French polishing

I’m getting closer to the finish line. But I have been forced to travelin work too much lately and that steals time. But an hour here and there and the shellac finish is starting to look really nice. 

I messed up the soundboard a bit as I went too thick in places. So I’m only showing you the back and neck here. I’m doing the top again after some careful scraping. 

Bridge made with handtools

I found a scrap piece of rosewood and decided to shape it with only hand tools. So I cut it to rough dimensions. 

And planed it flat. It’s no use trying a smaller plane for smaller pieces, I prefer a hefty one. 



The tricky part is cutting the saddle slot. Normally I do this on the small table saw but hey, it’s in a cupboard and takes a while to set up. Instead I use my wee model maker’s saw. 



Two cuts and then I remove the waste between them. 



Since the soundboard is domed I need to shape the underside of the bridge to match it. I use a scraper for this, and check often to make sure it fits. 



And it’s in place. The guitar string goes through two tiny holes in the slots and down through the top to prevent slipping. 

Fretboard, continued

When I’ve shaped the edges to the correct taper I mark a centreline and drill holes for the position dots. I use a 1.6 mm styrene rod for them. 

Three of the holes are transferred to the neck. I’ll leave the rods protruding a bit so the fretboard won’t slide around any when it’s time for the glue. 



I pressed the frets in, and forgot to take any pics of that. But here’s me filing the ends and bevelling them. 



And on it went. I’ve used rubber tubing and other sorts of clamps, but you can’t really beat some old Bahco C-clamps. You could squeeze something out of anything with those. 

Next up; the bridge.