Portland Guitar Co.

( 103 ) 15-Dec-2011

The heal of the neck will slip into this channel and will be supported by two set screws and an adjustment bolt. Here I am using my drill press to drill the holes for the mounting hardware.

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A view of the hole pattern. The center hole is for the bolt that holds the neck in place.

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I use long set screws to make sure the system is stable.

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Here I am installing the wood insert that is used for the adjustment bolt.

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And the final set up. This system provides three very well defined points of contact for the neck attachment. This results in a stable yet adjustable neck.

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I next turn my attention to creating the rosette and contra-rosette. Finding inspiration in Islamic art, I have designed an eight pointed star for the rosette. Here I am using some of the tools of the trade to lay out the design.

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I start out by creating a cartoon template to help in the lay out.

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I carefully trace out each individual piece onto a piece of veneer using an exacto knife as a scribe. The exacto blade scores the surface with a line that is about 1/4 of the thickness of a pencil lead. This is very precise work where the variation of each piece from the ideal quickly adds up. I have to fit each piece individually, adding a little here, taking a little there, to get a satisfactory whole.

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I rough out each piece with one of my band saws,

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And then use the sanding disk to trim the piece to its final shape.

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I make a copy of the template and lay out all of the pieces before gluing anything down.

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I glue the pieces right onto the paper template.

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I use one template for the rosette, and one for the contra-rosette. Each piece is individually marked trimmed to fit together with its neighbors.

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After they are glued up I sand everything flush and smooth and then cut out the completed sets.

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A view of the rosettes.

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Now that I have the rosette set completed I need to route out a channel in the top plate. Here I am laying out the position of the rosette and sound hole on the top plate.

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I use my milling machine to create the rosette channel.

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With a little care the rosette drops right into the channel. To create an outlining border for the rosette I route out a channel for a strip of black/white/black pin stripping.

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And then I cut out the sound hole .

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And here is a view of the rosette and contra-rosette pair.

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And a look at the top plate with the rosettes. In the back ground you can see the faint image of a guitar and a ukulele I am working on.