Penny Guitars

I have been doing the bracing and reducing the sides to the right thickness. Rosewood is very hard and makes reducing them with a sander very slow work. I have managed to glue all the bracing into place but still have lots of carving and sanding to do.

I do like to experiment with new ideas as often as I can. I tried a new idea of using bowed lengths of wood and foam fillers to hold down the bracing on the back while the glue dried. It does hold the bracing down very tight. The foam was cut into strips and then you just roll a strip until it has the required thickness to pack between the bracing and the wood bow. As in this picture.

I still have quite a way to go with reducing the sides I am also making the head and tail blocks at the same time.

I have fitted each brace where I think it should go, I am not measuring for precision, so each guitar I make will be different even if they look similar. It also allows me to see what works well and what is not quite so good. I am not following the Cumpiano & Natelson Guitar Making book but I am using it for reference. I have slowly but surely changed all the measurements in the book from imperial to metric.

Today I have added mathematical position data to the bracing diagrams in the book, this should allow me to mark up the bracing positions on the soundboard much quicker and easier in future.
I have cut the bracing for the SS (steel string) and CL (classical) to size and positioned it on the relative soundboards. I next need to produce good clean surfaces on the bracing before gluing it to the soundboard and finally shaping the bracing.

I am still thinking about whether or not I should go for a domed soundboard or just a flattop. Obviously I need to make my mind up before gluing the bracing down.

Now I will get on with sanding down the sides and doing the bracing while allowing the vacuum/extractor to cool down.

I have to make the head blocks and tail blocks soon as well.

I still need to reduce the sides in the sander, because the extractor I am using is a household vacuum cleaner I have to allow it too cool down after 10 minutes of use. The vacuum takes about 30 minutes to cool down so I have been reading while waiting. While I have to wait for the vacuum to cool down as I reduce the sides I am going to fit the bracing to the soundboards. I am just trying to be a little more productive.

Here are the pictures of the soundboards and the rosettes.

The classical rosette fitting did not go to well, I had two slips with the chisel. I decided I did not want to use the router to fit either of the sound hole inlays. I decided that learning to fit rosettes entirely by hand would be a challenge and I like carving wood. The classical rosette has ended up with an extra ring around the outside (An ash veneer). It was the only way to erase the mistakes. Neither rosettes ended up being as good a fit as they would have if I used a router but they do look okay.

So now I will be sanding the sides down to size and cutting, shaping and fitting the bracing for the soundboards and backs.