Here is our working room with two working tables in the middle. Around the tables there are a drilling machine, a band-saw, a set of go-bar clamp, a dust

collector and small power tools like a trimmer and a sander besides hand tools.

I'll explain briefly the process of guitar making of each day.

These are the materials which are necessary to make one guitar.

We are making an instrument by the "Spanish" method. The neck wood which goes into the body is characteristic of this traditional method. And the special working board called "Solera" is used.

Let's start with the neck billet.

1st day

Make the surfaces of the neck blank all level with a plane until it is 20 mm thick.

Draw a square line around 4 surface of the neck at 120 mm distance from one end. At 198 mm from the same end mark this line all round as before. Draw a diagonal line from the line at 120 mm to the line at 198 mm on the shorter edge.

Saw through the diagonal line.

Clean up the gluing surfaces and make them level.

Turn the short head section over and place it under the longer piece to form a continuous slope. And glue them with clamps, be care that they don't move along.

Plane lightly the surface of 2 halves of the soundboard and glue them.

2nd day

Glue a thin veneer of rosewood and sycamore on the head surface.

Plane the surface of the soundboard. Draw the outline of the guitar using a template.

Mark the position of the sound hole center.

Remove wood from the soundboard between the circle lines of inside and outside of the rosette.

Glue the rosette into the groove.

3rd day

Using a template draw the head shape.

Drill the holes for the head slots and for the barrels of the tuning machines.

Using chisels, and sanding stick, finish the head.

Make two 10 centimeters and a 15 centimeters blocks. These are laminated for the heel/foot. Glue them on the heel side of the neck.

Clean up the rosette with a scraper or a small plane. Level the rosette flush with the soundboard. Seal the surface with shellac or sanding sealer.

From the other side of the soundboard, remove wood with a plane and a scraper until the optimum thickness. The thickness differs from the qualities of the wood, from 1.8 to 2.7 mm. Generally the thickness at the center of the soundboard is greater than the periphery.

Cut the out line of the guitar roughly. And cut the sound hole with a circle cutter.

Draw all positions of the braces, reinforcing, fan struts,and harmonic bars.

Using the Solera or the working table and a go-bar clamp, glue the reinforcing plates under the fingerboard, and the sound hole and under the bridge if necessary. And go on to the other struts. The order to glue is from lower bracings to taller ones.

4th day

Plane the two sides of the heel/foot block square with the top surface of the neck.

Mark the 12th fret line around the heel block. Draw the lines of the rib slots and the shape of the heel and foot. Saw the rib slots. Carve or saw through the heel and foot.

Make the rest on the upper side of the foot to which the soundboard is glued.

Glue the fan struts on the soundboard.

Make the surfaces of the two halves of the backboard smooth and glue them.

5th day

Carve the groove at the center of the backboard with a router. The center ornament(a strip of inlay) is glued into this groove.

Prepare the ribs, planing and scraping the surface down to the thickness of about 2.2 ~ 2.0 mm.

6th day

Continue the work on the soundboard with the harmonic bar.

Scrape the center ornament to the level of the backboard. Turn the backboard over, remove wood up to the required thickness of from 2.5 to 2.0 mm.

Draw the out line of the guitar and cut the shape a little outside the line.

Draw the position of the back bars. Glue cross-grain strips to reinforce the seam of the backboard.

Mark the body depth on the ribs. The depth of the body at the end-block, the lower bout, the waist ,the upper bout and at the neck are necessary to be checked. Cut the waste parts away except the both shorter ends. Draw square lines from the soundboard side at the upper bout, the waist and the lower bout.

Now the ribs are ready to be bent on the bending iron. Bend at the waist first, frequently referring to the half template.

7th day

Now it is necessary to cut precisely the soundboard at the line of the 12th fret. This line matches to the platform of the foot.

Glue the neck to the soundboard on the Solera.

Make the end-block. And glue it vertically in tis position of the soundboard.

Glue the back bars to the backboard. The face of the bars that will be glued to the backboard is not flat.

Put the rib on the Solera or on the template, and mark where the centerline crosses both at the neck and the end-block of the ribs. Draw square lines both on the marks. At the neck end it is necessary to fit the ends of ribs into the rib slots of the foot. Measure the distance between the centerline and the end of the slot of the heel, and mark it on the rib. Turn the neck over and measure the distance from the center of the neck to the end of the slot. Transfer it to the fingerboard side of the rib. Do the same job on the other rib. Cut off the waste of the ribs.

8th day

All the ends of the struts and the bars of the soundboard must be trimmed at the line 2 mm(the thickness of the ribs) inside from the guitar outline.

Put rightly the ribs on the soundboard, and if the ribs are easily inserted in the slots of the foot, then clean the area that will be glued to the foot slots, to the linings and to the end-block.

Apply glue to the foot slots and to the end-block and glue the ribs to the soundboard firmly.

Now glue the linings (the individual blocks) all the way round the guitar.

Check the depth of the body on the ribs and taper them if necessary.

Glue the back linings.

9th day

Place the backboard on the ribs, aligning the centerline with the center of the end-block and of the heel. Trim the back-bars which butt against the ribs. And make notches on the top of the lining that receives the bars.

This is a very troublesome work, placing the back on the ribs, and remove the back, trim, cut and saw, then replace it and try to fit them......

You should also adjust the ends of the center-seam reinforcing.

Adjust the height of the foot and the end-block that will be contact with the backboard.

Glue the back to the ribs, pressing with spool cramps or with simple binding strings or under a "go-bar-clamp".

10th day

Bend the wood strips for binding and purfling on the bending iron.

Cut the rabbets on the periphery of the backboard with some kind of router or trimmer.

The binding and the end-block inlay will make a miter joint, so it is necessary that the ends of binding and the end-block inlay will be trimmed at an angle of 45 degrees.

The set of the binding and purfling is cut to the length and is glued in the rabbet, using elastic bands, beginning from the end-block inlay through the waist to the heel. Glue one side at a time.

Glue the heel-cap block to the heel.

11th day

Trim the heel cap.

Cut the rabbets of the soundboard. The binding and the purfling are glued to the soundboard in the same way as the backboard.

Plane the surface of the fingerboard. Select the face-side and make that side completely flat.

Then Plane the back side of the fingerboard to a thickness of 6 ~ 7 mm.

Plane one side of the long edge of the fingerboard absolutely level. And measure the same distance at any two points from this flat edge and draw a center line along the surface. Draw the nut line and the 12th fret line(325 mm from the nut line).

12th day

Scrape the binding and the purfling flush with the ribs and the backboard and the soundboard. Clean up the body.

Mark the width of the fingerboard at the nut and 12th fret measuring from the center line and draw the shape of the fingerboard. Plane the edges down to the lines. You must be sure that this edges are absolutely flat. The fret positions will be marked using this surface of these flat edges.

Saw off the fingerboard at the line of the nut.

Place the fingerboard on the neck and the soundboard. Draw the shape of the sound-hole with a short pencil from under the fingerboard. Cut the line of the shape of the sound-hole with a band-saw or a jeweler's saw.

Cramp the fingerboard in place(don't glue it), aligning the nut, the 12th fret line and the centerline. Check if the fingerboard sets symmetrically to the body.

To prevent the fingerboard sliding out of position when it is glued to the neck, insert three short dowels under the fingerboard.

Place the fingerboard in place and stick strips of masking tape on each side on the soundboard.

Apply glue on both surface and clamp gradually the fingerboard down adjusting the dowels in place.

Remove the masking tape from the soundboard. Leave to dry till next day.

13th day

Shape the sound-hole edge of the fingerboard. And remove the wood of the neck which extrudes from the fingerboard edges.

Before the frets are installed, confirm that the surface of the fingerboard is totally flat along its length.

Clamp a steel rule on the centerline of the fingerboard, placing the "0" point at the end of the nut. Mark the position of each fret measured from the nut at each time. Using a adjustable bevel, draw the fret lines each of which must be square to the centerline.

There is a method to calculate the fret distance. This method is adapted to any scale length. The calculation is as follows.

Divide the scale length by 17.817. This is the distance from the nut to the 1st fret. Subtract this distance from the scale length, and divide this remainder by 17.817. The result is the distance from the 1st fret to the 2nd. Go on until nineteen fret.

Fret position for 650 scale:

1 fret 36.5

2 70.9

3 103.4

4 134.1

5 163.0

6 190.4

7 216.2

8 240.5

9 263.5

10 285.2

11 305.7

12 325.0

13 343.2

14 360.4

15 376.7

16 392.0

17 406.5

18 420.2

19 433.1

Make the fret slots with a fret saw.

Tap the fretwire down with a hammer. I recommend to put an iron block of a flat surface on the fret wire and tap the block, not directly on the fret wire.

Cut the wire ends at the fingerboard edge.

You must hold a hard block or an iron bar in your hand just under the hammering point of the fingerboard from inside the sound-hole.

The surface of the frets must be level. Check the height of the frets placing a straight -edge on the frets. The surface should be filed with a leveling file or with a diamond stone. Each fret should be filed with a fret file to smooth curve. And bevel the two ends of each frets with a beveling file. A fine sanding paper or a sanding film will go well to polish the surface of the frets.

14th day

The dimensions of the bridge is depend on the design you choose. 185~189 x 28.5~29.0 x 8.0~9.5 in most cases.

The working process of the bridge is:

Make the surface flat and square all round.

Mark the position of the saddle slot, tie-block and the string holes.

Drill the string holes with a 1.5 mm drill. The depth is only a little longer than the tie-block.

Route the saddle slot until the slot is 5 mm deep. The width is 2 mm ~ 3 mm.

Reduce the tie-block to 7 mm with the 10 mm straight bit.

Route the gap between the tie-block and the saddle position with 3.5 mm wide cutter.

Cut the wood above the wings.

Shape the ramp and the front part of the saddle slot.

Shape the wings to 4 mm thick.

Glue the thin strips of the bone on the tie-block.

Place the bridge on the soundboard, adjusting the saddle position on the line 327 mm distant from the 12th fret. The half of the 650 mm scale length is 325 mm, but you must put the saddle on the position 652 mm from the nut. This extra 2 mm of the string is necessary to compensate the distortion of the pitch. There is a difference between the notes plucked openly(the string is not pressed) and the notes plucked with the string pressed at the 12 fret. The length of the string is longer when pressed, and the tension of the string gets higher than the open string.This compensation is different from the strings that are set.

Place the bridge on the position of the soundboard. Set two strings on the 1st and the 6th barrel holes of the head, and pull them downward over the 1st and the 6th string holes of the bridge. Adjust the bridge position until the gap between the strings and the fingerboard edge is equal at both sides.

Glue the bridge on the soundboard.

15th day

Mark the thickness of the neck on its sides at the 1st fret and the 9th fret. Join this marks and reduce the thickness with a chisel. When the tapered surface gets flat, shape the sides of the neck with a spokeshave and a scraper.

Screw the tuning machines on the head.

Check the distance between the upper end of the fret and the lower end of the string at the 12th fret. This distance is called the "action". Adjust the action, changing the height of the saddle and the nut.

Sand the entire guitar preparing for varnishing and polishing.

The material we use.

The fee