The heel part one

This post will document the construction of the heel. The heel joins the neck to the body of the guitar, and in a classical guitar holds the sides in place. In this photo I am gluing a block of mahogany to the neck. This join needed to be very precise as the glue line will be very visible once the  heel has been carved.

Here is the neck held captive by a jig I used to cut the slots for the sides. The jig is of Geza Burghardt's design and it was one of the first things I made when I embarked on this project. As a novice woodworker it was quite tricky to construct. I think it would probably go a bit smoother if I was to try again now. The heel sticks out the back of the jig, as can be seen in the next picture. The bottom of the jig is not flat, but angled at the correct angle that the slots need to be cut at to ensure they meet the neck in a nice arc.

Here I am demonstrating how the slots are cut. The saw is made from a piece of maple and a japanese dozuki saw blade. In this photo the jig has been fitted with an extension plate in order to cut the second side of the slots (which will be hidden inside the guitar).

Using one of my trusty English chisels I cleaned out the slots. The heel has also been cut roughly on a bandsaw, with a curve on the outside, and an 'L' shape on the inside. The 'L' is tapered to the slope of the back of the guitar, and will be eventually glued to the back.

The curve of the heel was cut flat by chisel and then shaped to the correct profile using a finger plane. The bottom of this plane is curved to allow concave cuts to be made in the wood. The plane in the photo is one of Geza's, but I've since made two of my own, which I hope to show in the next post.

The headstock part 2

This post with show the final few steps I took to finish the headstock of the guitar. First the ramps at the bottom of the slots were cut with a small handsaw and a chisel. In the photo you can see a small sanding stick that I used to do the final finish along with a metal file.

To finish the top of the slots, which are semi-circular I had to improvise a little. I made a small sanding drum from some steel rod and adhesive sandpaper in my drill press. In the photo you can see the dust layers left on the paper with the ebony on top and the mahogany on the bottom.

Here is the back of the headstock in its final state.

And the front. The ebony is very dense and hard so it can be worked to a very smooth finish with just sandpaper. You can also see the finished outline of the top here, which was completed with files and sanding sticks.

Here is the completed headstock with the tuners in place. That's it for the top of the neck, next will be the heel at the other end.