Guitar building overview

01
Preparation

All wood parts from top plate to linings are resawn and cut out from lumber except for very thin (0.3mm to 0.5mm t) veneers used for purflings.

Well-seasoned lumbers are coming from specialty wood lumber mills either domestic or overseas.

Billets are resawn for top and back plates, and further seasoned in the workshop.

  • Sides are resawn from the same lumber as back plates.
  • Neck blanks
Cutting slots on lining
Bindings are cut from laminated boards to form contrasting color thin line.
Maple veneers are slit to purfling strips and some are dyed to dark color to make black and white purflings.
02
Body
Curving the top and back plates. Rough curving is done by house made arch duplicator and finished by hand curving.
Curving backside of arch
Cutting f holes. After completing the tuning of top plate, f holes are cut and bound.
Bracing the top plate
X bracing is standard. Parallel bracing is adopted for the case of body mount pickup model.
Bending the sides
Linings and side brace
  • Gluing the back and top plates to the sides
    Shellac is coated inside before closing the box. Hide glue is used for back and top plate gluing
  • Cutting the body mortise
Body binding

03
Neck

  • Gluing laminated neck blanks
  • Cutting the truss rod groove
Cutting the dovetail
Gluing neck extension and headstock ears
  • Planing the rear of the headstock
  • Gluing headstock veneers
  • Cutting the headstock shape
Binding the headstock
  • Slotting fingerboard
  • Teparing the fingerboard and gluing to the neck with hide glue
  • Binding the fingerboard
Inlay work
Fretting
Shaping the neck

04
Finishing

Fitting the neck to the body
  • Scraping the recurve
Finishing
Fitting nut, tailpiece, bridge, finger rest, truss rod cover
  • Fitting frets
  • Wiring electric