Prostheta

Difficult unless you can find something that will promote any bad intercoat adhesion and cause seperation. Perhaps a very ginger (sorry ginger people) approach with a heat gun to seperate the layers?

Chemical strippers are the paint equivalent of the acid that the facehugger in "Alien" pees out of it's knuckle, and eats through several decks.

I'm currently on to building my third guitar, and have a lot of expensive tools, but can't afford the bits/blades for most of them to make them useful, so I tend to approach things from a very money concious angle and still produce good looking results.

I agree totally. I don't want to overspend on the tooling as it tends to be cool to have that fret-dressing-spoon-monkey-lacquer-handkerchief™ thing, but half the time these things never serve their purpose and get sidelined. Effort and thought vs. overtooling I reckon.

I get the impression I'll spend a helload on new router bits when they start to tear out, yeah?

IMO, a setup to consider would be:

Router: First and formost! You can almost build a whole guitar with one of these! Good starting bits: Roundover (I'd go with 1/8" or 1/16" for any ESP/jackson style guitars), pattern bit(bottom bearing), template bit(top bearing). I'd also go with a 1/2" shank, because it can then take the larger pattern bit's, and acts to trim the outline of the guitar well.

I guess I'll have to bite the bullet on that one. Two routers are better than one I guess.

Bandsaw/Scroll Saw: When access to my good bandsaw is not there, I use a scroll saw to cut the bodies out of wood. I don't particularly like using my table saw, as then I can only cut large rectantgles out of the wood I have, and it causes more wastage

I have a particularly anaemic scroll saw which I've decided to keep purely for shaping covers and inlays. Not enough power or tension in the blade to saw anything thicker than those! The bandsaw is definitely on the buy-list.

Drill Press: Finish sanding, any holes, etc... one of the most useful tools in my shop. With a drum sander and MDF table, works as a great body finishing tool

I'm dead set on the drill press also. Too many opportunities to screw things up else! That and the fret press caul from Stewmac looks like a good investment in combination with a drill press! How DO you press frets in when the caul is spinning between 200 to 2500rpm, I don't know! I presume you select a LOW speed eh?

The Robosander attachment from Stewmac also looks a total investment, although I think the bobbin sander might make this redundant.

Hand Sander: A nice 1/2 sheet sander will work great when it comes to finishing up the top of a guitar.

Worth it's weight in gold IMO. Unless you really wanted to trade it's weight in for gold just to buy more sanders!

Smaller Wood Tools: Planes (you can't just buy one...but a jack plane'll do...around here, you can get samona ones for about $20, and with a bit of work, and a new blade, these things'll work great! Spokeshaves are great for rough carving of a neck (I personally don't use mine much...) again, Samona ones go cheap, and work great if you can hone the blade well, and put a bit of work into it.

Assorted Hand tools: rasps...files...etc etc...

This is the scary bit however. I've never been one for the patience to hunt for *that* tool. Maybe I should consider a tidier, more organised setup before installing the clutter!

Oh, I forgot to adjust my signature somewhat....ah, that's better!

I was wondering where to get a huge radius roundover bit similar to the one David Myka uses to rough out neck radii. It has to be a 1/2" shank purely on the basis that my router is 1/4" of course. Life is like that.

Thanks again Ben. My workshop is a single garage (although "single garage" to most non-UK people means 100sq yd with lighting, power and air con!! heh) with a solid wooden fire door sat on two sawhorses. Good bench. I'd kit the place out further, but making guitars is a short term project for me until I work the place into a small home studio. Either that or we move into a house with both :-)

I suppose I could burn as much as is burnable on hundreds of specific tools, but I'd rather get the few tools that teach you what you're doing, and buy good ones at that. I couldn't say I created anything if I CNCed it for instance (despite working CAD as a dayjob!).

Everyone hold you spokeshaves in the air and cheer!!

It's like the thicknesser for example. I could buy a combination planer/thicknesser (at higher cost of course) which would allow me to plane the glue edges of bodies as well as thickness, but hell! I can set up a router to do that at the cost of a few screws, a chunk of wood and a couple of router bits!

So, to expand on the "what was your starter shop tool setup" question - what was your best made purchase?

I've got to say, it was the binding cutter and roundover bits :-)

The table saw isn't anything spectacular (apart from it was free I guess) but it went through 2" African mahogany really well. Not exactly a precision instrument of course! When it comes to rough cutting lumber, it's pretty spot on. It's a bit disturbing to see a 3mm wide kerf appearing as you cut though. You start seeing money fly past your face at that point.

Would I be right in thinking that a bandsaw would pretty much obviate the usefulness of a table saw? Hell, all it does is cut things in half really!

edit: This looks like a good deal on a free-standing bandsaw to me....

Thanks Ben. I've been getting myself up to speed on a cheap piece of mahogany I bought in Market Harborough. I thought of trying a piece of general scrap, but I wanted to gauge tearout and workability on "real" woods when routing. I think a good rasp would be an investment for sure, but the bobbin sander seems an oft-undermentioned tool which I think would be an awesome bit of kit.

People's comments on using angle grinders for carving are so totally true. Despite me using a stone cutting wheel (yes, I need a flap disc!) I've made a really spot on tummy cut in the LP doublecut body I made in the mahogany.

I think my first "real" project would be a copy of my old ESP Mirage. I miss that baby. Not a difficult project either apart from the top carve - have-angle-grinder, will-achieve etc!

What was everyone else's "starter shop"?

Hi all! I'm new to the board as a member, but I've been doing my research and reading like a good boy

Basically, I have floorspace in a converted garage which I'm making use of as a guitar shop. My current tooling short of the obvious hand power drills, screwdrivers etc. are:

- Bosch router (1/4" shank)

- 10" table saw

- Sheet sander

- Dremel

- Angle grinder

- Spokeshave

I'm considering the following tools to complement these:

- Reciprocating bobbin sander

- Thicknesser, possibly a combination with planer

- Bandsaw

I've decided to take the full hands on approach and build necks. I couldn't say "yeah, I made that" if I used a Stewmac thru neck eh?

Forgive the links here, but these are the tools I'm considering. I'm not wanting to spend *too* much money on the tooling but I don't want to waste money on tools that won't give me the results I expect of course.

BOBBIN SANDER

Great! 14-1/2" x 10-1/2" (37cm x 27cm) platen which makes me happy. I presume that having at least half of the guitar body on the platen at any one time should make for some kickass perpendicular sanded edges eh? The vertical travel and usable height is more than enough for say, 2" (5cm) thick bodies.

DeWalt DW734 thicknesser

Maximum width capacity 12-1/2" (~31.5cm) which in my mind is too small for thicknessing 1-piece body blanks, or 2/3 piece made blanks. I measured one of my EXPs, and they pop in about 19" (~48cm) which is wayloads. That said, good quality equipment or so I'm lead to believe. The alternative would be a cheaper model such as:

Clarke CPT250 thicknesser

Cheaper (trans. affordable) tool, with a width capacity of 10" (25cm).

I perceive my working process on say, a 2-piece body to be:

1 - get wood (heh)

2 - roughly cut body blank pieces to size left and right

3 - quick couple of runs through the thicknesser to bring the most out-of-line side into line with the "best" side

4 - hand sand newly planed face level checking with straightedge

5 - re-thickness boards with levelled edge downfacing

6 - plane glue edge using router table to create 1" straightedge a few mm into sideface, flip over and use flush trim router to complete entire sideface

7 - use bobbin sander with HomeMadeStraightEdgeGuide™ to finish glue edge

8 - glue, clamp etc.

The neck is where it gets interesting. I intend on making a couple of basses (prob. more if I get into it) but to strengthen the necks with a couple of carbon rods (no-brainer router work, yawn) and with differing wood laminates. I love Jeff Miller's PRS/Variax project in that the neck has two lovely bloodwood stripes. Now, given that say I can't acquire the wood for those stripes ready cut - can thicknessers handle wood that thin and achieve good results? As a rough calc in my head, each piece of bloodwood would have to be circa 31-1/2" x 3/16" x 2-3/8" (800mm x 5mm x 60mm). How would it be best to achieve this short of paying someone else to do it? The table saw I have isn't delicate enough to reliably leave a 1cm thick piece of wood, and it sounds awesomely wasteful if I leave it thicker, and let the thicknesser take away the rest. I presume a bandsaw would come in nicely here....

At this point it may be worth taking a breather from my constant train of thought here also

Back to the show. I like David Myka's idea for rough shaping neck contours. It makes the process less mystifying and more manageable for the beginner. It does however point out that a 1/4" shank router doesn't get all the awesome toys 1/2" shank routers get. For shame! Would I be best investing in a second 1/2" router? Bit of a bite here considering I already have one. Would I get the mileage out of it?

Clamps! There are SO many clamps available, but what would make a good usable selection? From the photos I've seen of luthiers laminating maple to bodies, etc. it seems everyone has a million of them. Shame I can't (well, "don't want to have to") afford a million, so what would be the best quantity and number of clamps to invest in? The tasks I perceive to be using them for are for laminate necks and laminate tops - these seem to bring out the biggest clamp monster in luthiers! THIS STORE have pretty good prices and are local to me, so price stands against shipping otherwise I'd love a million clamps from Stewmac!

Oh yes ->

On the topic of Stewmac - I've looked at the fretting tools and supplies, but baulked at the prices as I have to consider shipping and import on this deal. I've read arguments for and against hand-hammering frets versus fret presses. I am tempted by the Stewmac fret press caul as it's not too much of a hit and looks like a confident tool. Any comments?

I think I'll leave it here else I'll spend the rest of the afternoon talking and not achieving anything "in the real world"

Must try and get my arse down to Norwich and go shopping for wood.

PS. Any UK members from around the Lincolnshire area?