The Mold

The mold is used to hold the form of the sides

as the sides are glued to the back.

In order to make the mold, we needed:

4'x4' plywood sheet

6' of 2x4

Here are our materials:

We cut the plywood into 2'x1' pieces. These pieces were

used to make the top and bottom plates. Each plate was cut to look like this:

We cut the shape out with a jigsaw, and then sanded the cut with a spindle sander. Here's Raphael sanding down the sides.

The finished mold plates look like this:

Afterwards, we cut the 2x4 into 4" pieces with a miter saw.

We then took these pieces and glued them to the bottom plates. Here's where the molds are right now. Both halves are complete.

From here, we'll be sanding the 2x4 to be flat, so we could glue on the top plate of the mold. Next step: cutting out the soundboard/back shapes!

Neck: pt 1

To build our necks, we bought a 6' maple 1" x 3". The wood was plain sawn. Quarter sawn wood is ideal, but plain sawn is okay as well.

The neck needs a 15 degree angle for the headstock to balance the tension on the neck (undesirable) and downward tension on the neck (desirable).

For the length of the neck (including the headstock), we cut out a 22" segment of the 1x3. For the angle, we glued a 6" segment of 1x3 maple onto the 22" piece, and cut the angle into the block. Here is where the neck is at the moment. (Don't mind my feet)

We'll be cutting the truss rod slot into the neck this week.

Welcome!

Hello world!

This semester at Olin College of Engineering, Raphael Cherney, Phil Dirkse, Dan Grieneisen, and I will attempt to build two acoustic guitars. This blog will be our documentation of the process we're using. It's important to note that we will be following procedures suggested in the books Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology (Cumpiano), and Build Your Own Acoustic Guitar (Kinkead).

Our purpose for documenting this is threefold:

1. To provide a resource for those looking into guitarmaking

2. For personal documentation (look mom, I'm making a guitar!)

3. To show Olin we're not letting their generous funding of the project go to waste!*

Check back often, we'll be updating at least once a week!

-Eddie

*this is assuming we get funding!**

**Update: We got funding! $800 for the project. Thanks Olin. :D