Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

I put my sides in the mold and marked a line to trim the edges, I completely forgot that the joint has to be aligned with the center of the mold, consequently my joint at the heel is 1/8 off center.

I am considering two options to rectify

1, Let it be and glue the heel block in the correct position in relation to the center of the mold
2, Release the tension and let the sides spring back and re cut, I can put some spacers each side of the mold to compensate.

Some pictures are posted here

http://johnc-guitarbuild.blogspot.com/

What would you do ?

John

Thanks, that makes sense.

Bearing in mind that the heel end is covered up entirely how important is it to get this joint accurate in terms gap and overall alignment, is there some tolerances to play with ?

John

Hey...! What's left to be said after Mr. Todd gives an answer...!!!

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Ok I meant "first"

John-
If this is the biggest problem you have with your build you will be ahead of most of us!
Factory standards have changed the way we look at guitars- some of the guitars by the 'old masters' are decidedly 'wonky'- whether this was intentional or not is just conjecture. (I say all my mistakes are deliberate! )

What Todd said...
That joint line (at both the neck block and tailblock) is so 'handy' for alignment that I'd be careful to mark (or score) the 'correct' mid-line, just to avoid 'forgetting' at some point, and using the (very slightly) off-center glue line.

I usually clamp the sides into the (separated) mold halves and mark them from the mold, before cutting. From your blog picture, it looks as though your mold-maker has left a bit of a gap at the tail end, so that may not have been a good option for you in any case.

Cheers
John

Concur with John and Todd and carry it a bit further even if the seam is on dead centre. I mark a vertical centre line on the show face of the heel and tail blocks after they are glued in to ensure I will always have a reference. This is nice to have when marking for inletting back braces etc.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I don't see a mistake here...
Woodworking is a matter of hiding things and this is simple to hide. Now if your butt wedge is off center, that's a mistake. I don't hit the mark every time, and it's not important if it's routed away and covered with a wedge anyway.
Heel...ahhh, it's covered up to the binding, I still don't see a problem.