It's been slow going this week and other than a small amount of planing to the underside of the top and a measuring of the leg widths not a lot has happened. So I find myself humming this tune quite a bit as I go on.

I am leaving the top clamped up for a few days just to make sure the joint is really set. Next I am going to flatten the back and give it a few coats of finish It will be the only chance to do this before the final finishing. I am opting for a tung oil finish because thats all I have in the cupboard. Its also been a very reliable finish on my knives and doesn't stink the place out. I am only going to take the level of finishing to blade finish no sanding for me it's too dusty and slow. I may just finish off any plane tracks with the cabinet scraper.

 

The top is finally glued up it took some time to get it just right. I only have 4 clamps large enough to do it so I wanted the tightest fit I could get.

I dug out bocote from the store and it is just wide enough for a fingerboard and easily deep enough to get a bridge out aswell. The mahogany boards are only 4inches wide so I may have to make a 4 piece back and top. I did an internet search and discovered some banner era j45s had a 4 piece adirondack spruce top, also some classical makers prefer 4 piece tops to get equal grain right across the width. The only way to know if this is going to work is to try it and listen to the tap tone of the wood once it is together. If the guitar looks like it may be quite nice I may buy some spruce for the top instead.

Well the plane is flatter than it was there's still a slight hollow in the very middle but the edges are true now. I took it for a test on the last leg joint. I will have to adjust my technique now the plane is flatter I produced an upward curve at the end of the stroke rather than a downward one little more pressure on the nose is required. The plane produced fine shavings end to end and the surface got flatter rather than curvier after this adjustment. I started on the joint for the top and both edges are coming together nicely a little more fine fitting and we should be ready for a glue up. I am considering more than one dowel in the top just as an extra safety measure if the joint should open at any point in the future, or maybe an extra strut between the legs. I really don't fancy creating bread board ends on this scale they were a pain on the mini bench.

I found some 80 grit 3M sandpaper at the local Destroy It Yourself shop so I'm switching to that hopefully I'll have this plane finished today. Looks like my 9 1/2 block will need flattening it has a bow in the opposite direction.
 I started wondering if I could actually make a guitar out of the sawmill mahogany and what would it sound like ? I'm going to look through my wood store and see if I've got anything that might work as a fingerboard and bridge. I have some bocote lying around but I'm not sure its wide enough would be striking though !

I've started grinding the base of my plane the fine scratches are the new ones the lower grit paper was useless so I have to use 120 its going to take a long time to get this flat, its taken an hour to get this far !

Had time to play a couple of J45 today got a sneaky look at the bracing and some other details. I am itching to get on with the guitar build I thought I'd be well on my way to finishing the bench this week. The upside of the hold backs is good because it means it was my plane that was malfunctioning not my dodgy technique. I'll be putting that to the test once my lapping plate arrives ? I tried to photograph the bend in my plane but it was hard to see in detail but what it amounts to is a downward bow that lifts the cutter height when the rear of the plane contacts the wood and causes the cutter to dig in deep as the tip leaves the wood turning everything into a banana no wonder it took me so long to get those boards flat !

Due to a lack of anything productive happening I thought I'd treat you to another favourite song.

3 legs are glued and smoothed unfortunately I discovered my plane wasn't flat which was causing some problems in the jointing. It will be a few days before I can grind it flat. Thems the breaks.

 

As you can see it took a hefty toll on my plane blade the white highlights are the damage not a micro bevel ouch ! Off to grind it back and sharpen if you decide to use this technique I would suggest separate blades for the 2 operations may be even a sharper angle. The mirror polished edge is the micro bevel I have been lazy lately and just kept touching it up on a sharpening stone. So its no big deal regrinding this it is well overdue and then my micro bevel will be micro rather than huge !

I picked this leg to try the scrub technique with the no 5 there was quite a difference between the 2 boards. I  set the plane blade at an angle and dived in.

     

It levelled the boards very quickly removing thick chunks easily.

I then straightened the blade and took out the peaks left by the blade all in all quite a quick solution.

Added a dowel to stop the surfaces sliding now for another glue up

I just used one so I could still rub the surfaces together. An update to using the no5 as a scrub plane it worked ok on my next leg I'll document the process.