Thicknessing methods

[wizer]

nice one Byron, this is another idea on my 'to do' list.

did you use a plan?

 

[jasonB]

Looks good to me.

Just may be worth adding a couple of strips of doublesided to stop any chance of the body lifting while you are routing. And watch out for those bolt heads!

Did you but the blank ready shaped or glue it up & cut it yourself?

Jason

 

[ByronBlack]

Chas, thanks for the kind words. I did take a little time to think about the design and the use of this Jig as like you, could see the potential for it to be used for a multitude of tasks.

Wizer - no plans, just made a few sketches of roughly what I wanted to acheive, and then thought about the various guitar-body shapes that I wanted to use and came up with a system that would be flexible enough.

Jason - I did think about the issue of the bolt heads, and I will be making the clamps a bit thinner so that the bolts are quite a bit lower, good point about the double-sided tape, i'll have to experiement with that.

As for the body blank in the picture, that is a pine template that I designed myself - the blank was then cut out of a piece of furniture grade pine from B&Q on the bandsaw, this has been used as a template for my proper blank which is a laminate of English Yew, capped with figured curly maple.

Here is the photoset of the build if you are interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/byronblack/sets/895878/

There are photo's and comments there from the initial photoshop (is it possible) image, to the design sketch all through to the creation of the neck and the body blank.

 

[Anonymous]

I've got to a stage where I need to thickness a piece of wood that is too wide for my 6" planer/jointer. It's about 13" wide.

I need to take around 5mm of and a leave a surface that is flat enough to receive a 5mm maple veneer.

Now, do I go the power-planer route? or should I use a hand-plane? I like the idea of using a hand-plane, but not sure how difficult it will be to get a flat surface good enough for the veneer compared to a finished surface from a power-planer. If I do use a hand plane, is a scrub-plane a good idea of a Jack plane?

Or are there other alternatives? I read a short article on another forum of someone making a jig for use with a router? I have a router so quite like the idea of not having to buy another tool.

Advice, as always, greatly appreciated.

Byron

Are you into hand planing? Well, David Charlesworth's hand planing DVD shows him hand thicknessing a piece of wood to within 2 thou across it's surface.

Takes a little while, but it might be fun and would certainly be rewarding. Superb DVD with loads of useful info in it


DVD is £19.99

 

[Jake]

Jason - I did think about the issue of the bolt heads, and I will be making the clamps a bit thinner so that the bolts are quite a bit lower, good point about the double-sided tape, i'll have to experiement with that.

Why not countersink them in a big enough hole that you can still get a socket over them?

 

[ByronBlack]

Tony

I have considered that DVD, but for now i'm holding off from puchasing instructional dvd's until I come back from the Bruce Luckhurst course as I want to get as much value from that as possible and would feel daft learning stuff now that I would learn on the course - strange logic that perhaps but I think it would be good to see it done in the flesh first, the DVD could then make a good reference source afterwards, thanks for the suggestion.

Jake - thats a great idea, thanks!

 

[JFC]

I do have a router (not sure what a 'tailed' router is though). I have a Ryboi 1/5:

Where would I get a flat ended cutter, most of my cutters are either flush-trim, straight cutting or of the decorative variaty. I do like this idea though, i've seen it a couple of times, and i'm loath to by any more power-tools and would prefer to do it myself.

If you can point me in the right direction for the cutter, I think i'll do it this way.

Magnate do a planer cutter for the router , you can get them thro Woodworkers workshop .co.uk , i have one myself .

 

[ByronBlack]

Thanks for posting that!! I've been looking for one for ages!