Wood Changes During Carve

[verhoevenc]

I was wondering about something. After seeing dougs hopefully soon to be guitar of the month it got me with THIS idea. I want to get a 1" top that's made from a 5/8" of buckeye burl laminated with a 3/8" purpleheart piece. That way when you carve down, towards the edge the wood changes but the carve stays constant, something like one of my favourite builders do (Kritz) here:

But like I said with buckeye as the top of the laminate and the part exposed by the carve being the purpleheart.

In a thread earlier MATT mentioned that this is quite a daunting task to get done correctly (in a thread of a different topic though... but it still got me thinking). Anyone wanna give some pointers? Tips? Warnings? Discuss on this idea?

Chris

Edited September 30, 2005 by verhoevenc

[jnewman]

Carving where two different woods meet isn't THAT hard... but you have to be careful or you won't remove as much of the harder wood, and you'll have a dip in the soft wood and a lump in the hard wood. My best advice from past experience would be that when you're carving where the join is, do all your carving along the join (as opposed to across it) so that you can keep it even on each side of the join.

[verhoevenc]

thatnks, I hadn't even thought of that... also, here's where it would be nice to have a copy carver... carve one out of a single wood then use the copy carver

Chris

PS: Now if only I had a copy carver and the space for it...

[jnewman]

A copy carver would work well, it's true... but I like carving things straight by hand without templates . Besides, copy carvers leave things pretty rough, and with things as different in hardness as buckeye and purpleheart, sanding those straight out would likely cause the problem just as badly. Sanding around joined edges of very different woods like that causes the problem too. Just get a shallow, wide gouge and go slow - then you'll be almost done before you even start smoothing. A gooseneck scraper would probably be your friend here, too, although I've never used one.

[thegarehanman]

I love gooseneck scrapers. If you're guitar is all curves and no flat surfaces, it soon becomes your best friend. And for some reason, it's easier for me to get a good burr on my gooseneck than on my rectangular scraper. I carve my tops with a handheld rotary tool and a foredum coarse burr. This would probably be more advantageous than a hand plane in this circumstance since the rotary tool won't flinch when you're going from softer to harder woods. If you used a hand plane, you would need to be much more careful about how much force you where applying when going from one hardness of wood to another. I know the consensus is that it would be difficult to get the lines of the meeting layers to flow smoothly, but I think if you carve it to your approximate final shape and then fine tune it with a flexible sanding block and some coarse paper, you could get the line looking pretty sharp.

peace and good luck,

russ

[verhoevenc]

With a rotary tool...? As in just using like a course disk bit and freehanding a carve??? I'm a little lost on how you accomplish this? Care to elaborate?

Chris

[erikbojerik]

I've almost finished a bass with a laminated body, I rough-carved the horns using a sanding drum on a Dremel, followed by LOTS of hand sanding.

[thegarehanman]

I did elaborate. It's a foredom coarse burr I use; I can't be more descriptive than that. And yes, you're going to "freehand" the carve no matter what tool you use short of a cnc router or duplicarver. I've used that setup to carve the top of a Les Paul and the top and back on a hollowbody. It takes away material very quickly, but is small enough so you can control it very well. It can be a dremel, an airpowered rotary flex shaft, doesn't matter.

Here are some pictures of a top I did with a dremel and a foredom rough burr.

(Click thumbnails to enlarge)

Link: top after routing relief, before rough carving

Top after it's been rough carved with a dremel

Link: Top after sanding/smoothing with sandpaper

peace,

russ

[n8rofwyo]

I think the key to carving the type of laminate you are considering is twofold. First, as has been mentioned, cutting tools are going to do a better job than abrasive tools due to the different "hardness'" of the woods. Second, what really makes the two tone sandwich work is the smooth line of not only the carve, but the carve at exactly the point that the woods are laminated. If the carve isn't smooth than the lines of the laminates look jumpy or not in harmony with each other. Never tried this though, so just an opinion - take it for what its worth.

Good Luck.

Nate Robinson

[thegarehanman]

If the carve isn't smooth than the lines of the laminates look jumpy or not in harmony with each other.

I think that was inferred from the start.

[frank falbo]

If it's a convex carve like the one in the photo then I recommend using flat files to finish off the junction points. The file is militant, much like the scraper. I use razor blades to finish up all the time. Mahogany and Ash carve like multilaminates because of the multiple densities and large pores. So the same principles apply there.

[thegarehanman]

You'll notice there are a lot of concave curves on that top as well(it's more pronounced in the last link). That's what I like about the coarse foredom burr. It's tear drop shaped and works great for all types of curves.

[frank falbo]

Not yours, dummy, the Kritz one in the original post.

[thegarehanman]

Look, you made me cry. I don't think he wants to do a carve like that. I'm pretty sure he's more interested in an actual carved top.d

[verhoevenc]

hahaha, sorry, i am looking for a carve almost exactly like that (minus the ULTRA raised bridge part; which they call the 'lift-top') but with buckeye biurl and purpleheart.

Chris

[thegarehanman]

But you want a 3/8" piece of purple heart on top? It looks like the maple(?) on that picture you posted is maybe 1/8" at the sides and whatever that black line is is also no more than 1/8". It's probably not veneer though, looks too thick for that. You meant for the purpleheart to be the top, right?

[verhoevenc]

no no no, the purpleheart is gunna be where the black and mahogany is on that. The buckeye will be where the maple is on that. As for the carve on the Kritz, it's bigger than you think, I've played several AT their workshop when I lived there, and have ordered 2 of um. It's a bigger carve than it looks to be.

Chris