In keeping with the oceanic theme on the guitar, I decided to shape the tailpiece into a whale instead of the traditional wedge shape.
I had some Walnut left over from the Dulcimer Kit that I'm making:
- getting the width of the sides at the tailblock(3.875inches in my case) tells you how much room you have to work with. Make sure you tailpiece inlay isn't too wide either, as the sides still need to be glued to the tailblock. My tailblock is around 80-84mm wide I believe, and the inlay was around 35-40mm. I'm leaving a small bit of room above and below the Whale too, so it's more of an inlay as I said, rather than a divide between the two side pieces. It's worth noting that if you're taking measurements from a plan, to take the measurement of the side without the binding, as the diagram might show both, and your design will end up being too long for the side.
- here's a look at the tailblock after the clamps came off.
- you can see that even with all the work trying to get it not to 'float' on the glue, it still did a small bit(the top piece there is 1.5mm too far to the left)
This isn't really a big concern, as that side seemed to be a small bit longer anyway, and the plane can level it out no problems. It's the other side there, with the darker grain that the top will be stuck to, and that's the important side to have perfect.
- the bandsaw almost has the Whale down to finished cut. It won' take much to get him into shape when the time comes.
- I had to glue two pieces of Mahogany together to shape the neckblock out of, I scribed the measurements onto the block, and proceeded to plane off the excess.
- the wood was slightly warped, so even the 'flat' surfaces had to be leveled off.
- the dry clamp test. Looks good!
- checking that I've 'squeeze out' all around the blocks, I left them for the auld 24hours.
- while I'm running around with the camera, here's a picture of the crack after the Titebond and Thin Superglue went into it.
- it was a day of doing small bits as well as big bits. I had to fill in the hairline gaps around parts of the rosette. So I used the ol' Dust and glue trick.
- using the handsander didn't work very well, so I placed the tub at the far end of the belt sander, and all the dust went flying back into it! The wood used, was an offcut of the Western Red Cedar used for the top.
- about one third glue there.
- here's a picture off the wood dust glue. It should look wet still, but thicker than toothpaste. Tuna from a Tuna melt comes to mind...
- using my finger, I pressed it down all around. I couldn't see any gaps most of the way around. But while I was there with the glue, I said I may as well go around the whole thing to be safe. Last thing you want is to have it all done and sanded, and see a little gap.
- so using that wee tool that I haven't a clue of the name of(it has a wee nail and a block that's adjustable, to carve the thickness for cutting into a level sided piece of wood) I marked the width for the two thick back braces. You have a total of four back braces. The thicker two sit down under the belly of the guitar, and the thinner ones, above the waist.
- Tony recommended using a pencil to increase the visibility of the line carved by the tool-that-must-not-be-named.
- with a brace blank ready to be carved I was handed a brace template from Tony:
- this is actually off a Jumbo Guitar Tony had made. The angle was sharper than the one I was going to use(The 'swell effect' was 1.5mm originally, but this template was 3mm. i.e. the central line of the guitar would be 3mm proud of the edges in a slowly curving arc) but as it wouldn't affect the sturdiness of the guitar(in fact it may make it stronger) and coupled with the fact that I love the curve of the back of a guitar, I opted for Tony's Template.
- there's a small digit cut out of Tony's template to align the centre mark, a simple, yet ingenious trick-of-the-trade.
- the hand plane. You'd be lost without one. I have researched buying them here, and even on mainland Europe. Prices are high: From €180-€450! I sourced a pair on Amazon.com for $55! There's a brand of tool called Grizzly and they seem to be cheap but popular over there. Stay tuned to see if they're any good. The way I see it is it's the blade that counts, outside of that, once the plane has a flat, even surface and comfortable handle, that's the main thing for me. 
- after the brace was planed on that surface that will be joined to the back, we ran it over and back on the belt sander in a gentle rocking motion. Constantly check your progress with that line you left on the brace, get it so that the line is thinning along the brace. Note, the belt sander is not on!!! If you don't have a belt sander, a strip of sandpaper taped to a flat surface will do, around the 120grit or higher.
- there they are, sitting on my warped Madagascar Rosewood back. The braces will take the warp out of it when they're glued to it. The braces are shaped using a chisel after you glue them on. More on that later.
- back to the Japanese Pullsaw to cut the brace blanks for the remaining two braces. These two braces were of the same measurements as each other, like the previous pair, so that speeds up the process a small bit.
- going through the exact same steps as was done for the other two braces, I was finished for the day.
P.S. I'm going on holidays for a couple of weeks. Chat y'all when I'm back!
