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  #106  
Old 01-10-2014, 01:50 AM
Viking Viking is offline
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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.
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Last edited by Viking; 01-10-2014 at 02:17 AM.
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  #107  
Old 01-19-2014, 08:19 PM
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Another update. It's not specifically work done on my guitar, but my jointing plane is coming along nicely. Got some really good work done on it over the last week.

Here is the crosspin.



Next is the wedge.



Next are the pieces laid out.



Last are the pieces dry fitted together.



Need to glue up the body. Cut the mouth out of the sole. Glue the sole. True up the sole and then the sides. Then comes the fun part. Cutting the final profile for the top of the plane. That's where I get to express some artistic license. And last... finishing.

I actually quite enjoy this kind of precision wood working. Much of what I have done in the past tended towards things requiring much less precision. And, I'd never really done much work with hard woods, most of it being with softwoods. Hardwoods rock. They respond to tools and being worked in completely different ways than softwoods do.
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Last edited by Viking; 01-20-2014 at 01:56 AM.
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  #108  
Old 01-20-2014, 08:01 AM
Neil K Walk Neil K Walk is offline
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As an aside I want to say that that's some nice flamed maple. I had to go back and read the thread title to see that those weren't intended for the guitar itself.
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  #109  
Old 01-20-2014, 12:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kwakatak View Post
As an aside I want to say that that's some nice flamed maple. I had to go back and read the thread title to see that those weren't intended for the guitar itself.
It is really nice flamed maple. In that last picture, the outside of the sides of the plane are still unsurfaced from having been re-sawed on my bandsaw, and you can still clearly see the flame. I can't wait till it's been sanded down to 400 grit or so. Should really pop.
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  #110  
Old 01-25-2014, 05:20 PM
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It was a beautiful day. So I got to go outside and make some dust!

Got the sole trued up, mouth cut and sole glued in place. Ready to cut the final profile.



It's not done yet, but I couldn't resist dialing it in and taking some shavings. I'm in love with my new plane. Maybe now I can start working on things that look like a guitar. Got this out of my system.

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  #111  
Old 01-26-2014, 12:20 PM
viento viento is offline
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Nice looking plane and lovely maple!
Thanks for sharing.
I guess IŽll make a long one (~ No.7...) for me,too.
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  #112  
Old 01-26-2014, 09:26 PM
printer2 printer2 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Viking View Post
It was a beautiful day. So I got to go outside and make some dust!

Got the sole trued up, mouth cut and sole glued in place. Ready to cut the final profile.



It's not done yet, but I couldn't resist dialing it in and taking some shavings. I'm in love with my new plane. Maybe now I can start working on things that look like a guitar. Got this out of my system.

Looks like all it is missing is four wheels and a windshield.
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  #113  
Old 01-27-2014, 01:02 AM
Viking Viking is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by viento View Post
Nice looking plane and lovely maple!
Thanks for sharing.
I guess IŽll make a long one (~ No.7...) for me,too.
Thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by printer2 View Post
Looks like all it is missing is four wheels and a windshield.
LOL. Totally. Does kinda look like a classic car, doesn't it?

I'm finished with the plane for now. It's rough sanded and dials in nicely. I should camphor the edges and finish sand the thing. It'll really pop if I do, especially all that flamed maple on the sides. But I'm really anxious to get going on something more directly related to a guitar.

Hard maple center. Flamed maple sides. Teak crosspin, wedge and sole. I'm really, really pleased with how it came out. I only made 1 mistake with it, though I do not believe it will affect it's performance for the tasks for which I built it. The mouth is a little too big given I plan on using it for jointing sound boards. It should have a much smaller mouth. There is over 1/8" of mouth in front of the blade when dialed in. But, with the chip breaker set correctly, and given that I only really plan on using it for jointing, I feel fairly confident that it will perform well. And the length of the sole, at 18", should make the jointing process that much easier.

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Last edited by Viking; 01-27-2014 at 01:09 AM.
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  #114  
Old 01-27-2014, 09:58 AM
arie arie is offline
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it looks nice! seal it up with something.
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  #115  
Old 02-12-2014, 01:33 AM
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I caved and bought wood. I kinda decided I want to learn how to build guitars, not how to mill guitar wood. though I still got the cheapest cedar sound board material I could find. 16 dollars from Stew Mac. Still 10 times higher quality than what I had been using.

My shooting board and the new plane with the cedar on it. This joining session was down right easy. Perfect candle after not too much effort.



Plate joining "jig". It's just an old piece of MDF. A little beat up around the edges, but the middle was flat enough to use without fear for the cedar being marred.



Bead of glue.



Ensuring the plates remain planar while the glue sets. And yes, those are my sitka spruce brace billets... They were handy.



Newly jointed sound board.



Thicknessing the sound board next. Will use my drum sander and a deflection test.
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Last edited by Viking; 02-12-2014 at 01:42 AM.
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  #116  
Old 02-12-2014, 10:42 AM
Neil K Walk Neil K Walk is offline
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Wait - what made you go back? I thought you had a soundboard already joined with rosette inlaid?

Regardless, you're into it now! Keep the updates coming. Just watch yourself around that cedar. It mars if you even look at it funny.
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  #117  
Old 02-12-2014, 11:14 AM
Viking Viking is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kwakatak View Post
Wait - what made you go back? I thought you had a soundboard already joined with rosette inlaid?

Regardless, you're into it now! Keep the updates coming. Just watch yourself around that cedar. It mars if you even look at it funny.
I used titebond II when I joined the pieces for it, before I learned that it can succumb to creep.
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  #118  
Old 02-12-2014, 04:53 PM
redir redir is offline
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Thats a great looking plane Viking. I love the curved glue chisel from LMI. It has so many uses.
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  #119  
Old 02-12-2014, 09:50 PM
Viking Viking is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redir View Post
Thats a great looking plane Viking.
Thank you. I am growing quite fond of it. I want to make a smaller, bench sized plane at some point, a more utility cutter.

Quote:
Originally Posted by redir View Post
I love the curved glue chisel from LMI. It has so many uses.
Yeah, that thing totally rocks. High carbon steel, super sharp, long, curved blade. Really useful.
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  #120  
Old 02-20-2014, 10:55 PM
Viking Viking is offline
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New rosette work. Kinda boring to be posting the same stuff over again. But, such is the state of things when you glue before thinking.

Rosette channel routed. Cleaning the bottom with a chisel.



I went a different route and just glued the pieces straight into the channel, instead of gluing the rosette together and then gluing the completed thing into the channel. I think I much prefer this way of doing it. Although the glue ends up making a mess. Took a bit of work to get it all off the top.



Glue dried.



Halfway through scraping flush. Scrapers are the coolest wood working tool ever devised.



Sanding.



Done.



A better outcome than my first attempt.



An interesting note. This cedar is not as stiff as the cedar I jointed together from 2 inch wide quarter sawn re-sawed sections of boards from Lowes. This stuff is at .11 inches after thicknessing to a 6-7 MM 5LB deflection test VS .1-.95 inches for the other stuff. Now why a boards from Lowes would be stiffer than wood from Stew Mac is beyond me. Perhaps due to the fact that there was a fair bit of glue involved given the number of pieces I jointed together. But. Doesn't much matter given this is a first effort.

One thing I'm already pulling away from all this. I don't want to build with cedar again. Too soft and not stiff enough. Spruce or redwood will definitely be the next material I work with.
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Last edited by Viking; 02-20-2014 at 11:07 PM.
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