Heel caps and soundports....

Today I spent quite a bit of time getting the neck sets fine tuned so they are about as good as they will get. Both necks joints turned out very nice with virtually no gaps at all. After that I went ahead and cut the heel caps out and glued them on. I decided that I wanted to put sound ports in these two guitars as I have never done them before, and I read that they add a lot to the sound and volume of a guitar. Instead of doing a fancy design, I decided to go with the basic oval shape. I cut out a template to use for a tracing pattern, marked the upper bouts where the side braces were so I didn't cut into them, and marked the ovals. I used my dremel with a down cut spiral bit and router base to cut them out 'freehand'. I was a little nervous about doing them, but really they were pretty easy to do. I sanded the edges to clean them up and they look pretty good. It was interesting to hear the difference in the tap tones of the boxes before and after the ports. It added a bit more sustain, and a lot more volume of the tap. I can't wait to hear what the actual guitars sound like!

The two heel caps glued down and clamped in place.

The two sound ports. This is a first for me!