And Now We Have A Box

Gluing the label before attaching the top

Well, we're really cruising now. After the months and months of carving (which I've covered thoroughly with substantial amounts of whining), every little step seems like a quantum leap of progress. And, just like my experience with the first guitar I built, finally gluing the box together is a major step. Not only is it an important milestone from the standpoint of the instrument's construction, but it is the moment, for me at least, when it moves from being pieces of wood to being a guitar.

When it comes together, it not only looks like a guitar but, for the first time, one gets a sense of its acoustic properties - it's personality. It will change a lot along the way, but there are certain things about the guitar's sound that reveal themselves right away, for better or worse. And I'm happy to say everything sounds good so far. Since I chose to design my own sound holes, and since they're fairly large, there's some question about how it will affect the sound. My hope is that it will create a guitar that's not so much like a jazz guitar with a fat, round tone, but will be a bit louder and punchier. It won't have as much sustain, but I hope it will compensate with a very textured sound. We'll see how it turns out, but early signs are very good.

Gluing the top

After gluing the top on, I've been working on trimming away the excess wood from the top and back and sanding the sides. I made quite a bit of progress over the past few days since, due to a transportation issue, I brought my box home so I could work on it here. I didn't spend an extraordinary amount of time on it, but probably four or five hours instead of the three I would have spent in class. So now I'm left with only some touch up and some more sanding when I go to class later today.

Trimming sides with a spoke shave

The next step will be one of two things: beginning work on the neck or beginning work on the binding and purfling of the box. It doesn't matter much which comes first, and will probably depend on whether the wood for our necks is in yet. If it is, that's the most likely next step. But, either way, I'm looking forward to getting to it. My experience with the first guitar tells me that I still have a long, long way to go. I'm still looking at somewhere around March or April as the realistic finishing date. But it's hard not to begin to look for that light at the end of the tunnel when the pieces are starting to fall together so quickly. But just wait: I have no doubt there are several major barriers waiting just around the corner.