Guitar Maker

THE VELVET JOURNEY 4

Chapter 4: Body Language

So we finally made it to talk about the body of our new guitar. For the specific tone we wanted to achieve, we decided to go for a 1-piece Mahogany with a 2-piece Maple top. The depth of the Mahogany combined to the high midrange flavour of the maple top will give it that focussed and tight tone.

Well, here again, the wood combinations are nothing new and we chose them specifically for their tonal charcteristics. However, what is new on such a guitar type is a slightly thinner and lighter body that would enhance the overall midrange response which is part of our signature tone. This is something we have already achieved on our Sonnet and T-Wave guitars.

We’ll start with wood blanks and tightly bond them together, after that, we will run the body blank through a planer to get it to the right thickness. Then we can start to carefully cut out the general shape using a band saw.

Something special in this type of guitar is the carved top. While we put a strong emphasis on making guitars by hand, this is the only step where we will use a CNC process for the general carving shape. Yet, once the general lines are carved we will still need to go back to a lot of handwork: first we remove the sharp edges, then we will make the top smooth by sanding.

The body will receive a nice cream top binding such as the fingerboard. Back of the body will have a 4mm radius edge.

After all that is done, we can start to rout the neck pocket which is an important moment as it requires precision and respect of the center line. At the same time, we will do all routings on the back of the body for the electronic cavities.

Next step is to join the body to the neck and it shall slowly start to look like a guitar!

Stay tuned!