Section 1: Where Does It All Begin?
Section 2: From Tail Wedge to Binding
Section 3: From Side Sanding Through Neck Fit
Section 4: Neck Carving through Neck and Body Sanding
Section 5: The Finishing Department
Section 6: Bull Buffing to Fretting
Section 7: Bridge Gluing to Shipping

FROM TAIL WEDGE TO BINDING

Now that the frame has been spun, it is almost ready to have the top and back glued on. First we have to apply the solid wood "wedge" to the bottom of the guitar. The wedge is purely decoration and serves no other purpose than to hide the join of the two sides of the instrument. First we route the wedge into the frame:

Routing the cavity for the tail-wedge.

The cavity is now routed and we glue in either an Indian Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood, Maple, or Ebony wedge into the guitar depending on the specifications of the guitar. Once glued in, we are ready to "grind" the frame. This procedure is done on a high speed belt sander and requires enormous skill to do properly. Right now only Jean and Matthew do this task at the California plant. The goal of this task is to grind out and minor cupping in the sides and to remove any surface gunk so that when it comes time to route the channels for the binding, the router guide will glide along a nice flat surface.

Jean Larrivee "Grinding" the first fully American Made Larrivee Serial# 80000.
The guitar is a everyday model L-09

A close up of grinding the first Fully American made Larrivee #80000.
Currently this guitar is in the Larrivee Archive.

With the frame routed, its ready to go into the climate room to be acclimatized for a minimum of 3 days prior to being body-built. While the frame is acclimatizing we begin the process of bracing the soundboard and back. Our braces are currently made at our Canadian factory, and are shipped to us here. We start by selecting and matching the braces and laying them out on the soundboard. We then apply a bead of glue to the braces, and place them in the exact right spot on the soundboard. The soundboard is inside a special vacuum clamp which is closed over-top of the soundboard, and the air removed. Below you can see this process:

Wendy Larrivee Bracing the back of an L-09

The soundboard for the same guitar in the vacuum clamp

After only 15 minutes in the vacuum clamp the top and back are removed and cleaned of all excess glue. It then dries normally for a minimum of 24 hours. Both the top and back are then sanded with three different grits of sand paper until the surfaces are smooth and clean. Many guitar makers don't touch the inside of the guitar, but to us it is part of what produces that rich tone people have come to expect from us and must be treated with the same respect the outside of the guitar is given. Once the top and back are sanded, we load the frame into the mold again and route a cavity for the braces to go into. This is done with a small hand router as seen in the picture below.

Carlos (One of our two body-builders) routes the channels for the braces on an L-09

The top and back are then glued into place by the traditional go-bar method. Both the top and back are glued on at the same time - Since the soundboard is almost flat, it is laid against the flat surface of the table, and the go bars are placed along the perimeter of the back - ergo putting pressure on the soundboard and back at the same time.

Caesar go-bars the body together.

The newly made body needs to dry overnight, and the next day can be moved on the the routing / binding department. The routing of the body is done in two stages: Rough cut and Final Cut. The rough cut is done on a stationary router which is fixed to a surface, and the final cut is done with edge trimmers set at particular depths. We have 4 final cut edge trimmers for different purlfings: 05-09 Maple Bindings, -10 Rosewood Bindings, -50 & -60 Herringbone, and -10 series Maple & Koa bindings. For the rough cut, the body is rotated around the router on bearings, and the final cut is routed with the router in hand.

Matthew Larrivee routes the binding channel on an L-09

... and then finishes the final cut on the soundboard.

Once the guitar is routed, our two binders go to work putting the solid wood strips along the body. The strips are bent in side bending just like the sides. These strips are glued into place with standard carpenters yellow glue and held in place with masking tape while they dry. The reason we use masking tape is that it allows us to get a very good tight seal at every inch of the perimeter, which allows us to get rid of any gaps. If you look closely at any Larrivee Guitar, you can see the quality of this work. The fit-and-finish of the binding is impeccable.

Maria puts the binding on a Koa L-09

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Section 1: Where Does It All Begin?
Section 2: From Tail Wedge to Binding
Section 3: From Side Sanding Through Neck Fit
Section 4: Neck Carving through Neck and Body Sanding
Section 5: The Finishing Department
Section 6: Bull Buffing to Fretting
Section 7: Bridge Gluing to Shipping