Attaching the back to the sides… or not.
I have made a board that will become the back of my guitar (any suggestions for a name for her?). After gluing together the strips, I needed to sand them to remove the bits of glue that leaked out the side, so I got to use the random orbital sander again and in the process make a great mess which covered the walls floor and my suit is great piles of fine sawdust.
Having made it, I needed to cut it to shape, to do that, I set the mould on top and drew a pencil line round the inside. Cutting it to shape would require the band saw and I have a perfectly rational fear of using the band saw, so I enlisted the assistance of Bert, our resident ninja. He roughly followed the line I had cut, but made the whole thing bigger, so that I can attach it to the sides I have already moulded.
That all sounds like it should take 5 minutes, but it took me an hour.Then I realized that I had drawn the shape for the front on the back, and it was cut wrong. There would be a large gap where the neck will meet the body. I was worried, but Bert calmed me and explained that we’d make it a
“feature” so no worries there.
The back of a guitar needs to bend out slightly to make it look flat (no idea why, some sort of optical illusion, I suppose) and this is achieved by attaching slightly curved supports on the inside. These are made from thin strips of wood with a gentle curve carved into them using a plane. Once carved these are attached with more glue and clamps and the whole thing is left overnight to dry.
The next step is to remove some of the extra weight that the supports have added, by gently planing them into an inverted “V”.
The next step will be to glue the back on. GM has already reached this stage. To ensure that there is even pressure holding the back board on, large thick boards are clamped to the top and the bottom after applying glue the whole way around.
A few days later and the board can be removed with the back securely affixed…unless it doesn’t work. It didn’t work for GM and now he has tried clamping the back on after applying more glue.
