Week 3 - Saturday Morning Class

This morning we retrieved our clamped guitar body and removed the clamps.  It was pointed out to us (by our teacher) that the kerfin was raised in about a 5-6 inch section.  When I asked him if he would leave it that way he replied "Not if it were my guitar".  We debated the risk in trying to repair it vs. possible back problems later on.  We decided since we were taking the class we needed to repair it.

So we began the process of replacing the section with new kerfing.  First step was to remove the kerfing from the section with a chisel.  This was not try and knock the kerfing down to a manageable size.  Gently the chisel is placed in the groove and struck with the other hand.  Eventurally Cian got very good at this and was able to get it down pretty close to the rosewood.

From there we took a scraper and scraped what was left of the kerging.  Then with 150 grit sandpaper we sanded down until the rosewood. 

This was rather nerve wracking as you can imagine and we escaped without doing too much harm to the body. New kerfing was applied, glued and clamped and looking much better.

OK, time to clean up any glue squeeze out.  We took a razor blade and ran it in the space where the kerfing meets the rosewood.  In some spots we sanded with 150 grit sandpaper until smooth.  Robbie is a real stickler for leaving everything spotless on the guitar.  It is a great motivator and the guitar is starting to take shape...

Time to add more tone to the sphincter.  We are going to add an end piece to the guitar.  First we cut out the tailpiece according to specifications then we trace it onto the back of the guitar.  We clamp a piece of wood parallel to the line and cut and repeat on the other side.  Once we have two cuts we then chisel the glued rosewood off of the Mahogany block.

We then apply back to the section and slide the Maple inlay into it getting a very tight seal, then clamp and let dry.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of when it was finished.  Thats one thing that is difficulty, remembering to take pictures when you are involved in a step :-)
 

Now came time to prepare the back.  The first step was using the safety planer to bring the back down to a width of a little under 3mm.  The picture above is of Cian and Jim running it through the planer...