Two new guitars in process – a steel string dreadnought with curly black walnut body and mahogany neck, and a 17″ archtop. The blog entry about making a fingerboard shows the neck for the dreadnought. Pictures below – dreadnought back glued up, braced and ready for top to be glued on. This guitar uses a mortise/tenon bolt-on neck. I’ve switched to solid linings because I hate cutting kerfed lining. Solid is quicker and can be a little narrower. These linings are made of Spanish cedar pre-bent on the bending iron. Nice curl to the walnut.
The top braced and ready to glue – nicely quarted, fine grained Sitka spruce.
Gluing up the top – the rubber bands keep the spool clamps from slipping off the edge.
First finish coats – de-waxed shellac sealer with oil varnish top coats. I used curly hard maple for the binding which contrasts nicely with the walnut.
This is the archtop – sides bent, solid lining in (these are black cherry), neck and tail blocks in. 
The back mid-carving – this is quilted big leaf maple with a curly hard maple center. Very slow going on the carving because of the hardness and interlocked grain of the maple – over 8 hours. After putting the outside profile on using templates, the inside is drilled on the drill press to a uniform depth and worked down to a thickness of 3/16″.
The back ready to be glued on.
Glued on but not trimmed yet. It’s going to be very pretty.
The top mid-stream in carving which is where I left it to get a hip replacement. I’ll be able to resume work on it in a couple weeks.
