All ready for finish......

I spent some time in the shop after work today getting everything ready for finish. First, I realized that I hadn't cut the nut slot in the peg head to the correct size of the nut, so I clamped up some blocks and cut it with my razor saw. I cleaned the slot with a chisel and file until the nut blank fit snugly in the slot. I cut the bottom of the nut to a 15 degree angle to match the angle of the peg head. Once that was done, I needed to get the bridge location figured out. After a lot of measuring, and re-measuring I got the location marked. I found that it is pretty difficult to measure for squareness on a bridge that has no straight edges. I finally figured a way to do it, but I was scratching my head for a few minutes of how I could do this other than eyeballing it.

I am very happy to say that the neck center line is perfect with the center line of the soundboard and body. This is the first guitar that I have built that this ended up being perfectly lined up. My Dreadnought was very close, but the straight edge ended up about 1/16" off of center at the bottom of the guitar. It was close, but not perfect. The OM, well because of the mistake of the soundboard not being centered on the guitar body when I glued it up, I had to make some adjustments to the neck to get everything to look right. Needless to say, the center line of the neck is not center but about 3/16" off center at the bottom. As a side note to this, when I first set the neck up, it was perfectly center on the body, but not the soundboard of course. I ended up having to tweak it a bit to get the strings centered over the sound hole so this neck set was 'purposefully' off center. This OOO was perfect, and I mean perfect. The straight edge lines up exactly with the center line of the soundboard, and the center of the end wedge. And as a added bonus, the straight edge just skims the top of the bridge at its correct location. I guess all that measuring I did when I made the neck block and heel paid off. Now I hope it stays that way after finish!

Anyways, once I got the bridge located, I made a cutout of masking tape to mask off the bridge location for finishing. I thoroughly sanded and checked everything just to make sure there are no scratches, and then masked the neck tenon, fingerboard, and nut slot. I also attached the wood handles to the two parts, vacuumed, blew with compressed air, and wiped everything with naphtha. Tomorrow, they will get their first layers of sealer. I am excited that I have made it to this point. There really is something different having built a guitar from scratch. Don't get me wrong, kits were fun and a lot of hard work, but this is different. I feel like this is MY creation, not Stewmac's or LMI's and my co-creation. I just hope it sounds good! If the ring and sustain I am getting from tapping the top is any indicatior, I think this guitar is going to sound fantastic.

Well, being the person with the will power of a wet noodle, I scoped the OLF swap meet this morning before work, and had to buy two sets of curly redwood tops. One is a parlor size, and the other is a OOO or classical size. Both are beautiful, and again the price was great. The swap meet is now over, and my wallet is grateful of that!

This is one of the two redwood tops I bought. Pretty amazing looking curl isn't it.

And the other top. Now I need to get a plan for a parlor sized guitar to use this and the parlor back I bought.

Here is the cutting guide for cutting the nut slot.

This is how I made a mask that fits the bridge shape. I just put the tape on a piece of glass, trace the bridge and cut it a bit smaller than the bridge. The whole piece comes off the glass and sticks to the guitar top.