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Last night I had a very pleasing night working on a florentine cutaway. This is the first Florentine cutaway we have built using our new Florentine mold/bending process and I'm here to report that it worked fantastic.

I built a cutaway pattern that I put in my side bender and built a custom caul press that replaced the side press caul. I made the press and cutaway pattern to match my desired Florentine shape.

I bent the cutaway wood using normal side-bending procedures and temperatures.

I had left the cutaway portion clamped to the wood caul block while on vacation and pulled it off last night to attach to the side.

A wood block for the tip was sanded on both a flat belt sander and a spindle sander to create all the proper angles. I initially glued the wood tip to the side only and let it sit until dry. Then through a process of sanding, shaping and many test fits, I cut the cutaway wood to match the side wood. I clamped everything but the cutaway in place and then used CA to glue the cutaway in place - holding it tightly together with my fingers until the glue set.

Photos can be seen here as usual: http://gallery.me.com/slidearts#100703

Photos show the cutaway and side glued together with the insert block in place. The side extends beyond the cutaway on purpose. I then took the glued pieces to my spindle sander and carefully sanded away the excess side wood until I had a nice pointed tip for the Florentine.

I plan to cover up the wood block with another piece of Claro Walnut cut to fit - so if you can see the cutaway block from the sound hole you'll just see walnut. Might change my mind and use an ebony overlay since there are other ebony accents on the guitar. I guess I'll look at both before I glue it on.

This weekend we will be able to install the neck and heel blocks now that the cutaway is done. We should also be able to get the kerfed lining installed. If time we might even get the back installed.

Have a great weekend!

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Looking good there, Paul! You're through the hard part (except the purfling at the point!).

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Great job Paul!

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.