sMg Guitars

July 27, 2008

Spent a lot of time today scraping down the binding and purfling.  I was finally able to burnish my scraper properly and it made the effort of bringing the binding down flush with the body all that less difficult.  Scrape scrape scrape, and the result is really nice.  I’m left with very few gaps which will need filling.

Next step was to rethink the jig for routing the mortise into the body.  I came to the conclusion that I could incorporate it into the body vise which I built last week.

This really helped with alignment, as I can secure the body in the vise, then align the center lines on top and bottom to ensure a square mortise channel.  I have to sit on the floor and run the router up and down the guide channel.  First thing I did was let the router get away from me and I hosed up the guide channel on the right side, and the end result was a beautiful left hand wall, and funky wavy wall on the right side.  I will be able to recover, but I need to rebuild the jig as it is battle worn.

Lesson learned:  Find a way to route channels where the router is sitting on the thing to be cut, or be more careful.

Next step is to build a jig for the tenon (neck), determine the correct neck angle, carefully cut the neck to leave the tenon, and check fit.  I can also insert the neck bolt receivers into the neck and dry fit the neck onto the body.