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carved top


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Like the name suggests you carve it. You can use gouges and fingerplanes to do it, or a random orbit sander or sanding disc attachment in a hand drill,. It helps to mark out the areas like a map, and to start it with a routed edge to get your depth.

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I have a question on this too.

i think that PRS use a maple cap and was wondering how hey get it to fit all of the contours of the body front.

Do they heat it and put it on or do they get a thicker top on it and then contour it?

They use a thicker top than I can afford and carve it. :D

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so should i use 1/2" veneer then 

I'm not to worried about hijacking this particular thread so I'll give my 2 cents.

My understanding is that veneer is VERY thin, like 1/8 to 1/16 of an inch or so.

When you say 1/2" that becomes what I'd call a 'top'. The 1/2" figured tops that I've seen are really pricey. I think 1/4" tops seem to be the most common. I'm just guessing but PRS uses tops that are ~3/4" to 5/8" or so and rated at least AAA and better. Really thick and REALLY expensive! :D The 'A' ratings I believe relate to how many grain lines per square inch, grain pattern and overall grain quality ie...no pitch pockets or knots. Higher the 'A' rating the better the quality.

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Hi

i've been trying to work this out for ages and hopefully one of you guys will know. How do you give a solid body a carved top for example we could say like a PRS guitar?

thanks in advance

If you do a search on these forums, you'll find everything you need to know. Ive talked about my technique on more than one occassion.

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When I posted a similar question, the best answer I got was "Take a piece of wood and remove everything that doesn't look like a PRS."

Still haven't tried it although I sort of faked the look with a router.

14.JPG

What type of router bit did you use for that? It looks pretty good.

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That's a really good start; you could just leave it like that, or now try to smooth out the contours.

I saw one tutorial (here?) where you take a flat body blank, draw contour lines on it (like a map) in the shape of your carve, which represent lines of constant "depth" below the flat top. Then go around with a drill press and drill a bunch of holes using the depth stop, shallow near the middle, deeper at the edge, following the "depth contour lines". These holes are then your guide as to how much wood to remove during carving.

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Is there a way to set the bit dept shallow enough on the kind of bit on the left so that you could use a combination of those two bits?

Start with the one on the right, then switch to the one on the left, with the ball-bearing guide riding somwhere about 1/2 to 2/3 down into the initial rout? I know it wouldn't be a true "carve" and wouldn't look like one, either, but it might be an interesting 'semi carve' effect if it would work..?

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The ogee bit looks like it would do what I was thinking-- as long as one got the right sized bit so that the 'shelfing' at the top doesn't happen. I would only want the curvy 's' portion.

Cheers.

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