Day 9 - Small but important details

Day 9: From the pictures it might not seem like a lot happened today. My guess is that as the bigger pieces come together and we start focusing on small (but important) details, the images might not be that impressive in the days to come. But today we made some significant strides in getting everything ready to be assembled.

The first part of the day was spent working on the connection between the neck and the (soon to be assembled) body. The neck block is this key junction, and we worked on getting it aligned and drilled for the bolts that connect to the neck to the body. Although it’s not pictured here, there’s a brass rod that runs the length of the heel that is drilled to accept the bolts that come through the neck block.

We also shaped the neck block a bit, both to be more aesthetically pleasing (although since it’s inside the body, no one will see if unless they poke around the inside of the body) and also to reduce some of the weight while still maintaining its structural purpose.

The second task for the day was preparing the sides and top to be glued. We trimmed down any protruding linings to create a flush surface on one edge of the sides, cut notches in the linings to correspond to any braces that intersected, and worked on the connection between the newly glued neck block and the sides. I got to work with the chisel a lot more this afternoon and I’m finding it suits me.

It looks like I’ll be able to glue my sides to the top tomorrow or the day after! Here’s what my sides looks like sitting in place; it's a good shot sides set #2. This set is nice, but not as straight grained as the one that broke on the bender. Those protruding linings will be trimmed down flush before the back is fit.

Work started at 8am and we finished up at 6:15pm, with an hour for lunch. George and Pippa had all the students over for dinner afterwards, and we really appreciated the great home cooked meal and conversation.