Gluing on the lining

Gluing on the top and back

Gluing on the top and the back is made easier by using a workboard in the shape of the body. The best and least expensive method of gluing on a domed top and bottom is to use a rubber strip - the inner tube of an old car tyre would be ideal for this purpose. Cut it with scissors into a 5cm (2")-wide strip; by cutting round and round until the tube is used up you will get a strip several times longer than the circumference of the tube. Normally, a strip thus cut from a car tyre tube will be long enough, but if an even longer strip should be needed, you can also tie together two strips. If you cannot get a car tyre tube, you can also use the inner tube of truck tyres (check the Yellow Pages for truck repair shops). These are much stronger, so you will need to cut a slightly less wide strip from it. Before you start gluing on the top and bottom of the body I strongly recommend that you practice every single step of work beforehand. Only when no more problems are foreseeable must glue be applied on the lining and the surface of the sustain block. The glue should be put on evenly thick and in the middle of the lining; do not spread it with your fingers.

Then place the back - which, as you will remember, has been cut out 3mm to 5mm larger than the desired body size - onto the side lining and fix it on both ends of the body with two clamps and cauls. Hammering in two small nails in the area where the neck or the bridge will be fastened later or in the pickup cavity area helps to keep everything in place. Make sure that the center line really ends up in the center. Next put the rubber strip around the waist, tie it together at the bottom, pull it firmly upwards and put it across the lower part of the body. The first “layer” should be placed right next to the clamp, and not as shown in picture 6. Then pull the strip firmly downwards, pass it back under the workboard, pull it upwards again next to the first layer and place it so that it crosses the first layer. After that continue in the same manner (pulling the strip downwards, etc.) until all of the lower part of the body is wrapped up.

Paper clips

Paper clips can be bought at any stationer's. They come in different sizes and are normally used for holding together sheets of paper. But they also come in quite handy in guitarbuilding, serving the same purpose as the more expensive spring clamps; even large guitar manufacturers such as Yamaha use them. By buying such clips in bulk you should be able to get a better price although they are quite cheap anyway.

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Please do it better and place the first winding right next to the clamp!

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Using clamps

If you use clamps for gluing on the back make a narrow guitar-shaped clamping caul like shown above.

Proceed similarly with the upper part of the body until its edge too is firmly pressed down by several layers of rubber strip (1). When pulling the strip upand downwards it should be well stretched. The strip can be twisted on the bottom side, but on the top it has to lie really flat on the body. After a few final layers have been wrapped around the waist the rubber strip is tied up and the body left to dry overnight. The bottom should not protrude too far over the sides as it might otherwise break under the pressure.

When the glued joint is dry, remove the cork edge supports from the linings and attach them to the edge of the already- glued-on back. After that the top is glued on in the same way as the back.

Cutting the projections of the top and back flush is best done with a flush-trimming bit with end-mounted ball bearing (2). Depending on how much needs to be routed off several passes may be required to prevent the splintering-off of pieces of wood. Since the router bit cannot be guided parallel to the sides - the router is always at an angle because of the domed body - the top and the back won't be routed completely flush with the sides. This does not matter, however, as we will take care of that when we rout the rabbet for the lining.

Routing the binding rabbet

Routing the rabbet for the lining is not as easy on a domed-top as on a flat-top guitar, as the router bit cannot be guided parallel to the sides of the body. A stable set-up is obtained by placing two self-made spool clamps on the edge of the body and by using a shim around the bit on the router table as shown in the figure below. This should make it possible to rout the rabbet evenly. I also needed 6mm-thick shims for this job. Note, however, that this method only works with bodies that are the same height all around their edge, as semi-acoustic guitars are. If the height of the side of your electric guitar varies around the edge, the router is best guided independent of the body and moved up and down on a vertical slide bar.

Make the clamp from two wooden wheels, a long bolt and a wing nut

Glue the binding to the body as described above. Remember that a wooden binding has to be bent first. Use wood glue for gluing on a wooden binding.

Making f-holes

F-holes can be cut out with a coping saw before the top is glued on (3), but as already described in the section on hollow-body guitars they can also be cut out with a small router bit, using a template and a template guide (4). Tweezers and a vacuum cleaner will be useful for cleaning up the inside of the body.

Making the neck pocket

The neck pocket that will take the neck can be routed like that of a solid-body guitar. This will be explained in more detail in the section on fitting the neck. The neck is traditionally glued in, but it is equally well possible to bolt it on. Due to the height of bridges normally used on domed-top guitars the neck inevitably needs to be angled back. As the body is domed, a curved shim has to be used to hold the neck pocket template at an angle and in a stable position. For bolting on the neck you need neck attachment ferrules. Pots and switches are best fitted through the pickup openings. Threadening pots in by using a string fastened at a tiny hole in the pot shaft may sometimes be necessary.

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