Four Part Harmony

Hey folks, I wanted to put a few photos up while I have a second.
I’d say I haven’t been spending a bunch of time working on the guitar, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.
I spend at least an hour or so down in the basement every night after we’ve got Anna to bed and have had some time to wind down a bit.
Often times I don’t really get much done besides a bit of reading or putting together a small piece of some jig or something, but I guess it’s all useful time spent.
I have made some progress though, and with any luck I may bay be ready to bend the sides in the next week or so (we’ll see).
Here’s what’s been done so far.
Here’s the guitar body mold all finished up. IT took some doing to come up with a system for opening and closing it, but I think my method will work pretty good. Also in this picture are three spreading clamps that I built that will hold the sides tightly in the mold once they are bent. As with everything so far, I worry that they aren’t built to the level of accuracy they should be. The sides of the mold are very smooth, but not perfectly smooth. I should probably be cutting with a bandsaw and sanding with some sort of spindle to keep things in square, but I’m making do with a skil saw and an orbital hand sander. Not ideal, though I think everything is working out pretty good so far.

Here’s the latest project, the top half of the side bending form. I’ll build a box underneath it with two 150 W light bulbs to serve as a heater. The wet sides will be clamped to the form while being heated. There are also silicone heating blankets that some people use, which are supposed to be a bit better/easier, but they are also pretty spendy. This will be a pretty cheap form when all is said and done.

And lastly, here’s a shot of the go-bar deck. This is also serving as a work table, but eventually it will be used to clamp up braces, and attach the top and back to the sides.

I still need to work out how best to go about putting together some radius dishes for clamping purposes. It sounds like a laborious, dusty endeavor, especially with my laminate router, and I am considering just purchasing some, but we shall see.
More updates will be forthcoming, as soon as I actually have something interesting to take a picture of.