Steblein Guitars

Custom Hand Built Guitars

Preparing the Body back piece

Preparing the Body back piece

Both the top and back pieces of the guitar body consist of bookmatched pieces of stock which are intended to create a mirrored grain pattern in a single piece. When materials are acquired, they arrive as two separate pieces with need to be first edge planed, and then glued together to become a single sheet.

The first phase of this is edge planing. For this, I clamp the two pieces together and align the soon to be glued sides up in the vice. Using a large hand plane set to a very very small cutting depth, I create a straight smooth surface which which glue will be applied. This takes patience and some trial and error as the original edge imperfections are worked out.

Old No 7 used for edge planing the pieces

After the planing, I apply glue to the joining edge and position and clamp down in a home-made glue-up jig that uses wedges and rope to pull the two pieces together along a perfectly flat surface.

Edge Planed Bookmatched pieces ready for glueing
Glue applied and tensioned using wedges in the glue-up jig

Next up for this piece will be thickness planing which will be another post.

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Top Preparation

Sat Apr 22 , 2023
For the top, this guitar will be using Adirondack Spruce. Much like the back, we prepare and face glue bookmatched pieces to form a singular stock to work from. Working from the top, I start with the rosette groove. I start by using an lmii hole cutting jig as shown here. Essentially, you drill a […]