In the currently nearby thread documenting my SJ build for Bob Berger, AGF user Gitarro asked me about "best practices" regarding achieving symmetry while building with my moldless method. The phrase was unfamiliar to me. Once defined, I realized I had never really thought about my work this way, having no employees or apprentices I did not seem to require it.
I continue to think about it however; How do I keep things pretty much in line without the industry standard molds I have foregone some 25 year ago? In today's work, I have seen a BIG "best practice", I believe. I spend a good deal of effort making my end blocks as perfect as possible, and in particular getting their outside surfaces, which are curved, perfectly perpendicular to the center line of the top. If this is done right, there is every chance of getting a symmetrical guitar, and if it is flubbed, no chance at all.
Here are those blocks freshly glued into Tom's guitar, and the glue has just been washed off with hot water . . . after which I checked for square the umpteenth time:
