Day 16 and 17

Here we are again  the seperate pieces of mahogany have been glued togeter to form the neck blank and its time to mark out the shape of the guitar neck and cut it back to the correct profile, then carve it into the correct shape.  The only thing I am a little disapointed about at the moment is the joints at the base of the neck near the tailstock there is quite a big gap between the joints but I think this is a combination of my poor planing and my decision to mix a bit of mahogany sawdust with the glue.  Will try something else next time but I am going to carry on because I will make more mistakes in the construction of the guitar.

In the previous post I had marked out the profile of the tailstock.  In the book it suggest that this is cut out with a bandsaw - I dont have access to a bandsaw at the moment so I am going to have to make a series of saw cuts bak to the line with a handsaw and then take out the excess with a chisle.

Series of saw cuts to remove excess wood

Excess wood removed with chisle



Excess wood sanded back to profile line

This went so well I used the same process to remove the excess wood on the back of the guitar nech.  Once removed I planed the surface back with the block plane.

After a bit of research I rounded the edges of the blade of the block plane and this stopped it from digging into the timber.

Next I had to trim the headstock to give the correct angle.  Again the book suggested that the profile be cut with a bandsaw but I had to do it with a handsaw.

Trimming headstock with a handsaw

Once I had the correct profile then all I had to do was plane back to the lines.

Planing headstock of guitar to the correct profile

Next the guitar neck was marked in plan for cutting.

Guitar neck marked for cutting

Close up of guitar headstock ready for cutting

Once again I have no bandsaw so all this cutting had to be done by hand - as I am getting more confident the time between realising I have to cut it to the time I do cut it is getting shorter.

Cutting guitar neck

Cutting guitar neck with handsaw

Guitar neck cut out

Guitar neck cut out

I have chasen aslightly rounded headstockinstead of square.  To form this I am back to a series of saw cuts shaping with the chisle and then sanding back.

Headstock ready for cuting

Series of saw cuts to remove excess timber on headstock

Some of excess timber removed (note hacksaw)

Headstock shaped and sanded

The tail of the guitar neck is slightly tapered from front to back and this excess timber also needs to be removed - back to the hand saw.

Marked tailstock being cut with a handsaw

Tailstock being cut

The tailstock now needs to be shaped with a chisle and sandpaper.

Tailstock being shaped with a chisle

Shaped tailstock

Shaped tailstock, note the faint lines of the joint

Botom of tailstock

Here you can see the wide joint at the base of the tailstock mentioned right at the start of this post, caused by the joint not being clamped together properly.

Thats the end of day 17- the whole process above actually took another 12 hours total thats 91 hours total on the project so far.

Day 12, 13, 14 and 15

So day 12 its time to bite the bullet and cut the neck into sections so I can laminate it together and then shape and carve it properly.   I am a bit nervous but it has to be done so here goes.  The gluing cannot all be done at once so its actually day 12 to 15.

Cutting neck blank into sections

Cutting neck blank into sections

 Well thats it neck blank cut into the correct lengths ready for laminating.

neck blank cut into sections ready for laminating

 Note where I have marked the front of the neck blank prior to cutting so that once it is laminated the grain is all in the same orientation.

Close up of neck section prior to laminating

Prior to the next step I looked at the sections and wasnt particularly happy with the mating surfaces I tried to remedy this by planing / scraping and sanding but all I actually acheived was reducing the section of the mahoganysections and didnt improve the mating surfaces at all - it would have been better if I had left well alone and carried on without trying to sort out this problem.

First section glued



Another shot of the first glued section



Completed laminated tailstock

 Now all thats left to do is mark out the neck blank prior to cutting.

Tailstock marked out

Headstock marked out

While I was doing all this I had quite a bit of time on my hands so I made the stop blocks for the guitar mould by drilling a series of 12 mm holes in an 18 mm x 18 mm length of timber cut them into 28 mm lengths.

Series of holes drilled in 18 mm x 18 mm timber.

Drilling holes with guide made earlier

Finished the stop blocks.

Thats the end of day 15- the whole process above actually took another 5 hours total thats 79 hours total on the project so far.

Day 11

Day 11, I have finished the mould and dont have any materials to do anything else.  I decided to put a coat of varnish on all surfaces of the mould except the internal face the timber of the guitar will be in contact with.  At two oclock the honduras mahogany neck blank arrived so I have gone from nothing to do to everything to do.

The first thing will be to plane the surface of the mahogany to produce a smooth finish and expose the grain so I can select which surface to use.

I havent planed anything properly but there is a first time for everything just unfortunate that the first bit of planing is on such a valuable piece of timber (it cost £37.00)

I will sharpen the plane blade first.

Blunt plane blade

To sharpen the blade I use a honing device as pictured below.  The honing device holds the blade at the correct angle for sharpening,


Honing tool



And this is the honing device being used.

Sharpening plane blade


 When I first unwrapped the honduras mahogany neck blank I was a little disappointe because the wood was rough sawn and I was expecting a nicely dressed piece of timber.  This however allowed me to dress the timber myself.

Honduras mahogany neck blank unprepared

I used my plane on a number of pieces of softwood before I started on the mahogany just to get a feel for it.  eventually I plucked up the courage to have a go at the mahogany.  The first couple of runs were clean and I built up a bit of confidence shaving thin sections off the surface.  Eventually I became to confident and dug into the mahogany neck blank with the plane creating a depression in the surface.  At this point I lost any confidence I may have had and resorted to sanding the surface which although it took some time produced a result I was pleased with.


Honduras mahogany neck blank prepared

The sanding uncovered a small knot on the surface but after a bit of thought I decided that this could be the back of the neck and would be lost during the carving of the neck.

Honduras mahogany neck blank imperfection



All that was left to do was mark out the mahogany neck ready for cutting.  My mitre saw is a little blunt so I have ordered another blade and after the "planing problem" I will wait until it arrives before I attempt to cut the blank.

Honduras mahogany neck blank marked out


Thats the end of day 11- this took another 5 hours(not including the 4 hours varnishing but I am not going to include that) thats 74 hours total on the project so far.

Day 10

Day 10 the mould is sanded down and what I have to do is drill the holes for the stop blocks and attach the two sides of the guitar mould together.

Sanded guitar mould

What I need to do is form the holes for the stop blocks.  The stop blocks will be used later to raise the body of the guitar so the edges can be worked on because the bottom of the guitar has a taper which has to be formed with the sides above the mould.  There will be another set of stop blocks but these cant be set until the base of the guitar has been shaped.  The stop blocks themselves are 18 mm x 18 mm softwood blocks 28 mm long with a 12 mm dowel glued into them which will be used to anchor it into the mould.  It is very important to have all the stop blocks at the same level (and square) because they will be supporting the whole of the underside of the body and all need to be in contact with the guitar.   I managed to get hold of some 12 mm dowel but couldnt get a 12 mm drill bit. the closest I could get was a 13 mm drill bit but even with a deep hole the difference in diameter between the dowel and the hole meant that it would not sit in the hole at right angles to the material with the hole in.

12 mm dowel in 13 mm hole

Whilst I couldnt find a 12 mm wood drill bit I did have an old 13 mm drill bit which was incredibly blunt, dont know why I kept it but Iam glad I did now.  I sharpened the drill bit at the shoulder with a round file and re filed the point so it was sharp also.  I filed the edges of the drill bit to reduce it from 13 mm to 12 mm.  Both sides had to be filed / reduced by the same ammount.

Filing the drill bit

The result was that the 13 mm drill bit on the left was reduced to 12 mm.  The bit is shown alongside a virgin 13 mm drill bit to show how much it has been reduced by.

Comparrison of filed and unfiled drill bit

The result was a tight hole that the 12 mm drill bit fitted snuggly into.

12 mm dowel in 12 mm hole

I now have to make sure that any hole I drill in the mould is at right angles to the surface of the timber being drilled.  To do this I have decided to make a jig.  A hole drilled at 90 degrees will guide the drill bit into anything being drilled into ensuring the hole is at 90 degrees.  I tried a number of ways to drill the hole in the jig itself guiding it in with a square beside the drill bit guiding it in with a square behind the drill bit but nothing seemed to work.  In desperation I drilled a number of holes in a piece of timber checked each 1 for square and actually had one hole which was square.  I marked this with marker pen and made sure the hole went all the way through.

90 degree angle freehand hole drilling jig

Close up of hole drilling jig

Next task was to mark a line around the softwood timbers 25 mm from the edge of the mould.  Initially I tried to mark it using a tape but I was actually getting 24 mm 25 mm and 26 mm - not good enough.  I drilled a 6 mm hole through a piece of softwood timber, pushed a pencil through it  and then screwed another piece of softwood to it at right angles in a position which ment when it was placed against the bottom edge a line was marked 25 mm in from the edge of the mould.  I think the pictures explain it better.

25mm marking jig

Marking jig being used

Now I can use my 90 degree drilling rig to drill the 12 mm holes.

90 degree freehand drilling jig in use

PROBLEM !!!!!!!!!! the drill bit would only go into the timber by 10 mm and then it hit the nails placed to anchor the softwood spacers. 

hole drilling aborted because we have hit a nail.

There was only one thing for it the nails had to be removed in the locations where the holes were being drilled.

Nails being lifted with a chisel

Nails lifted with a hammer

The holes were drilled to a depth of 28 mm at each location (6 equally spaced on each half) then all I had to do was join the two halves together.  I mentioned in earlier posts that the two halves were not flush so I decided to use wood filler to fill the gap between the two halves.  I ended up using Cuprinol ultimate wood filler wich is sandable 45 minutes after application.  It is a two part material (base and hardener) which are mixed together at a ratio of 1:1.

Cuprinol Ultimate wood filler

The filler was placed on the two ends.

Filler on two ends

 The two ends were placed alongside each other screwed together and the filler allowed to harden.  Again as detailed earlier there is a slight peak where the two halves meet this had to be sanded back to give good symmetry and a flush face to fix the internal blocks of the guitar against.

Gaps of guitar mould filled with wood filler

The edges were sanded back  resulting in a finished accoustic guitar mould.

Finished accoustic guitar mould.

Thats the end of day 10- this took another 8 hours thats 69 hours total on the project so far.