I don't own a Fox side bender so all forming is done with a heating iron & I don't pull the, 'point' furthest from the neck on the cutaway, right into the mould as it's a pretty tight curve & I'm always conscious of splitting the timber on such a tight curve. The head block has a taper on the cutaway side which when all glued up makes the side taper at the neck joint. A nice touch by Selmer that really feels nice on the hand when playing it.
The sides glued to neck & tailblock and linings glued in.
A side shot showing the shape of the sides, not just a straight taper from neck to tail!
The MDF thing it's sitting on is a clever idea of Micheal Collins that I copied, it's a curved dish matching the compound radius the top needs to be (the front 2 braces & back braces are a 12 foot radius and the other 3 front braces are a 7 foot radius). Each brace radius was drawn onto an mdf "rib" and cut out with the convex piece being thrown away & keeping the concave which gets glued to a base in the corresponding positions. I then run a longtitudinal "rib" down the length and then glued a 5mm thick piece of mdf onto my rib's, I now had a formed dish that I could sand & glue braces to the exact 3 dimensional shape, mark out and fit the side to(to match the shape needed for the soundboard). I made another for the back with the constant 12' radius which again was used for shaping & gluing the back braces & shaping the sides a 25 foot longtitudinal radius is used down it's length.
Next, a pretty standard looking back (minus the re-enforcing strip at this stage.)
Back glued to the sides (a little out of sequence because I actually made the soundboard after the sides,then the back)
Onto the soundboard, I cut the rough outline, shot the joint edges (doesn't have to be perfect at this stage!) then marked where the pliage was to go then heat bent my plates.
Here's a side shot to give you a better idea of the amount of pliage I added.
After this I shot the joint edges perfectly and joined them. The Petite Bouche soundhole was cut and the rosette was made using many bits of purfling!
Customer wanted the magnetic pickup in so I placed it to fall at the end of the fingerboard, usually the fingerboard extends to the 22nd fret in this area (the back of the soundboard is re-enforced at this point so I figured cutting an extra hole in the soundboard at this point wouldn't affect the vibration of the top plate too much).
Here's a shot from the back of the plate showing the re-enforcing strip and all the other 'flat' bracing that has to be placed before the ladder bracing is glued in. The two short braces are shaped to match the pliage so the soundboard is held in it's "correct" shape, they are also spaced from the centerline to correspond with the feet of the bridge to help drive the whole board.
A shot showing all the bracing of the top plate.
The final ladder brace (the 5th one) before the tailblock doesn't have to be there unless you are using the original long 670mm scale length, I left it in because being my first go at a Selmer I didn't know how it would compromise the soundboard's strength. But my latest one has a 25" scale and I left it out to see if it opened up the soundboard & it seems to have worked!
A shot of everything on the soundbox before finally gluing the top on (strengthening backstrip now in place!)
And all glued on with binding channel routed. Because it's a very 3 dimensional shape (as opposed to the archtops I'd made) I had to make a routing stand which is a good point of this build! I now have a proper routing stand
Hole in the side isn't a top secret soundport shape as used by NASA, its for the Gotoh battery box.
Tail end bindings done & body bound.
Neck was a pretty standard 2 piece sapele mahogany affair. The Selmers employ a zero fret so the little tapered ebony piece doubles as a fingerboard stop and bone string guide holder. I'd just inlaid my M.O.P signature into the headstock & it was waiting to be dressed down in this shot.
And finally just a few 'detail' shots of the finished axe.
Customer's signature inlaid into the tailpiece.
Tail end putting on a shiny face
And all nailed and glued together.
Mike hope this gave you a bit of an idea and if you have any questions feel free to post or PM. Not saying I'm any sort of expert but I must have done something right as it plays and is being lovingly used by it's owner.
Can you expand a bit on your technique for the soundhole? I just did an elliptical soundhole, and found out how hard it is to do! Yours looks great!
