The next thing I do is put my mark on the guitar. I write my name and the date inside the guitar. I do it backwards. The reason for doing it backwards is so that down the road when a repair has to be done to the guitar, when the mirror goes into the soundhole the person holding the mirror will be able to read it in the mirror. At this point in my building carreer, because I do not use a serial number system, this is really the only way you can authenticate one of my guitars. If my signature is not inside, it is not one of mine. Every instrument I have built since 1995 has my backwards signature inside.



Now the sides have been thinned to a point that with a spritz of water the can be bent. Here you can see that I have taped the ebony binding to the sides so that they will bend at the same time.

I used to bend sides by hand on an electric pipe. I have built myself a bending machine several years ago. This takes much less time and is very easy. Very few broken sides! This machine uses 3 - 100 watt light bulbs as a heat source. The side is sandwhiched between 2 layers of thin stainless steel. I takes about 15 minutes to bend the side. Once the side has been bent, I will cycle the heat on and off a few times over a 24 hour period.

Time to attach the sides. First...glue the side to the heel block. The pattern is drawn onto the top and the side follows the line perfectly around the top. I love it when a plan comes together!

Now it's time to attach the rest of the side to the top. I use a very old school method. The little pieces of wood are called "tentalonis" Each tentaloni is applied individually by spreading glue onto it then pressing it into place. It is quite a lengthy process, but one the I enjoy, because an Ipod with 2500 songs on shuffle is a great way to spend an hour or 2. It is also at this point in the construction that your individual pieces of wood actually start look like a guitar.

After 15 years of building and over 20 instruments, I still get excited when the intitial end vision of what you are doing begins to come into sight.

Cheers!