Evening The Thickness Of A Body Blank

[DrummerDude]

Hi guys, I am working on a guitar and the body blank turned out to be 4 milimeter thicker at one of its ends than it is on the other.

I know that there are professional machines that could even the thikness of a board but I need to know if there is a way to do this at home.

Any planer or router jigs or something?

Thanks!

Edited June 12, 2007 by DrummerDude

[dawnofzion]

an electrical planer should to the trick.

[Hector]

Hi guys, I am working on a guitar and the body blank turned out to be 4 milimeter thicker at one of its ends than it is on the other.

I know that there are professional machines that could even the thikness of a board but I need to know if there is a way to do this at home.

Any planer or router jigs or something?

Thanks!

your router should do the trick.

many ways to do it. think about it. a very big part of being a luthier is resolving these kind of problems.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Hector

[j. pierce]

I dig out my hand planes for this. But if you haven't had experience with them, you really want to practice on scrap. I figured I knew what I was doing the first time I did this; I didn't. I made things *less* level. By the time I finally got everything nice and true, I had taken about a 1/4" off of my piece I was working with, and had pretty nasty tearout in various places. But once you learn the skill, (and get your planes well tuned) it's a real joy using them. I can level most of the pieces I use in less time by hand than it would take me to set up a jig or a machine, and with less noise and dust. Of course, this isn't the best answer for every job, but I use it for many.

There's an article in a recent issue of Fine Woodworking on how to properly hand-plane things true and square.

I've also often taken boards after glue-ing my body pieces together (two piece bodies, or bodies with a decorative cap) to my local lumber merchant to have them run them through the thickness sander or jointer as well. It's on my way to work, so I drop it off and pick it up the next day. ...And buy more wood that I don't have a use for just yet.

[iskim86]

make it an archtop

[WezV]

A very simple router jig will do it. You need two 'rails'going one way that the body will sit between, these need to be slightly taller than the body. Then you need two more rails that sit across the tops of your first rails. These will have the router sitting on top - or even attached to them.

My first version of this simple jig was a couple of planks of wood clamped to my workbench with fixed rails on top which the router moved up and down. You had to route a section then move the body but it did the trick.

My new version is made from stainless steel and the router is attached to the rails which are much longer so they can be moved from side to side and the whole thing ccan be done without having to move the body.

Shame i dont have a picture here, but these things should be simple enough to figure out

[DrummerDude]

A very simple router jig will do it. You need two 'rails'going one way that the body will sit between, these need to be slightly taller than the body. Then you need two more rails that sit across the tops of your first rails. These will have the router sitting on top - or even attached to them.

My first version of this simple jig was a couple of planks of wood clamped to my workbench with fixed rails on top which the router moved up and down. You had to route a section then move the body but it did the trick.

My new version is made from stainless steel and the router is attached to the rails which are much longer so they can be moved from side to side and the whole thing ccan be done without having to move the body.

Shame i dont have a picture here, but these things should be simple enough to figure out

This is what I intended to do from the very beginning but I was unsure about the whole setup and it sounded like a lot of tedious work to find the right blanks for the router guides.

I have several more ideas but they require too much sophisticated and precise cutting and measuring that I can't do at home which, in turn, makes the whole idea of making a jig for work iat home pointless.

I will listen to your advice and make rails out of wood planks (hopefully I will find straight ones).

I have a hand power planer and I have a big stationary power planer at my country house too.

I used the big one for evening out the surface because the small hand-held planer was too narrow and it simply dug fullers in the wood plank making its uneven surface more uneven than ever.

I was thinking of a planer jig but then the router is what I am going to use for this job.

By the way, here is a photo of the body blank - it is thicker at the horns than it is at the front:

It's gonna be a Jackson Randy Rhoads style guitar.

I left wood around the neck pocket to have something for the router's base to step on.

If anybody has a visual representation of his thicknessing jig, I will be very thankul to see it.

Thanks!

[DrummerDude]

I am thinking of something like thsi (sorry about the crappy diagram - my drawing skills are not what they used to be when I was 95 years old :D):

If you have any tips and tricks or ideas for improvements, please share.

Thanks!

[WezV]

Here is my rough and ready version:

The top part bolts onto the base of the router and, with a little oil on the L-section steel, it will move freely over the bottom section.

I have thicknessed a few bodies with this so far and it works well.

Obviously its vitally importnat that the two L-sections are level and you need something that wont bend under the weight of the router for the top part.

[Southpa]

I foresee potential tearout, chipping and splintering when you pass a router over those narrow bodies of wood. The knot will shatter. The method works well with a conventional, more compact body shape but I have my reservations with this one. It looks like a very delicate operation with a router. I would use a small hand plane and plane with the grain, then board sand with the grain.

[DrummerDude]

Thanks guys, I will tak under consideration everything you said and adviced.

I thought of another way that this guy is using: CLCIK

Was too lazy to assemble my dis-assembled router jig and do something similar. Now i know that I have to do it anyway.

Will consider which one of the two methods would be easier for me to build and adjust.

I hear you on the tear out, Southpa.

Will try to be as careful as I can. Hopefully this would help a bit in keeping the plank one whole.

Thanks guys!

[fryovanni]

Thanks guys, I will tak under consideration everything you said and adviced.

I thought of another way that this guy is using: CLCIK

Was too lazy to assemble my dis-assembled router jig and do something similar. Now i know that I have to do it anyway.

Will consider which one of the two methods would be easier for me to build and adjust.

I hear you on the tear out, Southpa.

Will try to be as careful as I can. Hopefully this would help a bit in keeping the plank one whole.

Thanks guys!

A pin Router would be a handy tool, but they are spendy. I think Popular Mechanics has a plan for a pin router built out of wood(might want look it up, and see if that helps). I made an overhead router a few years ago- link

I dismantled it a while back as I really didn't use it much at all(and it took too much space.).

Peace,Rich

[DrummerDude]

That's an awesome thing you've build, fryovanni. Really neat and tidy setup.

My English is bad but if a pin router is that machine the guy from the video is using, then I think I can built a wooden substitute in no time using plywood and wooden beams for support.

Actually, I had something similar built but I dis-assembled it.

Its purpose was different but then I saw that it could be used for thicknessing too.

I will re-construct my jig and try to use it.

Thanks!

[badsnap]

If it's thicker at the horns, that seems like a pretty cool twist on a dime a dozen body style. That would save you the potential of destroying your work and gives you a unique, subtle individuality. The only caveat is if this thicker part gets in the way of your picking hand, but from the description it seems as though you will be clear. I'm not one to look for short cuts over proper execution but this is one of those things that could be a blessing in disguise. Cut the rest of the body, attach a dummy neck and see how it feels before thicknessing it. This could be a "this guitar was meant to be this way" situation.

Peace .. Rog

[DrummerDude]

If it's thicker at the horns, that seems like a pretty cool twist on a dime a dozen body style. That would save you the potential of destroying your work and gives you a unique, subtle individuality. The only caveat is if this thicker part gets in the way of your picking hand, but from the description it seems as though you will be clear. I'm not one to look for short cuts over proper execution but this is one of those things that could be a blessing in disguise. Cut the rest of the body, attach a dummy neck and see how it feels before thicknessing it. This could be a "this guitar was meant to be this way" situation.

Peace .. Rog

I've thought about that, Rog.

These 3 milimeters won't hurt my playing at all. It could be the uniqueness of the guitar too, sure.

But I am after an exact Rhoads copy and if I leave it this way, it will bug me that the guitar is not 1:1 with Randy's.

That's why I will have to even it out.

I have no more than one day of work left ont he body and it's a shame that i don't have a neck.

I will be using a pre-made neck for this one but I can't find a reasonably priced one. It must have a headstock angle, be with a pointy headstock, without sharkfin inlays and without bindings because I hate those things.

Sounds like I'm asking too much but basically any neck from a Jackson Dinky fits me fine.

Have two spare Stratocaster necks but not a single "pointy" one that would fit this project.

Converting a Strat neck means removing the original pretty thin frets and installing Super Jumbo frets, doing lots of scary work on the headstock to apply a backwards angle and lots of other nasty things that I am trying to avoid.

Hopefully I will find a suitable neck from somewhere.

But that's a different story, hehe.

[DrummerDude]

I made a simple plywood jig and it worked like a charm.

Took me 2 minutes to build too.

Now I have a perfectly thicknessed body blank.

Thanks guys!