Barbarossa Guitars

Fine Hand-made Guitars

Guitar Under Construction

Here are some photos that show the construction of a recent steel

string guitar (slope-shouldered dreadnought shape).

Click on the thumbnails to see a full-sized photo.

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Making the Neck:

I start with a board of quarter-sawn Honduran mahogany

 

Headstock sawn off	Clamped for sanding the join surfaces	Sanding the joint surfaces	Perfectly sanded joint
or:
Cutting the truss rod slot:	Slotted	Ready except for thickness of the headstock piece	Ready to join
Gluing up the headstock	Gluing on the ebony headplate	Headplate glued on	Then the headstock is shaped to its basic outline
The the machine roller holes are drilled	Then the end holes of the slots	Then the slots are sawn out	Then filed to exact shape
Then the ramps are cut and sanded	And the basic headstock it complete

And the basic headstock it complete:

Then the inlay is done:

First the inlay pieces are cutout and then tack-glued to the headstock:	Then you score around the inlays with a very sharp knife to provide an outline of them:	Then I use a tiny router bit on a Dremel tool to rout out the cavities:	Here are the cavities partly completed:
After routing the cavities, the inlays are placed in the cavities	an then they are glued	and sanded out	and with finish on the headstock:

Now I radius and slot the fretboard:

Then the neck is ready to fit to the body:

Cutting the dovetail on the neck:

Check the neck alignment as I lower the dovetail on the neck to a perfect fit in stages.

This tool I designed myself fits into the truss rod slot and checks alignment two rotational

axes and two translational axes:

Body side of the joint, neck side of the joint:

Fitting to the body:

Then the heel cap is made and glued on:

Then the fretboard, now with frets pressed in, is glued to the neck:

Then the final shape of the back of the neck is cut.

I do this with a spoke shave, chisels, and scapers, and finally sanding:

Then it's ready for gluing to the body, which has been assembled:   ASSEMBLING BODY

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Last Modified:  Apr 8, 2009