I've got my mold partially glued up and have the outline drawn on the tops of 2 of the 3 pieces--picture a sandwich, the guitar outline goes on the bread and a larger piece of mdf goes between them. It all gets glued up, then cut out next tuesday.
Also, I glued up the top of the guitar. It comes as 2 pieces of Bear Claw Sitka (it's hard to see the sworls in the grain, but it's very cool), then you plane it, check where the two pieces meet using a light table, then plane and check some more. When they are perfect--NO light can be seen through the seam-- then you can glue. It took about an hour. The class instructor used mine as the demo, but I was the one doing the planing.
I also got the template for the guitar cut out and sanded. I spray glued a copy of the plan to a piece of plexiglass and cut it out on the bandsaw at home and cleaned it up on the disc and spindle sanders in class. Plus about an hour of hand sanding. It's funny, it may look smooth, but if you run your fingers along the edge you feel all sorts of bumps. Those gotta' go.
I bought a belt/disc sander today and cut out the router guides for the Rosette and sound hole. Everyone else in class can use a hole-saw, but I'm making a 'D' hole guitar and that requires special jigs for routing the channel for the rosette and sound hole. It was a good exercise in patience (not my strong suit). The first ones I made I cut out of 3/4" mdf and routed with the dremmel tool. They looked like crap.
Today, I cut them out of some scrap plexi and sanded them on the new sander. I also made a spindle sander with my drill and vise. Then, lots of hand sanding. I had to touch up some spots with Bondo, which I'll clean up tomorrow.
Anyhow, here are the router jigs:
The big one is the outside of the rosette. The thin one goes inside to cut the inside of the rosette. Then the thick ring goes inside the big one to cut the soundhole. I'm hoping to do this next week.
