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Here's my one hopfully, the sides can go at almost any angle so tapered boards can be joined, to took about hour and half to make and works very well, but I might change the middle hold down to a bar and wedges so I can see the join and wedge were most needed, although I haven't had any problems so far.

Heath38666.3841203704

I really like the rope & wedge system too... as much for its old world elegance as anything else. I find it's more reliable than others i've tried & you can clamp all kinds of weird shapes.
I recently cut two bouzouki backs out of one jumbo guitar back set. The resulting pieces were tricky to clamp, but the old rope & wedge rig worked great. A lot of clamping systems don't work unless the pieces are close to rectangular.

The biggest reason why the rope and wedge method has passed the test of time is that multiple tops can be done at a time. There is a picture of this in Frank Fords visit to Charles Fox's shop that shows how once you have tied and wedged your top you can move it anywhere to dry.

I prepare tops in batches of 6-12 tops (join, glue, cleanup and bandsaw to rough shape) at a time as once I have setup for an operation I want to do as much to use that setup before tearing it down to make room for the next operation. Tom Humphrey told me that he started that way when building for Michael Gurian (which is where Cumpiano started) and today Tom on his own still builds his classicals in batches of 6 using the same approach.

Michael Gurian and Charles Fox were some of the first custom guitar production shops that standardized their processes around how a small shop works best much as Martin, Gibson and Taylor have aligned their processes to the way a large production shop works best. William Cumpiano and Tom Humphrey started at Michael Gurians shop and Charles Fox and all of the builders that passed through his shop have continued the same tradition.

Here's another option:

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tim...
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