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Timber merchant failed me for a maple top, they could only get it 150mm wide. Eventually got a lovely plain top from the great people at guitar and bass build/Haynes guitars. More expensive but fast delivery and planed all round.
Jointed the top, glued it, cut to shape, glued to the body, used the router table to trim it flush. Tiny bit of tearout but that will be gone when cutting the binding channel.
Then onto the carve. Used the overhead jig to cut the contours with the MDF templates made right at the beginning. Worked really well! Then cut the neck and pickup angles with a heath robinson jig. All went fine except I took the neck plane a fraction too deep.
Then went at it with a random orbital sander - 50 grit then 120 then 180 grit, and in about 30 mins a carved top has emerged. I was a little dubious about how well the templates would work, but they make it really simple.
I want to refine the carve a little, especially the recurve, but I want to do that with a curved scraper...hopefully Santa is bringing me one.
Just a couple of pics showing some approaches I've used in case they're useful to anyone.
Thicknessing the fretboard with a handheld router. 2 9mm MDF strips and the fretboard taped down to a flat surface. Brought it down to 6mm. I didnt taper it, so it will be around 0.5mm deeper at the edge of the fretboard at the nut than the heel.
Carving the neck with a saw rasp and iwasaki rounded file while clamped to a 2x4 to get access all round.
Making this with a full width tenon as I'm planning to carve it smooth if i can work out the geometry.
Slightly long tenon, which will be mostly routed away with the neck pickup cavity.
Messy on the treble side of the joint. I left this oversize when making the body so I can spindle sand it down for a smooth transition into the neck. Looks messy at the moment, but should clean up nicely. Although it might look like it, I'm not doing a junior style hump here!
Next up fretting, sanding down the hump and routing for body binding.
Yep, started routing the p90 cavity at the end of the neck pocket, not the end of the neck. Realised after the first pass so not full depth. I knew there was a reason why I was planning to route this after gluing the neck in.
Well, it's made the decision for me on stain vs solid colour for the top!
Now to cut a filler piece from maple offcuts. Going to be impossible to get this perfect and needs to be totally smooth for painting. I see online people using bondo car body filler, anyone have better ideas?
https://www.toolstation.com/big-boy-lightweight-body-filler/p96113?store=KA&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoab_BRCxARIsANMx4S6lgz0KO2Ryp-uIaXv8nmOUj3_XQsMVGo28B6NcoCt1s-SaINJ6g-8aAk-kEALw_wcB
let in a piece of maple!!!!!
(formerly customkits)
A join going across the grain will always be harder to hide than one going with it
Instagram
I've just shaped and glued in some maple. I'll let it dry and carve it down and see how bad the join is. Actually it's pretty tight so may be able to get away with a bit of glue and maple dust.
I did think of that, but I don't have any offcuts quite large enough and I was leaning towards a solid top anyway. Just saves me time agonising!
(formerly customkits)
It's filled, just some small gaps in the corners to fill and re-rout in the right place!!
I think that a sparkle top would be the ideal way to avoid any sinkage around the patch repair.
Thicknessed the headstock using my spindle sander with a vertical fence (offcut of mahogany). To make it taper from 16mm to 15mm I taped a 1mm drill bit to the end on the side running against the fence, seemed to work pretty well!!
It's definitely starting to look more like a guitar and I'm learning a lot about how to cover up mishaps!
https://m.facebook.com/rexterguitars/photos/a.502141970250294/827910131006808/?type=3&source=54
The wife says I have too many blue guitars, so it's looking like Dakota Red nitro I think.