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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Guitar Build: Day 1

Well I finally broke down and started the guitar build.  I took a baby step.  I got the body blank glued up.  The board was 2” thick and the guitar will end up being 1 3/4” thick, so I spent quite a bit of time planning it down in the power planer.

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Here is one side of the the body.  It is going to be a 2 piece Mahogany Body.  It is great looking wood.  I am still not sure if I am going to paint it or do some kind of tint on it.  I guess I will see once I get the body cut out and sanded.  It has good enough grain that I think it will look good but it might just get painted.  Who knows.  Some of you might be wondering what the half triangle is.  It’s a carry over from building furniture it helps me orient the piece, which in this doesn’t really matter as it’s a two piece glue up and I had pretty much oriented the grain like I wanted it anyway.  It’s just habit. 

 

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Here is the first pass through the planer.  On the side what you can’t see are some markings that show me what direction I wanted the faces to be and what ends I jointed.   

 

 

 

 

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Here is the blank all glued up.  I will let it dry over the next 24 hours.  Once the blank is dry I will hand plane it down to the final thickness.  I left it slightly thicker than it needed to be so that I could hand plane it down even as my planer is only a 12” and this blank is 16" wide.  Hopefully I did a good job and the seam will not be overly obvious. 

I’m glad I finally took the step and started the build.  I have a long way to go and a lot to do.  Once I have the blank cut out I will start on the neck blank and get that going.  I have lots of parts to order over the next little while.  I figure it will probably a couple of months to build this.  I want to take my time and do this as best I can. 

 

I hope you will follow along as I build my first guitar. 

Have a Great Day!

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