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Old 07-30-2017, 04:46 PM
printer2 printer2 is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Middle of Canada
Posts: 5,094
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Well the six string is on its way. Here is some oak that I was going to use in the previous build but decided to go the cigar box route as it was easier and would take less time. Well I liked the size of the cigar box uke but thought a six sting version would fit me just fine. I built up a neck and slotted the fretboard, then I had a change of heart. I had a cigar box to use but I decided to bight the bullet and make a real box for it. Sized up the oak and figured I could just squeeze a 9" lower bout out of it. I liked the oak fretboard and stripped it off the other neck. The neck needed to be a different length and I already did a rough carve on it and it had to go. I had another 2"x4" glued up to use a neck and started drawing. The shape was going to be more rounded in the lower bout than I have done before.



A lot going on in this picture. I glued the back together and drew out the shape on it. I bent the sides, the other one is clamped to a piece of wood that I cut to one half of the guitar outline. I have the back on a radius dish to give a 25' arc to it. I do not want to bind this guitar so I sanded the edge of the rim to conform to the back radius. I have the front and back blocks being glued down here. I cut a 2"x2" to fit in between them to hold them parallel to each other. While the front and back blocks were clamped together as shown, I put a piece of sandpaper under the blocks and sanded the arc of the back into them. The fiberglass rods are used to apply pressure to the blocks as they are being glued. This is a little different than my normal building pattern, I would usually have the top on the dish and the sides glued to it. I am starting with the back because I have no room for error if I want to not have any binding. I am going right to the edge of the back pieces, if the sides bowed out a little if I first glued them to to a top I would be short with a narrow back. I could have clamped the sides so they only spread as far as I need but things get busy with a lot of clamps in the way when you are gluing things together. Basically just went with my first idea and ran with it.

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Fred
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