The LS Redwood/Yew Competition Guitar Build

The sides are sanded to just over 2mm and I shape the profile for the back on one edge, making sure to keep the book match, the sides are then bent using my simple bending form.  The side is wrapped in brown parcel paper which is lightly spritzed with water, this is then enclosed in foil and placed between two spring steel slats with an electric heating blanket completing the stack.

The stack is placed on the bending form and the cauls put in place, I then run the temperatue up to 130C.



When it reaches 130C I start to screw down the waist, leaving a gap of about 1.5cm, then run the caul down, as the temperature rises I run the caul down the lower bout and as the temperature gets to about 150C the upper bout is bent onto the form and it's caul tightened.  The waist caul is then tightened down fully which pulls the whole side tight to the form.



I leave the side to cook for 5minutes at 150-155C for five minutes then switch off the power and leave the side to cool to room temperature before removing it and placing in the outside mould.  Repeat for the other side,  remembering to reverse the side so I have two opposite sides.  

Colin

Time to start assembling the rims.

I have glued in the headblock and tail block and all four linings, the top edge has been roughly profiled, so time for the luthier equivalent of an aerobic workout, sanding the edges to the correct radius, 15' for the back and 25' for the top. For this I use sanding dishes that I made many years ago. The sides, still in the mould, are sat with the top down in the 25' dish and the sandpaper surface of the 15' dish rotated on the back edge of the rims until the sides, headblock and tailblock have all been sanded to the radius. Turn everything over and sand the top edge using the 25' radius. 





You can see here the finished result with the laminated linings and the sides making up 5 layers, I think in architecture they call this engineered timber.


I can now remove the rims from the mould, and add the side reinforcing bars, my belief is that these are mainly decorative!  (For a lot of players this could also be said for any fret past 7! )

The soundport is cut, I check at least three times that I'm doing it on the correct rib, otherwise the competition would be restricted to left handers! The inside is reinforced with a couple of layers of veneer, I usually use black and mahogany, but as a nod to the redwood top that is going onto this I used a top layer of redwood burl.

Colin

Now that the rims are complete it's time to move on to the top and back plates.

First job is to sand the plates to a 'joining thickness' I usually sand them to 3.5-4mm the edges are then jonted with a plane on a shooting board and candled against a window until no light can be seen through the join.  I always do this immediately before gluing the plates together as I want a really fresh unoxydised surfaces for the join.

I join my plates with hot hide glue, I only use collagen glues, HHG or fish glue on my guitars.  First step is to tape the plates together tightly on one side using binding tape.  The plate is then turned over and raised into a 'tent'.



 HHG is then run along the join and the tent lowered and after a quick wipe to remove excess glue, the other side is taped tightly together.



Repeat for the other plate.  One of the good things about HHG and fish glue is that as the glue dries it pulls the joint closer together.

Next day the tape is removed and the plates run through the sander to clean up the surface glue and with the back plate to take it to close to final thickness about 2.5mm  The top is sanded to about 3.5mm ready for the rosette to be installed.  At this point the show faces have been chosen and the template drawn out on the plates.





Next step, the rosette.

Colin