Friday, June 28th, 2013:
After having let the French polished finish cure for 8 days, I lightly polished it up with Meguiar's #7 (Show Car Glaze).
Then spent a few hours removing the finish underneath the fingerboard extension, bolting up the neck and gluing the neck onto the body (just gluing underneath the fingerboard). Everything lines up perfectly (neck back angle, neck centered) -- yay! I will let it sit for an hour and then will remove the clamp.
Tomorrow I will start the process of locating and gluing on the bridge.
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Saturday, June 29th, 2013:
Spent a few hours, first, CAREFULLY figuring out and re-checking (over and over again) exactly where to position the bridge (this is a very crucial step --- a tiny bit off, and you have a guitar that won't play in tune). Once I was confident I had it right, I placed several layers of masking tape outlining the bridge, and, with an Exacto knife, scored about 1/32" inside the outline. Then, i used some orange safe stripper to dissolve the finish within the scored lines, scraping it away with a 1/4" chisel. Finally, I used the bridge-gluing clamp seen below to glue on the bridge.
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Sunday, June 30th, 2013:
I left the bridge clamp on overnight and removed it this morning. Here's what the guitar looks like now. When I thump on the bridge, it has a really, really clear, resonant tone (a C#, for both the back and the top, if that means anything) --- I think it sounds fuller and better than any guitar I've made so far. I don't know if it's the French polish that has made this difference or not. At any rate, I am going to wait till tomorrow (Monday) to do the rest --- make the nut and saddle, install the tuners, bridge pins, and endpin, and, FINALLY, STRING IT UP!!!! Can't wait to find out what it's going to sound like, compared to my others!!!
Finally, the fourth photo below is of the bridge-gluing clamp that I used (generously given to me by John Hall, of Blues Creek Guitars) --- for this smaller-sized guitar, it is the only way I had of gluing on the bridge --- all my other clamps were either too long, too short, or too shallow
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