In examining a guitar with a double back; in preparing the pieces and planning out the construction of a copy you obviously end up thinking a lot about what effect it will have on the sound of the guitar once it has strings on it. Volume, projection, the character of the the different notes, sustain; any one of these might be affected by the physical changes in the instrument. Well, I will try to get a number of different opinions on this guitar once it is finished but for now the biggest difference is the rigidity of the structure. It makes sense once you think about it but I never had. To have the sides connected around the perimeter of three plates instead of two is a big change. I didn’t flex things too much but with just the internal back glued in with its reinforcements above and below it felt and sounded like a drum.
I usually make more than one guitar at a time and I am used to seeing them hanging there but this one sure looks out of place.
It took me ages to decide how to glue in the internal back; I never could get a look inside to see how Arias had done it. The fit has to be very good but I had to have room to get it into the body and imobilize it at the neckblock. I had cut shallow slots in the neck block beforehand to accept a cutout of the back but now it was very tricky getting the back into the body and at the same time Into the slots. Next time I think I will make the cutout the same size as the block and then glue supports above and below it. The other thing I will do differently is the endblock. I cut the endblock short to fit only between top and internal back and there is a small deformation where it ends. This photo shows the back being glued on and the last one is after the string has been taken off.