May 4th 2015

As I am building the same guitar as my last falcateclassical1.htm I decided not to blog this build, I will highlight any new procedures that differ from last project. This guitar is a commission from my classical guitar instructor. He loved the sound of the last more importantly though is he really like the ergonomic features I added. Slightly narrower nut and the 20" radius on the fret board. He also like the cutaway. For this guitar I selected a nice engelmann spruce top and panama rosewood back and sides. The tap quality and the stiffness of the rosewood was outstanding. I picked up the rosewood set a couple of years ago from LMI. I went totally classical and chose spanish cedar for the neck. Other than the wood the only design difference is that I will make the braces a mm taller based on the results of my last guitar. Also I am trying to avoid all of the hidden mistakes I had in the last one. So far that is going well.

So far I have the rims built and profiled, the neck has been prepared and I am starting on bracing the top and the back.

I went away from my neck jig and just used a table saw for the tenon. The advantages of the table saw is I can still set the neck angle, but I van also angle the cheeks making it easier to fit the neck on the body. Also the procedure was so clean compared to mucking with the 1/2 inch router bit. I have a sawstop saw, so I am less nervous about cutting my fingers off. Ultimatly I will build a sled to make this an easier process. The neck will be a bolt on bolt off neck. The Spanish cedar glued to the fret board will be planed to a wedge to create the negative angle required for a classical.

I needed to make a classical guitar rosette. I like to have them hint at being traditional but still be based on wood. I got a new stack of rosette blanks off the OLF classified and found one that looked like it would make a nice rosette. Also I have this whole stack of EIR\Black fiber strips I got at a Seattle Luthier Group auction I believe from Gurian Instruments and thought this rosette was a nice opportunity to use them.

Instead of routing out the whole channel, I decided to make it on the sound board one section at a time. That way I can create tight channels for the rope binding and the EIR\B strips

I tried to put in the stack without prebending. I was using a heat gun as I worked put I got so far and the roap binding started to come apart.

Ultimately I pulled out my bending pipe, bent everything close to the correct shape and found it easy to inlay the stack. I sealed the channel with shellac and I pushed the stack in place and flooded it with thin CA.

Before moving on to the next channel, the router base is set up perfectly to cut the outside of the wood rosette. I only take it to the depth that matches the thickness of the rosette I want. So without changing anything I cut to the outside line of the wood rosette. No measuring just negative space.

After first trying to cut the second ring I noticed that I needed to scraped the ring level so that the router will cut the next channel at the correct depth.

My stack is just a touch wider than my bit so I take a few passes and sneak up on the correct width. I make sure that any needed passes are going into the wood rosette area so that the router base is set to cut the inside of the wood rosette. Later when I run the back of the rosette blank though the drum sander a perfect sized ring should drop out.

I pushed in the second purfling stack and ran the rosette blank through the drum sander until my ring dropped out.

Looks like it will be a perfect fit

I routed the inside of the rosette channel sneaking up on the black fiber. This is where the Bishop Cochran base shines. I have gotten where I can move the bit in .01 mm increments.

The ring snapped right in place. Not wanting to break it by pulling it out, and having previously sealed the inside of the channel with shellac, I flooded the rosette with thin CA.

All cleaned up

Today I installed the sound hole patch and am starting the back

June 8th 2015

Bit by bit with my travels, I am going to be starting to put the guitar together. I have the rims, top and the back ready to close the box. I will route the rims for the braces and double check my neck angle and then close the box.

I was a bit more deliberate while epoxying on the braces and CF and overall I was less messy. Still have a ways to go in that regard.