Yoda, at Last

Saturday was sucked up by the hitch adapter, mowing the lawn, and the heat/humidity being just ridiculous.  But Sunday was a beautiful day to spend in the garage-shop and Yoda beckoned.  I got consensus from the family that we would think about God while we proceeded with our day instead of spending a couple hours visiting with his flock.  So I got an early start, read the paper, had some breakfast with the family, sent a letter to congress [read: shat], and was hard at "work"  before 9AM.  What a great start.

I had already glued the two mahogany blanks into one piece for the back, so I was ready to cut the back into the dreadnought shape and inlay the back strip.  I had also previously made an MDF template from the original damaged back, so it was simply a matter of setting up a piloted flush cut bit in the router table, double stick taping the template to the new back, and routing it out.  Just to be safe, I ran a test piece from a leftover cabinet back panel and it worked perfectly.  I was a little concerned because I had cut the template free hand with a jig saw then sanded it down to shape with a drum sander in the drill press.  This actually yielded a good result, but there were very slight variations in the surface that I was concerned would telegraph into the finished piece.  Fortunately, this did not happen on the test piece, so I went ahead and cut the actual back.

Next, I used a jig that I had previously made to guide the router for cutting dadoes to set up the back strip inlay.  I had also used this jig as a clamping cawl when I glued the back blanks together.  The back strip was 11/64" wide and all I had that small was an 1/8" bit, so I would have to make the groove in two passes.  I set up the groove to be 1/16" deep, as the back was roughly 1/8" thick.  Although this operation was rife with opportunities to ruin the most expensive part of this endeavor, amazingly, it went smoothly.  I taped off either side of the groove so that I didn't get glue on the adjacent back which would cause it to not accept stain, and then glued in the back strip.  Of course the back strip was about 1/16" proud of the back, so I planed it down to about 1/32 to sand down the rest of the way.  And of course, I managed to take a gouge out of the back with the plane.  And there you go.  The last time I ground the plane iron with my half-assed grinder, I managed to get the iron bevel skewed so that it is no longer straight and cannot be made parallel to the sole. Building a better tool grinder will undoubtedly be my next distraction.  I was able to fill the gouge and this will require some delicate sanding, but it is not unfix-able--just irritating.

The next step was to glue the bracing to the inside of the back.  I had salvaged the bracing from the original, so the arch would be formed by the arch carved into the original braces.  This did present a glue-up puzzle, though.  I am sometimes asked by well-wishers what I would like as a gift for a birthday, or Christmas, or Father's day.  I always reply that I wish for nothing.  But when pressed, I usually say "clamps".  I just never seem to have enough clamps.  You can see from the picture that I had to improvise with various cawls to try to get uniform clamping pressure across the braces in order to form the arch into the back.  But in the end, it worked out OK.

While the glue was setting on the back, I worked on the fretboard and head stock.  I had filled all the dings and divots in the fretboard and neck and had everything pretty much sanded down.  The wood filler I am using is a little pink and it looked really pink against the rosewood fretboard, but I'm hoping it will stain OK.    I cut a piece of cherry veneer from some scrap and planed it down to 1/8".  With it double stick taped to the headstock, I routed it to shape, then drilled, reamed to 1 degree taper, and lapped the tuner holes.  This was probably overkill, but they are nice looking holes (and what else would I do with a 1 degree reamer and a box of lapping tools).  In order to rout the access hole for the truss rod accurately, I clamped the headstock into the mill vise using tapered maple blocks that I made last week for my bench vise in order to clamp the neck for sanding.  This worked out reasonably well and I was able to have good control of the cut with the mill.  This will be covered by the original tortoise shell plastic plate, but the hole still had to look precise in case anybody ever adjusted the rod and got a look at the hole.  The cherry is going to stain up and look very nice, though oddly similar to the original paper veneer that I had removed.  I might end up doing an inlay or something to set it apart.  We'll see how the rest of the project goes.

The back turned out pretty nice, though its a shame about the gouge.  It won't be detectable, but I hate that it happened.  That hand plane has always bothered me--I really need to get the iron straightened out and get more comfortable with it.  You can see in the picture where I still have some more sanding to do.  Dammit. Shame on me for using a hand tool.  I am very pleased with the grain pattern that we lucked into.  Its almost a shame to put such a nice piece of wood on such an ill-fated instrument.  Oh well, luck of the draw.

Preparing to install the top next weekend, I cleaned up all the machine tuners and the pickup for re-installation.  They cleaned up well enough, but still pretty dinged up.  I soldered a new input jack to the pickup and then installed them, only to find that the jack was not deep enough to fit through the repaired hole.  I had installed a thin veneer piece to the inside of the blown out hole and the made a nice round plate for the exterior side in order to reinforce the area against the trauma of plugging/unplugging.  The threaded end of the jack is not long enough to extend through even the original wood, let alone the two additional pieces.  So I guess a trip to Radio Shack is in my future.  Sadly, my local Shack is in a strip center next to a restaurant that apparently barbecues road kill in a secret fermented horse urine sauce.  At least that's what it smells like.  But I just can't justify a trip to Mendelson's for a simple $2 item.  Maybe the hardware store will have one.....

Anyhow, next week, I should be installing the back and working on installing frets and maybe setting the neck.  It's getting closer.