![Ryan Scott Guitars: Louisville custom crafted and repaired guitars [Music]](/sites/default/files/u979/Illustrator.jpg "Ryan Scott Guitars: Louisville custom crafted and repaired guitars [Music]")
Can you tell me a little about the step-by-step process that goes into creating a guitar?
I first acquire rough cut properly dried spruce for the top and some rosewood in this case for the back and sides of the guitar body. I run everything through my thickness sander until they reach the desired thickness to allow the sides to bend easier and the top and back to produce optimal tone.
I soak the sides with water wrap them in foil and put them in my bending machine with a high heat blanket. This creates a steaming effect while bending them to the exact shape of the guitar. Once dried the sides are put into an acoustic-shaped mold to retain their shape.
The spruce top and rosewood back receive specially shaped braces made of spruce to add support and deliver sound to the appropriate areas of the instrument. I use a standard x-brace pattern for the top typically seen on most acoustics which gives great support without adding much weight. Once braced I can glue the top and back to the previously bent sides. The guitar body now takes its final shape and can be sanded to prepare for a protective lacquer finish.
The neck begins as a large block of quartersawn mahogany that will be hand carved to a custom shape usually specified by the customer. A fingerboard made of ebony is slotted to later accept frets and is tapered to the appropriate shape. Before gluing the fingerboard to the neck block I install an adjustable support rod called the truss rod. This gives added support to the neck to handle roughly 105 pounds of string tension at the same time allowing for slight adjustments needed to make the guitar play its best. With the truss rod installed and fingerboard glued on, I carve away on the Mahogany block for hours until I'm satisfied with the shape and feel of the neck.
The neck and body receive light coats of a specialized instrument lacquer for protection and that glass like appearance. Once the finish has cured for a few weeks, it's sanded and buffed to a high gloss. The neck is fitted with string tuners and glued to the body and a string bridge is glued to the top of the body. Just add strings and… a guitar is born.
