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When thicknessing sides, top, and back by hand with planes, scrapers and sandpaper on a block what is a resonable tolerance to try to achieve. I’m measuring in thousandths with a home made thickness gauge and veneer calipers. On a quick attempt at practice sides on some squirrelly quarter sawn oak I stopped at about +/- .005. Close enough or should I take the time to get more uniform?

Thanks,
David

As long as the change in thickness is moderately gradual you should be fine . Many old instruments have more variation in thickness than that. When people do cutaways they often thin the side in the cutaway area to make it bend more easily.

I find my work tends to fall into the .010"-.015" range.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

.005 is way good enough.

After more than 25 years of mandolin building and 15 years of guitar building, it's long been my contention that a little variation is a good thing. Instruments that are perfectly CNC'd to absolute tolerances tend to sound sterile. Collings mandolins is a perfect example. They sound very nice, but the tonal qualities are pretty colorless.
You are just fine.

I concur with haans , faster , cheaper better , does not always make the best sounding instruments. I shoot for 5 to 10 thou

Most of the time, it is the quality of the fit, rather than a specific measurement, that sets our tolerances. That said, for things like bridge thickness, saddle fit, fret work, etc., tolerances are much tighter than when milling brace wood up or other rough work. To borrow a phrase from boatbuilding, carpenters work to the nearest 1/16 inch, cabinetmakers to the nearest 1/64th. and luthiers to the nearest instrument.

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For the times they are a changin'

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