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SYXQORA

03 / The method

How a guitar gets made here

Fourteen steps from a stack of wood to a guitar that leaves the shop, written the way I explain it to whoever is standing at the bench. Every No. 1 Harbour, No. 2 Bedford and No. 3 Chebucto goes through all fourteen, in this order, across about eleven weeks once it is started. Glue, wood and varnish all get the time they ask for.

Steps
14
Bench time
About 11 weeks
Waitlist
About 14 months
Prices from
$6,900 CAD

The fourteen steps

Step 01

With the player

Choosing the wood set with the player

When your name comes up on the list, you come to the shop and we pull sets off the rack together. I tap every top in front of you and hold it to the window so you can see the grain run. Most people end up with Nova Scotia red spruce over yellow birch or walnut, and every set has its source pencilled on the end. I'll also ask how you hold a neck, because that shapes step 10.

The 30 percent deposit is paid here, and it comes back in full if you change your mind any time before step 07.

At the rack, with youAbout two hours
Step 02

The plates

Jointing and gluing the top and back

Tops and backs arrive as two book-matched halves. I plane the centre edges on a shooting board until they meet with no light between them along the whole length, then glue them in a wedge jig on the bench.

The back gets a thin strip across its seam on the inside, grain running crosswise, so a dry Halifax February can't open it along its length.

Bench timeOne day, one night in the jig
Step 03

The plates

Thicknessing the top

The joined top comes down to between 2.4 and 2.8 mm, and the number depends on the piece in front of me, not a chart. Stiff, quartered red spruce can go thinner. A softer top stays nearer 2.8.

I take it most of the way on the machine, then finish with a finger plane and a scraper, flexing it across and along the grain between passes. The back follows, a touch thinner again.

Bench timeOne day
Step 04

The top

Cutting and inlaying the rosette

Before any bracing, the rosette goes in. I cut its channels with a small router on a circle jig, about 1.2 mm deep, and lay in the rings: birch and walnut purfling with a band of something from the offcut box.

It's glued, scraped flush, and only then is the soundhole cut. The rosette is the one place I let myself decorate, and it's still made from the same woods as the guitar.

Bench timeOne day
Step 05

The rim

Bending the sides on a heated form

The sides are wetted and bent over a heated form, waist first, then the bouts, with a thin steel slat behind the wood so the outside of the curve can't split. Birch bends kindly. Walnut is happy if you go slowly. Figured wood is where you learn patience.

They sit clamped in the mould overnight and come out holding the shape on their own.

Bench timeOne day
Step 06

The rim

Kerfing, blocks and the rim in the mould

With the sides in the mould, the neck block and tail block go in, then the kerfed linings that give the top and back something wide to land on.

The rim is sanded on radius dishes so the top sits on a gentle dome and the back on a deeper one. That dome is part of how the guitar holds out against string pull for the next fifty years, so it gets checked with a straightedge, not by eye.

Bench timeThree days
Step 07

The top

Voicing the top

Plan of a braced Harbour top seen from inside, with an X-brace, tone bars, bridge plate and the bridge position dashed, above a side view of one brace before and after scalloping.
Harbour top from inside. Below, one brace before and after scalloping

Everything before this step is joinery. This is where a flat piece of spruce with sticks glued to it turns into something that sounds like a guitar, and it's the step I'd keep if I had to give up all the others.

The X-brace layout

Two main braces cross just below the soundhole, set a little wider on the Bedford and narrower on the Chebucto. Two tone bars run back from the lower legs, a thin maple bridge plate sits where the bridge will land, and the lot goes down in the go-bar deck on a domed board, sticks bowed in from above.

Scalloping

The braces go on tall and square. Then the chisel comes out, followed by a finger plane about the length of my thumb, and I scoop each brace down toward its ends. Height stays where the strength is needed, around the crossing and behind the bridge. The shavings come off thin enough to read through.

Tapping and listening

Between passes I hold the top lightly at the edge, where my fingers won't damp the ring, and knock it near the bridge with a knuckle. What I'm after is the main top tone, the low note left once the knock dies away. Each model has a range I aim for, and a tuning fork keeps my ear honest late in the day.

Pencil marks

Every pass gets a soft pencil tick on the brace and a line on the build sheet: where wood came off, what the tone did after. By the end a top carries a dozen small marks nobody sees once the back is on. The orange tick in the drawing on the front page is one of them.

When to stop

When the top flexes evenly across the lower bout and rings a fraction longer than feels safe. One more shaving after that can't be put back, so the rule is to put the chisel down and tap it again in the morning, when the shop is quiet and so is my ear.

Red spruce or Sitka

Nova Scotia red spruce is stiffer for its weight, so its braces come out lower and the scallops go deeper, and it takes a hard strum without flattening. Sitka is a touch softer and warmer early on, so I leave its braces fuller and the top nearer 2.8 mm. Both are good. They just ask for different hands.

I could talk about this one all afternoon, and people at the bench usually let me.

Callum

Bench timeAbout a week, mostly listening
Step 08

The box

Closing the box

The top goes onto the rim first, back in the go-bar deck, so I can still reach inside and check that every brace end sits snug in its notch in the lining.

Before the back closes it, I sign and date the inside, write where each wood came from on the label, and take one last look round with a mirror. Then the back goes on, and from then on the only way in is through the soundhole.

Bench timeTwo days
Step 09

The box

Binding and purfling

A small router on a guide cuts ledges round the edges of the top and back, and the bindings go in: birch or walnut, with a fine purfling line where the model calls for one. Binding tape is wound round the whole body while the glue sets, so for a day it looks like a parcel.

Then it's scraping, a lot of it, until binding and top meet without a ridge you can feel with a fingernail.

Bench timeThree to four days
Step 10

The neck

Carving the neck and fitting the dovetail

The neck is carved by hand from a quartered blank, with a steel truss rod under the fingerboard. Drawknife and spokeshave for the rough shape, chisel and scraper for the rest, checked against the notes from step 01.

The dovetail is cut so the neck angle puts the strings at the right height over the bridge, then fitted with chalk until it pulls tight with no glue at all. It's the joint that comes apart in a neck reset forty years on, so I make sure it can.

Bench timeAbout a week
Step 11

The neck

Fretting with hand-dressed ends

The fingerboard is radiused and slotted, and the frets are pressed in, never hammered once the neck is on. Every fret end is filed by hand to a rounded bevel, so you can run your hand down the neck in a dry January without catching a sharp edge.

Then they're levelled, crowned and polished. It's the same job as the $180 fret level on the repair bench, done on day one.

Bench timeTwo days
Step 12

The finish

Finishing in thin oil varnish

No spray gun here. The finish is a thin oil varnish, wiped and brushed on in light coats, rubbed back between each and left to cure. From first coat to last rub-out is about three weeks.

On the top it ends up thinner than a fingernail clipping, which is part of why these guitars open up as they're played. It will mark with use. I'd rather that than a thick coat that keeps the top quiet.

Coats and curingAbout three weeks
Step 13

The bridge

Gluing the bridge with hide glue

The bridge is shaped from rosewood or ebony with a traceable source, and fitted to the dome of the top until it sits with no gap at the edges. The varnish under its footprint is scraped back so the glue grips the spruce itself.

Then hot hide glue, clamped overnight through the soundhole. It dries hard and glassy, carries vibration well, and lets go with heat and moisture if the bridge ever has to come off.

Bench timeOne day, one night clamped
Step 14

Before it leaves

Setup and the first week of playing

Bone nut and saddle from blanks, then the full setup: truss rod, nut slots, saddle height, intonation. Then it stays a week and I play it every day, retuning and adjusting as the top takes the string load. Most new guitars move a little that first week. Better here than in your living room.

Balance on collection. Hand-delivered free within 150 km of Halifax, or shipped at cost with full-value transit cover anywhere else in Canada.

Played in dailyOne week
After step 14

The same hands

The same method on the repair bench

Most of this page is also what goes into a repair. A neck reset at $550 to $750 is step 10 taken apart and put back. A loose brace at $140 to $260 is step 07 with a mirror and a long clamp. A $95 steel-string setup is the first half of step 14.

If your guitar needs some of this, the repair list has the price and turnaround. If you want all fourteen done for you, the build list is about 14 months long. Either way, write first to hello@syxqora.com.

The repair bench New guitars