electric kit I built for my daughter last Christmas, this was my first guitar. I don't play, but even that didn't stop me from realizing how good this guitar sounded when I strummed it for the first time. My daughter has a couple of inexpensive acoustics that sound 'dead' compared to this one. I guess it is time for me to learn how to play now.

Oh, and I know what you mean about being just as excited about this second kit as you were with the first one. I am on edge waiting to get that magic e-mail saying my package is on it's way!

Good luck with your build. I will keep checking in to see how you are coming along.

Blog said...

Hey David, always good to know someone is out there reading the blog. Even better to know that I might be saving someone the mistakes that I made or the things I learnt.
I suggest you take the time to make the external mold. Although the curved sanding board works well, the edges are not supported and wobble. BillM has saved you the heart ache of making the curve for the board - that was frustrating.
BE AWARE - I have found that I've been cruising along, thinking "I can do this". With the confidence has come new mistakes. Slow down.
The LMI kit will have many new challenges, but without an instuction manual, it won't be a walk in the park.
Please keep in touch and let me know how you are going. I will try and blog more often and report on the steps.