So life conspired against me over the last 6 months. Someone hit my 4Runner while it was parked behind my house. We were threatened by the gang banger idiot friends of the guy who did it(while high). Then someone stole my wife's freaking car. Though it was recovered by the police and we are going to get it back. That and some money problems. So all things considered, I haven't done much with wood until recently. I made some wooden 18" doll bunk beds for my kids for Christmas(I've got 2 kids, both girls). Reminded me how much I love working with wood. So Santa got me a few more tools for Christmas. I'm close to having everything I need to build guitars.
I'm actually going to rebuild this guitar's sound board. I used the wrong kind of titebond in gluing the pieces together for the one I have. I used the blue stuff(as opposed to the red stuff), which I've read can succumb to creep. But, I'm also building a jointer plane, so I'll get to use that to joint the pieces for the new soundboard. That will be cool.
I had a piece of Brazilian cherry I was going to use for the sole of the plane. But I do not have a high enough quality table saw to cut the stuff. I ruined a small piece of it on my cheap table saw and decided I'll just go with red oak. The body of the plane is hard maple. The sides will be curly maple. The wedge and the crosspin will still be made of the Brazilian cherry. The stuff is beautiful wood. Just hard as heck.
I got all this great wood from the cast off bin at the local specialty hardwood supplier store. 30 bucks for a bunch of hard maple, curly maple and a 12 inch long piece of the Brazilian cherry. Love that place. Tons of the most beautiful wood one could possibly want. They've got pretty much every North American hardwood as well as a bunch of tropical hardwoods, teak and mahogany and even a rosewood or two.
These are the plans I'm using to build the jointing plane.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home...orking/1273456
Mine will be 18 inches long. I just bought a Hock blade that will be the plane's blade.This is the blade I bought.
http://www.amazon.com/Bench-Plane-Bl...302942&sr=1-12
Here are the rough pieces.
Then, I'll be making a small finger plane to carve braces.
This is the one I want to build.
http://www.rockler.com/how-to/build-...dworking-plan/
I finally got some sitka spruce for braces. Along with a glue removing chisel from LMI, which I've seen lots of luthier's use for a brace carving chisel given it's long, bent blade. Holy cow. Now that is a high quality tool. But then, 60 bucks for 1 chisel, it better be. It too has a hock blade. Here's a picture of it. Thing of beauty.
So many things to build, so little time.