Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Rubber Bands



I cut a groove in the top and bottom pieces to accommodate the bottom rib of the sound board.











The plans recommended building
this little gluing ladder-thingy, which
is actually a good idea since it allows
your clamps to put even pressure all
along both sides. A bajillion rubber
bands provided the majority of the
clamping pressure, supplemented by
a few trusty red clamps.



Monday, June 16, 2008

soundboard

Now its time to make the soundboard and finish the soundbox. Back in the beginning before I even made the sides Dad and I glued up a big expanse of sitca spruce about a 1/4 " thick and big enough for several soundboards. The spruce we special ordered from a lumber company in Michigan. Sitca spruce is generally the best for resonating parts of instruments such as guitar or violin or harp fronts, because of its good ... resonating qualities. we then sanded this piece down to a mere 1/8"





Here I traced the shape of the soundbox onto the piece and roughed it out with the bandsaw. then cut it to exact size with the table saw. To make a fragile piece even more fragile I sanded the small end down more to about 3/32. (not fun)







Next I glued on the string ribs which strengthen the soundboard. These are thin stait grained maple strips glued front and
back.

Friday, June 6, 2008


The next step was to make and install the back bracing strip ( basically two strips of light weight wood that run along the inside edges of the box hooking the back and sides together).

-sorry about the rubbish photos-





Here the top and bottom pieces are are glued to the back.



Next I glued on the sides, a bit tricky trying to get enough clamps on it but it worked in the end.



And here it is all sanded and smooth.