Day 9 was all about making the bracing, trimming off the excess lengths and chiseling out the check out points in the kerfing for the bracing to fit within the sides.
As the back bracing was all ready and glued on, all I needed to do was trim off the excess lengths that were actually glued to the back by using a little saw to cut through the bracing until it hit the bottom. Then, using a razor, I slid it underneath to break the bond between the bracing and the back piece. I was surprised we actually do it like this rather than measure it out and then just gluing it to its length. But there’s just too many variables doing it that way, so by gluing it on with extra length, we can see where exactly it needs to finish by putting it on top of the jig and drawing a line. We were also then able to adjust it slightly so that it was friendly with how the kerfing lined up against the bracing.
Once all the check outs were chiseled out and the back piece dropped in really well, we glued it to the sides. The jig has all these holes to allow for clamps at every few intervals, to make sure there are no places of gaps for the glue to miss out on.
While I was waiting for that to dry, I routed out my sound hole. You might’ve remembered that I had just put in my rosette, but there was glue all over it, so firstly I sanded that off. I am loving how it looks!
Sound hole done! We used the same jig to route the channel for the rosette except this time we slowly went deeper in depths to finally break through the other side to cut a hole. If we did it in one go, the Dremel might’ve freaked out against a tough grain and it might’ve not made a clean cut.
Time to make my top bracings. Above I was making my bridge plate, which sits underneath the bridge on the other side to give it more support as it sustains pressure from the strings.
Here I was measuring out the sound hole bracings as they needed to be cut and angled with the X bracing.
It made things easier by going off a blue print. Of course it won’t be directly reflective just because of little differences but by using the plan, I was able to know where it had to kind of sit and at what angle and direction. The bracing is crucial for the sound and support.
Got the first half of the bracings glued on!
By then, a few hours had passed so my back was well and truly attached to its sides. It was so so exciting to see half of it together, just couldn’t believe I’ve been doing this all by myself.
I wrapped up my day by drilling the holes for the machine heads. They will still need to be reamed later on once I’ve chosen my machine heads to know how big the hole needs to be for the accessories to fit in snugly.
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