July 11 - Starting a new Guitar

Went down to the garden last evening and picked a bunch of peppers: green, banana, and halapinio. A few tomatoes were ripe and seemed to have survived the blossom end rot that the initial ones suffered. The first row of beand look like they are ready to pick and the corn is doing real well. All of the "melons" are not doing well at all...not sure what the problem is with them.

Man is it hot and humid! Too hot to work outside so I decided to put together the next guitar. (I know I haven't finished the last one) The new one will be East Indian Rosewood with a spruce top. I'll take some pictures of the process.





Here is one of the sides. It has been sanded to 85-90 thousands. I then create a sandwich of aluminum foil, paper towel (misted with water) the heat blanket, and stainless steel shim stock on the top and bottom.














I then turn on the heat and after about 10 minutes at 310 degrees I clamp the female form down on the package starting at the waist (the top of the form is three parts that are hinged). After carefully putting the pressure on, the side is bent at the most critical place. The upper and lower bouts are the pulled together and clamped. By this time the package has been at 310 degrees for about 15 minutes






This is the temperature controller and timer for the heat blanket. This setup makes it pretty easy to bend sides. I purchased the set-up from and fellow builder who puts the units together. I do two heatings. The first is at 310 degrees for 15 minutes. I then let the side come back to room temperature. The second heating is still at 310 degrees but only for 10 minutes. This process seems to lock in the bends with very little springback.













While waiting for the first side to cool, I decided to make the neck and tail blocks. They are mahogany. Yes that is a hand tool! After taking the side out of the bending form I put it into the guitat form and clamp the sides until they have completely dried. Pictures of that tomorrow.