After joining the bookmatched maple front pieces, i cut out the soundhole with a fretsaw. Then i lined the inside with maple veneer strips. The black lines are maple dyed black.

Here you can see the second piece, which goes underneath the soundhole, also bound in maple veneer.

This is the inside of the instrument. The centre block is laminated from mahogany maple and rosewood, all quarter sawn, to give a very stiff and resonant  back bone to the guitar. Because this guitar has a tremolo (or vibrato) fitted there are extra maple reinforcing stips on either side of the centre block. The sides are solid flamed maple (like the top and back), hand bent and fitted to shaped pine blocks with a mahogany lining to hold it all together. You can see here the relatively large acoustic chambers on either side of the centre block.

Here is a detail of the centre block from the neck end of the instrument. I started making this guitar while i was still at college so you can see a couple of my mates in the background. Either side of the centre block are ebony strips inlayed in to tidy the join with the centre block. The ebony strips were 'let in' to the ebony binding later. 

This is a view of the other end of the centre block were the sides join. This is known as the end graft or tail patch, and again its a decorative way of tidying up the join between the sides. You can see that the graft has a grain direction perpendicular to that of the sides so that the flame figure is different to that of the sides, as it is on the piece under the soundhole. Once polished the light refracts the figure highlighting it differently.

This is the back glued on, ready to be trimmed flush to the sides. It is cut out a little larger than necessary to make it easier to line up, to ensure that it fits and so the clamps that hold it down have enough purchase.

Once the back was trimmed down, the instrument was marked out for the placement of the neck, bridge, pickups and controls. Once everything was marked out, checked and checked again the pickup cavties were routed out then tidied up with a chisel.

Checking the fit of the pickups by placing them in the cavities, in this case a Humbucker at the bridge and a P90 at the neck. The pickups are hand made by GFS in the states. They're proper ball breakers.

I used a vernier gauge to determine the overall thickness of the purfling and binding. The purfling was made of maple veneer strips, and the binding is ebony which had to be heated and bent to shape before fitting. Once the overall thickness was decided the router could be set up to rout the rebates around the edge of the guitar.

This is just after routing the first rebate. You can see the step in the edge of the guitar that the purfling and binding is glued in to.

Glue is painted around the dge before pinning the next veneer strip to the edge.

Map pins are used to hold the veneer in place while it dries. This last veneer strip was purpleheart, a naturally purple wood.

Each successive veneer strip is trimmed roughly flush with a chisel. Once the binding is glued on the binding and purfling are levelled with a cabinet scraper.

The ebony binding has to be bent first, checking against the guitar for reference.

The binding is held on with masking tape whilst it dries, before scraping flush.

This is the binding scraped flush to the edge.

Whilst waiting for the glue to dry at various stages in the process of fitting the purfling and binding, work begins on the neck. Once squared up and trued, the neck blank is marked out for the headstock and truss rod. The truss rod channel is hogged out with a drill, and then routed through. The rod needs to have a snug fit as it reinforces the neck against the tension of the strings.

The fit of the rod was checked and the headstock marked out for drilling and cutting out.

I drilled the holes for the machine heads before cutting down the headstock.

First i did the straight cut.

Then i planed it square and flush to the line.

Next i cut the curved edges.

I tidied all the edges up with a chisel and a drum sander, making sure the curves had no flats in.

When i was happy with the shape i cut the headstock down to the desired thickness.

After cutting the head down to size, the face needed cleaning up and a ramp carved between the end of the fingerboard and the beginning of the headstock.

After finishing the ramp i prepared the decorative head veneer, marking out the shape of the head, before drawing out the design on the flamed maple.

I cut the design out with a fretsaw before filing and sanding the edges smooth.

Before i glued the veneer on i checked its fit. Then i glued purpleheart veneer to the underside of it, before gluing to the headstock. While i had been making the neck i had also been making the fingerboard which you can see in place.

The fingerboard was slotted, radiused and planed for relief before being tapered. I like to do all the important work while the fingerboard is square, before tapering it. By tapering it in the shooting board its easier to keep the edge true to the gluing face.

I checked the taper of the fingerboard against the neck, making sure it was the right size. Then i worked out the thickness of the binding and then reduced the fingerboard width by that amount.

I glued the binding on by sandwiching all the pieces together between two sash cramp bars that i then clamped down to keep everything tight while the glue dried.

I held the end piece on with masking tape while it dried.

The next thing to do was to start making the yin yang inlays. I cut each one from pieces of white pearl, carefully marking out the shape, before cutting them with a fretsaw. I should have used a piercing saw, but i didn't have one. Then i carefully filied the edges to the line, making the edges smooth.

I laid all the pieces out on the fingerboard, making sure that they were all the right size and that they were all in the right place. I know someone who made a fretless bass and put all the fret markers in the wrong places, it's really something to avoid doing.

Having marked out the centre line and determined exactly where each yin yang will be i carefully routed out the recesses in the fingerboard for the inlay to sit in.

Its very rare that an inlay and its cavity match perfectly, there's usually a little filling to be done, in this case, ebony dust mixed with glue, smeared on to fill any gaps around the inlay. Levelled off with a file and sand paper once dry.

When i was happy with the inlays, and while i was waiting for the pearl dots to arrive, i decided to glue the fingerboard on. I didn't do this before doing the inlays because if something had gone majorly wrong, at least i only had to make a new fingerboard, rather than make a new fingerboard and try and take the old one off. Which is a bastard job, i know because i've done it. After very carefully aligning the fingerboard then clamping it in position, i proceeded to drill four two millimetre holes, through fret slots at the top and bottom of the finger board.

The holes went right through the fingerboard and about five millimetres in to the neck. The idea is that by tapping cocktail sticks through the holes, you can pin the fingerboard in place whilst you glue it. Because it is a large surface area of glue, the fingerboard swims a little on the glue when you try clamp it, and if you glue the fingerboard on diagonally, you've buggered it right up. The cocktail sticks end up glued in too but as they are in frets slots they are covered by the fret when it is pressed in.

When painting the glue on the neck, it is important to use a strip of masking tape to cover the truss rod. When the fingerboard is clamped on, the glue will be pressed and will expand on to the area of bare wood in the middle, but it won't go in to the truss rod channel. If it you put glue right up to the edge it fills in the truss rod channel and stops the truss rod from working.

You can never have too many clamps.

After the fingerboard was dry, i cut and planed the sides of the neck down to the width of the fingerboard. Then i cut the ledge in to the top of the fingerboard for the roller nut.  Then while the neck was still square i pressed the frets in, then i carved the neck with spokeshaves, rasps, files and sand paper.

Once the neck was ready, i routed the neck pocket, making sure there was a good tight fit.

When i had the neck fitted i routed out the cavity for the tremolo bridge and springs.

After i was sure everything was in the right place, i drilled the holes for the controls, and i routed out the areas for the coverplates. Then i did a lot of sanding. Then i did a lot more sanding, and finally after a bit more sanding, i danished oiled the body and neck before assembling the guitar and wiring it up. It takes nearly as long to finish something as it does to make it.