Monday, October 17, 2011

you want curves?

 Picture a large orange or a grapefruit. Now imagine drawing the outline of a guitar body on the surface of the fruit. Now imagine cutting the outline and peeling away the guitar body top. If it holds its shape it will approximate the spherical nature of some guitar archings- often with a radius over twenty feet. Others, like mine aren't actually based on a radius, but on a curve more like the boatbuilder's 'fair curve', or a violin's arching.

The sides of this instrument taper by about 15mm from maximum height at the widest point of the lower bout. This reduction in depth has to accommodate the curve of the back, so the blocks and the outline have quite a subtle and complex path to follow as they make their way around the instrument.

You can see from the angle above that at the narrow waist, the sides need to get higher as they head inwards. It takes a little care.

After the sides are pretty much shaped, the bottom kerfings can be glued in. They are complex too because their journey involves some curving down as well as in and out.

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