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Earlier this year I was given a pile of unknown scrap wood from a friend doing some renos. He knew about my cbg hobby and that I liked to use reclaimed materials is possible. I was a little unsure of agreeing to take half a truck load of scrap lumber without knowing what it really was. I don't have much space for storage. But when he dropped it off, one sniff of that unmistakable sauna smell told me I was getting a bundle of cedar baseboards. I was a little disappointed hoping it would be maple or oak that I could use for necks, but I piled it up and figured if all else fails I can have a nice campfire.

A couple weeks later I was playing my steel string acoustic and my wife asked me if I was going to do anything with those boards. I wasn't really sure what to tell her. My wife has helped me curtail my hoarding tendencies by making me dispose of things I really don't have any use for. Realizing where this conversation was headed, I had to think fast. I knew some boxes were made of cedar, but then it hit me. My acoustic had the answer: it was a cedar top guitar. I quickly told her that I could make guitar tops and build my own boxes. This got the usual response of, "Uh huh...If you say so...".

I started doing my homework and looking at my own guitar to find out what makes an appropriate piece of wood for a soundboard. One thing kept coming up (as well as studying my own instrument) that quarter sawn wood with a tight grain will give the best tone and have the most strength. After sorting through my boards, I found that about 1/3 of the pieces met this criteria. And once I took into account cracks, knots, nail holes and other defects, I could possibly use about half of that.

What follows is a description of how I created a handful of soundboards. The first, which I made a ukulele from was done with a scarf joint in the Centre seam, but that was the hard way to do it. These instructions are mostly done from the advice of a local luthier Peter Sawchyn (his guitars are amazing, check them out: www.sawchyn.com).

Resaw the Wood

For this job you'll need a bandsaw and a fence.

The first piece I cut I used a 3/8" blade with 16tpi. It worked but it was slow, smoky and eventually wonked out at the end of the cut. I picked up a 3/4" 3tpi blade and that's all I'll use in the future. Make sure the blade is tensioned properly and running straight. If things are a little out the blade can pull at an angle or wobble. All of which can be cleaned up later but makes the job waaaay harder.

I made my fence out of some scrap plywood. It's nothing fancy. Just made sure it 90° and had spaces to put my clamps.

If using raw or reclaimed material, cut the edge of one side of the board to square it up.

Measure the midpoint of the wood and clamp down the fence to that distance from the blade.

Slowly feed the board through the saw. As you approach the end of the cut, you can grab the piece from the other side and pull it through. Please don't resaw your thumbs.

Planing the Wood

According to my planer's instructions I'm not supposed to plane to a thickness under 1/2". There could be damage caused to the bed of the machine. Ok. I'll take your word manual. But, it doesn't say anything about using a very straight piece of 3/4" plywood as a base. Actually, someone on the Internet said to do this. I'll recommend this practice as well.

Adjust planet so it just starts taking off material. Feed each half through consecutively. This ensures they will end up at the same thickness.  I've gotten the best success by taking very light passes. I turn my crank a 1/4 turn each pass. Continue until board is 3mm thick.

Look at all those shavings. Delightful.

Bookmatching the Soundboard

Here's the fun part. Flip the boards so the grain is running opposite, or mirrored, to itself. I flip my boards around to see which side will look the nicest. Mark an X so you know which edges you need to work on.

Sand the edges flush. The luthier suggested clamping the boards together and using a long level with sandpaper taped to it to clean up the edge. My levels are all grooved on the top so I clamped sandpaper to my table saw bed. Hold the boards tightly together and run them back and forth on the sand paper. Take care to hold it as close to 90 to the table as you can.

Brush away the dust and test the edges by dry fitting them. If you can still see a line sand a bit more until the line all but disappears when pushed together.

The rest of this process will require a surface you can pound nails into. I use my workbench. It's designed to have the plywood come off and replaced if it gets too ugly. If you have a nice bench, grab a scrap of plywood or something. You build cbgs, so chances are you're resourceful.

Mark in 4 spots along the edge of one board.

Lightly drive 4 nails along this line. Set board back against the nails. Place a 1/4" thick scrap under the edge of the board. Place second board tightly against first piece keeping the scrap running down the center. Mark 4 spots along edge of second board. Lightly drive 4 nails along this line.

Run a bead of glue along edge of first board. Set against edge of second board. Slide scrap piece out of the way. Push both pieces down. The force of the nails will push the boards together. This is all the pressure required to set this joint.

Clean excess glue away.

Set an object on top of joint. I use a couple hammers. This prevents the board from lifting up while the glue sets up. I also like to use a strip of wax or parchment paper so I don't glue my soundboard to the table.

That's it. I wait overnight and then lift the board out. I then tap the board, hold it to my ear and giggle as hear the knock ring out for a couple seconds. Here are a couple pics of the bracing (made from the second grade cedar boards) and the completed guitars. I don't mean to brag, but these guitars sound nice. Great tone, volume and sustain. I still have a lot to sort out with box construction, but as for tops, I don't think I'll be changing this process. Simple and effective.

Happy building and thanks for reading.  Didn't really mean to type this much.