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Good Afternoon OLFers,

I hope you can stomach another newbie first build.

A little background:
I am following the Natelson & Cumpiano procedures, with the Andes plan and template from LMII. I have been searching through the vast wealth of knowledge this forum has to offer and am very grateful for its existence.

I have cut the scarf joint for the headstock, and laminated the heelblock on the neck. I also have jointed, joined, and cut out the top and back.

When I began I decided to go with the fine herringbone premade rosette with an inner and outer ring, however, after looking at some of your amazing wooden rosettes, I decided I had to try one. Needless to say, I have had the pleasure of building 2 wooden rings (No worries, my first one turned out a little small and will be used on a future, smaller build).

Anyways, I'll catch you up to date with pictures and hopefully will be able to keep them coming!

I can't offer much in the way of picture quality, but I will try and get better. First picture is my "room/shop" and most of my tools.

Top/Back Jointing - first rosette "idea"

Excavating the channel, New rosette ring (Flamed Maple, Ebony, Mahongany), The plates.
So far that's everything. I hope to post more very soon.

I decided to start work on the inside of the box. Started with cutting out the soundhole, shaping the tail and head block, and splitting braces. I have two concerns: my headblock is only 1-1/8" thick, should I laminate another piece of wood to the face nearest the soundhole, or is this thickness sufficient? Secondly, concerning the 2 back braces on the lower bout, I accidentally "flatsplit" them and I need to change the grain orientation. Would it be out of the question to joint, join and resaw or split to correct this? Pictures below, thank you.

Dan

Looks like fun! Good clean work.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Thanks John!

This week I started working on the truss rod slot and the spline. I ordered a double action truss rod from LMI and failed to read that it doesn't need a spline. After gluing the spline and allowing it to dry I rapped on the back of the neck and couldn't believe the rattling. My solution is 100% silicone on the ends and middle of the truss rod slot, however, that means I will need to remove the unnecessary spline . I'm chalking it up to my first lesson on how to undo a glue joint.

As far as progress goes, I'm pretty pleased. I have the headstock laminated and rough cut, the bending Iron is "assembled", and the back graft is glued in place (Hesh, thanks for the great toot).

All of Saturday was side bending (I can't believe I actually got through it).
A note for first timers: Buy the practice sides, they're absolutely worth it.

Thanks for looking.

Some more pictures

It's been awhile...

Thanks for looking, I will add more as soon as I close the box.

Looks like you were making good progress, I hope you didn't give up!

Thanks 3dog!

I haven't given up. It's just been a busy year since I last posted.
Proposed in November, bought a house in January, married in February, reception in June, traveled for work in July ...so much has happened.
But the light at the end of the tunnel has been growing. I'm getting together my new work bench (no tall shaky workstation for me anymore) and getting excited (and scared) for binding and neck setting.

Thanks for the encouragement and checking this out. I'll be sure to post new progress as soon as I can.

Here are some pictures of closing the box and the completed box with the tail wedge installed. This was at the end of last year and since then the box has been resting until I get my new bench and shop set up.

(there are a few comments above the pictures in small print, I guess it would be best to make a new post for all new comments - I'll get the hang of this eventually)

OK...question - please help if you can
I accidentally tore out some extra material around the rosette channel when excavating it.
I tried to match it with a piece from the soundboard cutoff and here's my results.

What can I do to make this less visible?

Dan, I'm glad your build thread came back up. It appears to me you're doing a real good job. Congratulations on all your good news in the past year!