| I started by ripping off 3.5mm thick veneers on the bandsaw. Take it slow and easy and fit a new blade if possible to give a clean cut. |
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| I edge jointed the pieces for the soundboard, giving a bookmatch effect. |
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| Carefully plane and sand the soundboard to a uniform thickness (0.110" in this case) |
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| Next to inlay the rosette. I used a scalpel blade pressed through an offcut of timber to cut the three circles - two for the outline of the rosette and one for the actual soundhole. Put a nail through the centre as a pivot point and slowly cut around, deepening the blade every rotation.
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| Here the cuts are almost complete (I left the centre cutout until the rosette was scraped level) |
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| Using a router remove material between the two line for the rosette. Don't go too close to the edges - the material is very delicate. |
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| The inlay completed! Wipe in some glue and clamp with a waxed caul until dry. A quite scrape and sand and then the soundhole can be cut through. |
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| Nest the headstock. I cut this from
quartered paduak. To make the headstock I made templates from the plans to lay out the cuts. Then the angled cuts were made using a tenoning jig on the table saw. |
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| Finishing up on the bandsaw. |
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| After some final sanding it was complete.
Set it to one side until needed later. Here are the two templates I made from 6mm MDF. |
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| Next I began to glue on the braces and
grafts to the soundboard. A backing board is essential to give a solid surface to clamp to. I made mine from an offcut of 32mm kitchen worktop. |
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| Use cauls to apply even pressure where needed. |
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| With all the braces and grafts in place it is time to thin down the braces. Using a chisel pare them into a rounded pyramid shape and taper the ends. |
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| That's the soundboard complete! |
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