Roland’s Cutaway

Cutaways add an extra layer of complication (and interest!) to the construction of a guitar's rim. I like my cutaways to blend seamlessly into the neck; as it all takes a wee bit of planning, I thought that you'd like to see the process.

All of the various rulers represent the centre line, position of saddle, edge of the fretboard etc.

The mould is then modified……

....and the sides bent.

There are three Honduras cedar blocks that hold the sides together; each carefully shaped and glued in place.

Once the blocks have been glued in place, the double thickness solid linings go on (easier said than done); there were photos of that part of the process in the previous post.

The sharp end of the cutaway has a “point” fitted to it; this protects the end grain of the sides from being accidentally chipped. A piece of English walnut is glued on and shaped so that it blends into the cutaway.

Meanwhile, down at the blunt end, the end graft is fitted and at this stage it’s also easier to drill the hole for the end pin.

And here is the completed rim with its top and back edges sanded to fit the soundboard and back, housing joints cut to take the end of the braces, and a couple of side braces in case of any accidental impact to the sides which could cause a split.

Busy, busy, busy.....

The next step for Adrian’s pair is to get them set-up and playing “in the white”. I’m using rosewood for the bridges for two reasons. Firstly, from an aesthetic perspective it will match all the other rosewood used and I think that using a limited palette of woods makes for a much more coherent design. Secondly, rosewood is lighter than ebony and as these bridges have to be made a little wider than normal (to allow for the transducer to run through it and for extra string tension) it’s a good way to cut down on the mass of the bridge.

 The bridge has to be fitted to the curvature of the soundboard, so after some rough shaping, the final fitting is done like thus……………

Feeler gauges help to ensure a good fit.

Then we are into making the tailpiece, nut, fitting tuners and going through the set-up procedure.

You can see the Headway transducer poking out of the sound hole; this won’t be fitted until I’m 100% sure of the final bridge position. Drilling a hole through the soundboard has a certain finality to it!

 I’m very pleased with the clean look of the tailpiece, just two screws and the jack socket. It would be silly not to use the jack socket as an anchoring point as essentially it’s a 12 mm bolt going through the end block.

I’ve also just bent the sides of Ian’s model 2 guitar. As the shape is asymmetrical and made up of four parts, as much time goes into planning the bending of the sides, as into the bending itself!

You can see that the mould comes apart to make the whole process a wee bit easier.

As always the sides get bent on my trusty bending iron.

 Now we wait for them to dry out thoroughly before the various blocks are fitted and glued in place………….