Building a Rdgeway Page 1

The following pictures / photographs show the construction sequence in making a Ridgeway guitar. The shots are a mixture of guitars - mainly "Ridgehawk" with a few others chucked into the mix - just to add variety!

First a series of accurate 1/4 scale drawings are produced .............................

Followed by a detailed coloured drawing to give an idea what the finished product will look like

From the 1/4 scale drawings a full sized one is produced, and from that a Dalerboard template is made onto which the precise positions of the bridge, nut and pick-ups will be plotted and all alignments worked out. This template is for a Thinline 'Ridgecaster'

The wood for my guitars is bought in as a pair of billets, I only ever use top rate wood from reputable UK suppliers of tonewoods. The first job is to square up the edges to make them ready to be joined. I start this process off on my table saw, but spend a bit of time setting it up to cut perfectly square before cutting into the billets of expensive wood. If done right there's very little planing to do afterwards.

Once I'm happy with the edges they're drilled to take dowels, these don't offer any additional strength they just prevent the joint sliding as it's being clamped up - the glue is quite viscous. The dowels are glued into one of the slabs of wood and left to dry while the receiving holes are drilled in the accompanying half. The billets can then be glued and clamped. I use aliphatic resin glue, this stuff is incredibly strong. So much so, that the wood will split before the glue gives way, therefore it needs to be right first time!

A pair of raw maple wood billets for a guitar top - as bought from my supplier

These are a couple of pair of Ash billets for a 'Ridgecaster' with their edges prepared before gluing. The pair on the left are going to be the guitar top and those on the right will be the main body

The billets of a Ridgehawk glued and clamped up, they will be left like this for 24 hours so that the glue dries completely

After drying out, the body blank must now be reduced to the correct thickness. I use a router with a large diameter flat bottomed cutter across 2 straight edges - all clamped to the flat bed of my table saw. I prefer to use this method rather than a planer thicknesser because they have a tendency to rip big gouges into the billets. This way is a lot more gentle with the wood, especially when working on soft species like Swamp Ash

Now at the right thickness the wood can be marked out for The full size template being used for it's first task, which is to mark out the guitar shape on the glues wood billets

The guitar shape marked out on a piece of Swamp Ash, along with the acoustic chambers - and in this case because this particular guitar will have active pick ups fitted, a battery chamber

Removing wood from the acoustic chambers with a Forstner cutter in the pillar drill

The acoustic chambers rough cut in the 'Ridgehawk' Body blank. The line running at right angles to the centre is marking the bridge position for when the top is put on. The guitar shape will have to be re-marked out at that point and the bridge line will be used as a datum to make sure the template can be perfectly re-aligned.

Gluing the first half of the top on, I use the pillar drill as a press to clamp the centre of the wood where the clamps won't reach. Note the 'high tech' wooden wedge to lock it in place!

Bit of a busy photo this, somewhere under all the clamps is the second half being glued on, it's now left overnight to dry.

The clamps removed. The shape has now been re-drawn on the top using the bridge position lines as a datum point. The shape will now be in the exact same place as it was originally before the top went on.........Hopefully!