The construction of a guitar always begins with a pile of wood. I like to start each guitar with the end result in mind. This means that the wood selection is made before any sawdust is created. This pile of wood includes East Indian Rosewood for the back and sides, Spruce for the soundboard and bracing, ebony for the fingerboard and bridge, as well as ebony for the binding. There is also a block of wood that consists of walnut/alder/maple/alder/walnut that will be the neck.

The next thing I do is join the top. It is a bookmatched piece of engleman spruce. I use a #4 jointing plane for this step. A few passed and it is ready to glue

Here is the glue setup for tops and backs. 4 Hockey sticks underneath and 4 wedges on top and rope to pull it all together

The next step is to add braces to the top. The idea is to allow the top to vibrate freely with the string vibration while not imploding under the 150 footpounds of pressure exerted on the front of the bridge when the guitar is tuned to pitch.

And here is a the top fully braced and cleaned up, ready for the sides.

The back braced and waiting to be installed.

In my next post...adding the sides to the top.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions here on the blog. I would love for this to be interactive!

Cheers!