Week 25: Construction Begins

With my preparations in place I began construction on the final Attune prototype this week, with the aim of having it finished by the end of the current week. Progress is going well at the moment: the body, neck and fingerboard have all largely been completed, leaving only the bridge, hardware and finishing to complete this week.

Filling the wood before it was laser cut proved to be very useful, as not only did the paint not bleed out of the guide but once sanded it gave the body a very smooth finish. In addition the small changes made to the guide turned out very well when laser cut, making the whole thing look more organised and professional.

One of the more laborious tasks I had to undertake was creating the neck joint that would fix it to the body. On guitars (and most other string instruments) the neck sits at an angle to the body so that the strings do not sit too high off of the fretboard. However because this angle is very slight I had to take very small amounts off of the dovetail join to create it, doing so by hand so that I could have more control. Thankfully the join turned out quite well and the neck and body are now glued together.

With the degree show in only a few weeks I still have a fair bit work to do on the prototype, mostly finishing to ensure that it looks as good as possible. At this stage I am very consciously aware of the fact that no matter how good I think my idea is poor presentation can still let it down, and I want ensure that this does not happen.