Archtop Guitar Build - Body Assembly

The back plate was placed under the sides and a coat of thinned shellac was applied to seal the back plate and sides.  The inside of the back plate was lightly sanded and the top plate was placed into a gluing caul and glued to the sides which were held in place in the body mold.  The top plate then had a coat of shellac applied and was lightly sanded.

 The top plate and sides were removed from the mold and placed back into the gluing caul and the back plate was glued in place using a second caul.  Once again clamps were placed to provide even pressure around the perimeter.

 The sides and back plate were intentionally over-sized by about 3/16 inches to prevent the possibility of having them be too small for the sides (that would be really bad...).

 The plates were sized to the sides using the spindle sander with a standoff on the table to make sure that only one plate was sanded at a time.  Here is the assembled body waiting for binding channels.