Day 5

I hate being late.  I slept through my alarm, and didn't get to Ned's until 10:30am.  9am is the usual time.  I stopped by an ATM on the way to pick up some cash- I'm now $150 away from being halfway done with my payments.  Whoo-hoo!  Let's get down to business.

The preliminary placement of the seven fan
braces

Friday was spent working on the braces of my guitar's soundboard.  For any new readers, the soundboard is the top of the guitar, and is the most crucial component of the guitar's sound production.  The most common soft/tone woods used for classical guitars are spruce and cedar, and cypress, in Spanish flamenco-style guitars.  I chose red cedar, for mine.  The soundboard has many braces, all strategically placed for structural purposes.  There are many different designs of bracing.  Steel-stringed guitars and classical guitars also possess different brace designs, as the strings on a steel-stringed guitar are more tense than the nylon strings of a classical/Spanish guitar, so the braces are placed, accordingly, to accommodate for structural
integrity.

I was able to get nine different braces done- seven of these nine were components of the fan bracing, and the other two were diagonal braces, located at the bottom of the soundboard.  I started by placing the seven fan braces in their respective positions, and double-checked my work from the last session, where I planed and sanded the bottom of the braces, making sure that they were perfectly perpendicular, when placed on the underside of the soundboard.  I did a couple little alterations, sanding certain parts on the bottom of the braces, and also a bit of planing/sanding on the tops of the braces, too, to make sure the tops were completely flat.  It is important to have both the top and bottom of each brace completely flat, so that the glue joint is flush, and so that when clamping the top of the braces after applying the glue, the clamp's pressure is distributed evenly across a the flat surface of the top, and not more or less on one side.

Four of the seven fan braces, glued and clamped to their
final resting places

After all of the alterations were done, I placed the first two braces that I would be gluing down, and clamped them into place, before applying the glue.  I examined both sides where they met the soundboard, to triple-check for a flush seating.  All systems were go.  I removed the clamps and the supplemental clamping system, and applied glue to the first brace, with an even bead across the length of it.  I then rubbed the bead in with my finger, distributing the glue evenly, and getting rid of any excess.  I placed the brace where it was to be glued, and pressed it firmly into place, to avoid any skating.  I repeated this process for the second brace, set the clamping supplements, and tightened two clamps into place. 

Here, you can see the template- it is the
octagonal-shaped surface beneath the
soundboard.

It is worth discussing the surface on which the soundboard lies, during the clamping process.  The top and back of a proper acoustic guitar are not completely flat- the center of each surface is a few millimeters higher than the outer edges.  To achieve this dome effect, there is a template-like device that the top and back are placed upon, when clamping the braces.  I've mentioned this, before, but will explain again:  the slight convex nature of the template upon which they are placed ensures that the braces are pressured into conforming to the curvature of the template, giving the top and back the same shape as said template.  The reason for having this convex shape lies within the laws of physics that dictate the science of sound propagation.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I rotated the soundboard, and the surface upon which it was clamped, and repeated the aforementioned process of placing, gluing, and clamping.  Four of the seven fan braces were now clamped and glued.  Ned recommended waiting about 35-45 minutes for the glue to set, before removing the clamps.  So I did.

After waiting for the glue to sufficiently set, I removed the clamps, scraped off the excess glue, and started this process over, to clamp the next pair of braces.  After the fifth and sixth braces were clamped, I did the prep-work on the seventh and final counterpart of the fan braces, then clamped it into place.  We took a lunch break, while the glue set. 

Earlier that morning, a gentleman named Dennis stopped by Ned's shop, accompanied by an acoustic Gibson guitar which he had picked up at a pawn shop, for a couple hundred dollars.  Ned examined it, and told him what needed to be done to it, which ended up only being a standard setup (intonation, adjusting the action, re-stringing, et cetera).  Ned is very honest when it comes to assessing guitars- he won't try to coax you into doing some sort of repair or alteration if it's not truly necessary.  Dennis was fine with his conclusion- he left his guitar, and then left, himself.


After lunch, I returned to my workspace to finish what I had started.  I unclamped the last of the fan braces, scraped the excess glue off, and began the next step, which included planing, measuring, and sanding the braces.  I began by measuring the height of the first brace.  It was something like 8-9mm.  The height of each of the fan braces was to differ, based on their location.  Some guitar makers will make the braces a standard 6mm across all of the fan braces, while others will reduce them to lengths ranging from 5.5-6.5mm.  In theory, you want some of the braces to be higher than others, depending on which side of the soundboard they're on- this is done to accommodate the sounds they will be aiding in the perpetuation of, relative to whether they're on the treble or bass side of the strings.  Braces closer to the treble side of the guitar will possess a shorter height, while those on the bass side will have a higher one.  This, again, is dictated by physics, and the fact that lower wave frequencies need more medium to travel through, to complete more wave cycles, while higher frequencies don't need as much.

Long story short, I planed and checked the height of all of the braces, reducing them to the height at which they needed to be.  Once I finished this step, I began planing their sides, as I had done with the back's braces, thus giving them a vault effect.  I continued to do this to all seven braces, and then sanded them smooth. 

The workday was drawing to an end.  I glued and clamped two more braces into place, which were located underneath the fan braces, at the bottom of the soundboard.  While they dried, I went to check out what Ned was doing.  I had observed him earlier that day- he was applying the purfling to the perimeter of his guitar.  This was a tedious process, as it involved three tiny strips of wood, glue, and a ridiculous amount of painter's tape.  I won't get into too many details- you'll see what I'm talking about once I come to this step, later down the road.  It's cool to see some of the work that Ned is doing, as it gives me a preview of what I'll be doing in the future.

Once my last 2 braces were set, I unclamped them and scraped off the excess of glue, and then cleaned up my space.  I had glued nine braces, total, and gotten seven of these nine shaped.  I didn't get to the scalloping, but I did start making the marks where the scalloping would start.  I believe it was about 2.5cm from the edge of each fan brace.  I finished up the lager that Ned had served me, earlier, and put all of my materials away.  I removed my slippers, and headed upstairs.  The day was done.