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You are here: Home / Building A Monarch / Building a Monarch: Top and Back

Building a Monarch: Top and Back

The building of any guitar begins with selecting the woods to be used. A bookmatched set of Spruce or Cedar is selected for the top, and a back and side set is chosen for the body. Standard woods for the latter are Rosewood, Mahogany, or Maple. Many other woods can be used, and the choice is primarily one of personal taste.

The top and back sets are carefully laid out for best use of grain and figure, glued up, and thicknessed. The shapes are cut out using templates and the braces are glued into place. In a standard build, the braces are carved and shaped at this time. If the builder voices and tunes the top and back, this is done as part of the boxing process… see Part Two of this blog. The photos in the gallery below show the steps involved to make and brace the back and top of a Monarch guitar.

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Baking Tops

A number of guitar builders (including a couple of well-known factory-made brands) follow the practice of baking the Spruce tops in an oven at low heat prior to using them in the construction of an instrument. This practice has caused a lot of … [Read More...]

Lutherie Classes: Acoustic Guitar Building Class

Guitar Building Class Please Note: Due to my heavy repair and restoration schedule, I am no longer able to offer the build class. This is an archive page. Have you ever wanted to build your own high quality acoustic guitar, but were intimidated … [Read More...]

About Our Name

Many people ask about our name. One of my wife's friends even asked her if I made guitars from any other wood besides Dogwood! For those familiar with the Dogwood tree, this brings a chuckle since this flowering beauty attains only a small size… … [Read More...]

Customer Testimonial: Gibson Setup

"I thought my new Gibson acoustic played pretty well until I had Greg set it up for me. Wow! I could tell a real difference in the action. Based on that experience I had him do a fret dress on an older Ibanez and again, I was surprised at how much … [Read More...]

1968 Fender Jazz Bass Neck Work

A customer brought me a very cool 1968 Fender Jazz Bass neck. The neck is fretless and- as the Beatles would say, "very strange"- it had no nut slot. There was also a piece of binding missing at the heel. The customer was interested in having the … [Read More...]

Ordering your Dogwood Guitar

Please Note: Due to my heavy repair and restoration schedule, I am no longer building custom acoustic guitars. This is an archive page. Thank you for choosing to order one of my handmade acoustic guitars. From the day we begin to design your dream … [Read More...]

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Technical Articles

Bolt-On Necks: High Tongue Frets

I am including this article as a special page in the Services Menu because of the frequency with which the issue of high tongue frets arises. The tongue is the part of the fretboard that extends into the body of the guitar. On acoustic guitars, the … [Read More...]

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Viewpoint Articles

Exploring Common Guitar Myths

I am going to divide this article into two sections: Myths and misunderstandings about playability and care; and myths about tone. We will take these two topics in order. Playability and Care So, your guitar is a little hard to play, the … [Read More...]

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