Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Image: Mould For The Sides
Image: Mould For The Sides
From the discussion on the design of the top and the back the following
starting points for the sides can be derived:
For the construction of the guitar the pre-cut sides have to be bowed
with the aid of an iron steam pipe or the use of a bending mold after pre
heating the sides. In order to facilitate the bending process, the sides
have to be thinned before bending, to a thickness of not more than 2 to
2.5 mm, depending on the wood and may be on the skill of the builder.
This means for a rose wood side an overall thickness of less than
2.5 mm. Because we see the sides as a rigid part of the frame
construction we could decide to start with a thickness of ~ 2.5 mm for
the upper bout, ~ 2 mm for the lower bout and somewhat less in the
vicinity of the glue edge of the lower bout. For brittle species like Santos
or Australian blackwood it is not a bad idea to thin the sides some tenth
of a mm extra at those locations the sides will be curved the most.
But again, as was the case with the top and the back, we will improve the
strength if we add some reinforcement bars, perpendicular to the grain of
the sides, allowing for an extra thinning of the side in that region. The
positions for those bars are indicated where the sides are extra
vulnerable, e.g. the places which maximum curve and strain. To reflect
the starting point of a flexible connection to the top these bars will not be
connected to the top and have a length of 7 to 8 cm.
From the foregoing discussions on the top, back and sides the starting
points for the tail block are more or less obvious:
Another approach is to make the tail block out of two pieces of wood
(with their grain perpendicular to each other) glued together.
« The back
Miscellaneous »
Donate