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The Zebrawood OM
My twin sister has picked up guitars after watching how much fun my Dad and I have had with them. She struggles, teachers herself while handling her family and work, but she motors through it and loves it. One day, she decided that a new guitar would be a fantastic Christmas gift, and I got a new project!
My sister loves contrast in everything she does, and we decided to do something similar in her guitar. She originally wanted a black guitar made from Rosewood and Spruce. At the same time, I have been trying to branch out in my building, and we both agreed to build a guitar with a black face, more typical bracing, but using laminated bracing, a Zebrawood body and African Mahogany neck.
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The first step is to bend the wood. Here is one of her sides totally bent, while the other is cooking in the side bender. Under her side, you can see a Macacuba side being prepped for bending as well, and you can find that guitar elsewhere on the site. I have to say, this is the hardest wood I have ever tried to use. It does not like to be bent. It dulls tools in a heartbeat, but sands and smoothes quite nicely. As tough as it is to work with in thin plates, I am really looking forward to hearing it for the first time. |
| In the photo to the right, her sides have been bent, and the kerfing has been installed. The kerfing is a flexible, ribbon-like strip of wood that gets glued along the top and bottom edge of the guitar. It gives the top and back more surface to glue too without adding much mass to the guitar. The only thing left to do before adding the top and back is to glue in some vertical braces along the side. Zebrawood is very brittle, very splintery wood with natural cracks and fissures in it. There were several natural cracks in the sides that I ended up super gluing closed once they were bent, and now present no problem. The vertical braces will, in the event of a tragedy, prevent any crack from zipping all the way around a side and causing more sever damage. |
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Here, the back and top have been installed, as well as the end graft, which covers the seam on the bottom of the guitar and provides a more stable area to install the strap button. |
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The Zebrawood OM
