The Hight Build | I know that many of you are very disappointed that you didn't get a Tyson Hand-Did on Christmas morning - maybe next year. But my friend Ben Hight did! Wanted to post some pics of the build process so Ben could see the process of his guitar coming together. The whole process started with me and Ben's brother Daniel planning out a guitar for Ben. Don't we all wish we had a brother like that! Usually I would sit down with someone and ask them a boat-load of questions about their playing style, tone preference, etc. Since this was a surprise guitar, I could not do that with Ben. Since Daniel knows Ben and I know guitars we pulled together a very nice design and wood combo that I hoped would work as a balanced and responsive guitar.This guitar has a figured Walnut back and sides, Honduras Mahogany top, Khaya neck, and Koa binding. You can see all the wood laid out there still thinking it is a tree.I always start by thicknessing and bending the sides and binding. Daniel was there to help that day and add a little brotherly love to the mix.I am still using the shaping mold and heating blanket technique which gives consistent results and less terror of cracking a side. The sides are places in the form along with the binding to hold everything in place.At this point I join the top and back plates and thickness them to the proper size. Didn't take an pics of this as it is fairly boring. Now the rosette is traced in and routed out.This rosette is a simple strip of abalone zipflex bordered with 3/32 black-white-black purfling. Simple, but adds that "pop" without punching you in the face.Both the abalone and the purfling gets leveled through the sanding steps.For this one, I decided to put in a back center-strip of the flamed Koa binding - that stuff is just too beautiful to not use as much as we can. The GoBar deck is one of my favorite tools. In fact, one of the back plates was pretty warped when it can in. I used the heating blanket and careful pinning on the GoBar deck to flatten it out again. It has saved my bacon on several occasions.Next I cut the top and back plates to their rough shapes - starting to look like a guitar now.Time for bracing. I start with all my bracing stock (spruce in this case) cut to 6x16mm strips. I do some pre-shaping before I glue them in place, but most of the braces are simple cut to length and then chiseled to their final shape as I "tune" the top and back.The back braces are glued up while I work on the placement of the top braces. For this guitar I went back to a more standard bracing pattern with two tone arms in the lower bout of the X-Brace.In the next photo you can see my performance enhancing drugs there to the left.Using the GoBar deck to hold everything in place. In the upper bout you can see the A-Frame bracing that I picked up from George Lowden's pattern.The two upper "A" braces are notched under the upper transverse brace and epoxied directly into the neck block. They are also notched into the X-Brace. I think this really helps with the transmission of energy and sustain.All the braces are shaped and formed and the top and back are ready to be glued to the sides.To prepare the sides, the end blocks are glued in along with the kerfing. The kerfing a long, notched pieces of spruce that are glued to the sides and add more surface area for the top and back to be glue to. I use reversed kerfing because I think it jut looks better inside the guitar.Once the kerfing is in place the top and back are fit in place. The sides are notched to allow key braces to pass through and all the braces are chiseled to fit in properly.This is one of my favorite times in the build - the inside of the guitar just looks cool. To bad this is the only time anyone really gets to see it.In the next pic you can see the notches in the kerfing that allow the braces to extend all the way through to the sides. You can also see a new technique for doing side-struts that I picked up while watching a video of Matt Petros of Petros guitars building. In this pattern, the mahogany struts are glued in first and the kerfing is fit in between. This adds strength to the sides to allow the top to vibrate with less loss of energy I think. Anyway, we are giving it a shot.In the next pic you can see that I have already routed out the sound-port hole. I plan all this out before gluing in the side-struts so I know where everything needs to go.Next, I glue on the top so I can make any last minute adjusts to the braces to make sure the top is singing the way I want it to.Top is glued on successfully and ready to go. All that hard work up to this point just looks cool.Now it is time to install the binding. For this build, I was able to buy a new binding bit for my router with a set of bearing spacers that allows me to cut channels for the all the binding and purfling with a LOT less work, more precision, and definitely less stress. Installing the binding can be one of the most tedious and nerve wracking steps. And if it is not done well, it makes the whole guitar look cheap.I cut a place all the binding first and hold in in place with binding tape. Next thin CA glue (superglue) is wicked into the gaps to glue it all in place.And there is the beautiful Koa binding set against the walnut and mahogany with a 3/32 black-white-black purfling line on the stop. I really like the subtle variations in the tones of this wood combination.And there is the box with the binding installed and scraped flush.The last steps involved cutting the fingerboard, installing the frets, and shaping the neck.This guitar is a multiscale/fan-fret and all the frets have to be measured, marked and cut by hand. This one step alone takes me about 4-5 hours. I check, double check and recheck all my markings before I cut. If this gets messed up, the guitar will never be right.Also, the headstock has to shaped to allow for the slant of the nut. This means a compound angle on the headstock. There is already a 14 degree backset there, and now after carefully marking out all my dimensions, I plane the offset angle so the bottom side of the headstock pitches down about 3 degrees. It is very subtle, but it looks so cool.The fingerboard is then glued to the roughed out neck (Sorry, I forgot to take pics of this process, but it is not as exciting as it sounds.)Since this guitar also has a bound fret board just like the Steve McIntyre guitar, all the frets have to be cut to length and the overhand section of the fret tang has to filed off so that the crown sits flush on the fingerboard. I have made a little jig to hold all this in place.Now all the frets can be installed.In the pic below, you can see how smooth a clean a bound fingerboard looks. The frets look like the are just sitting on top of the Rosewood.Lastly comes the finishing. Again I am doing and open-pore TruOil hand-rubbed finish. With the first application of the oil, the wood just comes alive.After all the finishing work is about 95% done, I glue on the bridge, attach the neck, level and crown the frets, install the tuners, shape the nut and saddle, and put on the strings. And like magic it really transforms into a guitar.I now pray that the bridge will hold, put on the strings and do all the setup. I will get with Ben and do all the final dialing in after he has played it a couple of weeks and everything settles in. Very pleased with the way this one turned out and I hope Ben is too. Will be posting more "beauty pics" in the next couple of days.