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  #1  
Old 03-30-2015, 06:59 PM
fregly fregly is offline
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Default Chisels for inside box work

What kind of chisels or planes do you use for inside the box work? Just for the fun of it I've modded bracing on a couple inexpensive heavily built guitars using sand paper on various reaching and cobbled together things and found it less than ideal. Working upside down and blind is rather awkward to begin with.
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Old 03-30-2015, 08:51 PM
Ned Milburn Ned Milburn is offline
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Lee Valley has a good variety of planes, and they have a nice set of short chisels that would likely be fine for the task.

Myself, as much as possible, I avoid carving on a finished guitar when at all possible. Not fun at all!! ;-)
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Old 03-30-2015, 11:13 PM
Sam VanLaningham Sam VanLaningham is offline
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The best through soundhole tool I use is a Stanley mini-plane. It's cheap but the stock blade sharpened up decently and it does great for shaving wood off of sides or tops of braces.

Chisels have straight up sucked for me working through soundhole, since a slip of hand can go wrong in a lot of ways. The mini plane is only going to take so much wood with a slip.

I don't see the exact design I have anywhere online, but I guess it must be this 12-101 Stanley, 3.5 inches long, 1" wide blade. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00002...2BL&ref=plSrch

Adi-walnut L00 by samvanlan, on Flickr
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Old 03-31-2015, 05:55 AM
fregly fregly is offline
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The mini plane sounds good. Some of the violin mini planes I looked at are very expensive. I could see making a bad mistake or really cutting myself with a chisel.
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Old 03-31-2015, 08:01 AM
pops pops is offline
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The small finger planes work very well, and are expensive, but you may need to only buy one, and they do last a very long time.
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Old 03-31-2015, 08:54 AM
Tom West Tom West is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pops View Post
The small finger planes work very well, and are expensive, but you may need to only buy one, and they do last a very long time.
In my mind this is the way to go.........!!!
Tom
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Old 03-31-2015, 04:57 PM
Jim.S Jim.S is offline
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You can buy a El Ceapo finger plane from China on Ebay for about $25 including post and provided they hold the iron still and can be sharpened there is a good chance they will work so if you are low budget then it maybe worth the risk of buying one.
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Old 03-31-2015, 05:30 PM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Left of Sam View Post
The best through soundhole tool I use is a Stanley mini-plane. It's cheap but the stock blade sharpened up decently and it does great for shaving wood off of sides or tops of braces.

Chisels have straight up sucked for me working through soundhole, since a slip of hand can go wrong in a lot of ways. The mini plane is only going to take so much wood with a slip.

I don't see the exact design I have anywhere online, but I guess it must be this 12-101 Stanley, 3.5 inches long, 1" wide blade. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00002...2BL&ref=plSrch

Adi-walnut L00 by samvanlan, on Flickr
That is not a Stanley 12-101. I don't think it's a Stanley at all. I've seen those under different names.

While I now have some good quality finger planes, back in the last millennium I shaved braces with a Stanley 12-101. It is not the same as the regular 101, which has a cast body. The 12-101 is made of stamped sheet metal, and can be found readily for under $10. It works very well as an inside brace cutter.

The thing that is good about the 12-101 being cheap and made of sheet metal, for this purpose, is that it is easy to hacksaw off the front of the sole, so that you leave only about 1/8-3/16" of sole in front of the blade. That makes it quite a bit easier to work in close to the brace junctions and brace ends. Clean up the cut edges with a bit of sandpaper. It's cheap enough to turn it into a dedicated inside tool. Not that you couldn't use it for other things, too.
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Old 03-31-2015, 07:04 PM
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bnjp bnjp is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
That is not a Stanley 12-101. I don't think it's a Stanley at all. I've seen those under different names.
I have that same plane...and I thought it was a Stanley too. Can't remember when or where I got it but it was in a blister pack...really cheap. I actually use it quite a bit. One thing I don't like about it is the painted sides. I had the paint rub off on a guitar top wood once when I was planing the side of a brace.
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