The top is on!

Today I decided it was time to get the top finished and glued to the body. I first needed to trim the braces so that everything but the X braces ended before the kerfing. This took a bit of trimming and sanding as all of them were past the sides. Once that was done, I trimmed the kerfing and test fit the top. It fit just like the back did and I am extremely happy. Things like this really make me feel like I am making progress in my skill. This is the first build that both the top and back fit perfectly with no pressure needed at all. The only thing the go-bars do is to apply pressure for the glue squeeze out. They aren't holding the plates down and that is a great feeling.

I also decided that while I still had the top off, I would drill out the neck block for the neck bolts and truss rod access. I made a small mistake here but it was easily corrected. When I measured the holes out, I measured from the top of the neck blank down and then transferred the measurements to the block. The mistake I made was I forgot to take into account the thickness of the top when I was measuring so my holes were about 1/8" too low. Darn! Oh well, I just reamed the holes until the bolts lined up. I had to do this on the OM so it really didn't concern me too much although I really would like to not make these kind of simple mistakes. Maybe next time. After all that, I put the body and top in the go-bar deck and glued it up, making sure about a million times that the center line is centered on the guitar! Trust me, after the OM, that mistake won't happen again if I have any control over it!


Once that was done and the glue was drying, I decided to do a practice inlay relief cut for the deer head I am putting in the peghead. I grabbed a piece of mahogany, my dremel with downcut bits and the router base and gave it a go. I have to say, the right tools make all the difference in the world in doing this. I felt like I was in complete control of the tool and was able to do a pretty good cut. Really the only problem I had was trying to figure a way to transfer the outline onto the wood. I used the inlay piece as a template to scribe around, but that really didn't work too well for me. I need to do some research to see if there is a better way to do it. In my pictures, the only reason I went outside the boundaries of the inlay was because my scribe lines were off. I was able to easily move the dremel right up to the lines without going past them.

Here is the spot that snapped off during the glue up. They white vertical line is the glue line. The little glob of glue to the right is right about at the edge of the body so as you can see, the actual broken piece is pretty thin. I routed the back and it is 1/4" wide by roughly 2 1/2" long. In person, you have to look very hard to see it.

The body with the top kerfing cut and all cleaned up.

The top after I trimmed the braces to fit the rim. I also drilled the truss rod access in the top brace.

The neck block after I drilled out for the bolt holes. This is the first time I have had the neck attached.

I thought I would show you just how little amount of wood I removed from the braces to get the sound to change. I get a really nice long ringing sound out of the top that I didn't have before I removed this wood. As you can see, it really isn't much wood at all.

The top all glued up in the go-bar deck. Rest assured, the top is straight and all of the bars are directly over the kerfing!

Here is the inlay in the practice cut I made. It is pretty close, not perfect but close. I really want to find a better way to transfer the outline than the way I have been doing it.

The relief cut. You can see the wide cut at the left side of the neck, and the wide split antler on the left. This was caused by my poor scribing.