Day 2 would turn out to be just as busy as day 1 and end with gluing the back. The guitar is starting to undeniably look like an instrument. I get to use chisels to carve for the first time which was (of course) way way harder than it looks in the cool YouTube videos.
I shouldn’t go much further without mentioning Billie. If you aren’t already sold on this experience by the building of an amazing instrument under the tutelage of masters or getting to spend a week on a beautiful piece of land in a quiet workshop in deep East Texas, then Billie’s cooking would surely win you over. Sometime around noon every day she would walk out to the shop and get an ETA for lunch break and without fail would have a delicious meal ready for us. I’m a food guy and a pretty good cook myself, and can tell you with confidence that you will love Billie’s cooking. The Kinnairds redefine hospitality for these student builds and take it to another level. They are warm and welcoming and go out of their way to make you feel comfortable and FULL (daily freshly baked cookies and at least one of my meals had fresh-baked bread).
On to the day’s work...
AM -
- Glue top braces in one direction (lots of experience in laying out this schedule to make sure we were never waiting on glue or have go-bars in our way while trying to fit or glue anything). I transferred the brace layout onto the back of the top from a nicely worn guide template the previous evening and got some satisfaction and confidence from knowing how many times it had been used before me.
- Profile Rim Assembly
- Bend and glue on back lining (no pic)
- Glue top braces in the other direction
- Carve Back Braces 😅
- Sand Back Interior (not the most fun part of the build. 😂
PM -
- Sand radius into back lining (no pic)
- Drill holes in neck block for neck bolts (no pic; they were busy making sure I didn’t mess this up)
- Layout and rout soundport (Ryan gave me a 3 minute lecture of how bad I could mess up the guitar here and he definitely scared the fear of dremel into me). That said, throughout the week I developed a list and scale of “Ryan’s Reactions” that started somewhere around “I guess we’ll make that work” and went up to either “Perfect” or “That’s as good as I could have done” (like I said, humble) depending on your perspective. In this case i got a good reaction out of him. 🙌🏼
- Peghead work. Cut to shape, install faceplate, drill tuner holes, sand to final thickness.
- Fit back to rim assembly, trim braces, rout pockets in lining for braces (nerve-racking), glue back, and call it a day. Definitely starting to look like a guitar.
Another busy day, but we left with promises from Ryan that the skill requirement was about to increase dramatically but the workload would drop proportionately. I’m a hard worker that likes to stay busy and I am absolutely smoked.