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LMII has an MDF version while Stewmac has an acryllic set. Both of these seem extraordinarily high priced. I suppose i may finally be getting old when prices elicit the "they want what?? for What??" reaction, but it really seems out of line to me.

Anyone in cnc land make similar templates?
Anyone know of a source for a reasonably priced template?

Now, get off my lawn and NO, you're NOT getting your ball back!!

Thanks! Rob

If you buy the jig on eBay, the templates (wood, not acrylic) come with it. Maybe that takes the edge off.

Have a look at the acrylic templates at guitarsandwoods.com

I bought some and they're very well made. A lot cheaper.


Pierre
www.torvisse.com

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Pierre Castonguay

the jig was fairly expensive as well... I did buy the plans from Robbie O'Brien's website for the jig and plan on building it, but the first step is making the templates and i am having a tough time with cutting the acrylic. I found a tool the cuts it fairly well but i am not confident in my tool use to think that the template will turn out accurate enough. Hmmm... maybe i'll start with an MDF template. I may do that instead. Thanks for getting me to think a bit...

About the guitarsandwoods.com templates... sorry, I just had a look out of curiosity. They DON'T have templates for tenon and mortise joints.

Again, sorry. Anyway, they're a good source for templates o it might be useful to someone.


Pierre
www.torvisse.com

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Pierre Castonguay

Smylight - that looks nice. Still not exactly what i thought they should go for, but they have that european flair! I could do that. Did you pay for shipping and what was the turn around time?

Thanks for the link!

[quote="Smylight"]About the guitarsandwoods.com templates... sorry, I just had a look out of curiosity. They DON'T have templates for tenon and mortise joints.



Yes they did... at least i see them..! Cheaper than the mdf templates available stateside. I'll have to see about shipping etc.
Thanks again!


edit:
OK shipping is another $20 US almost doubling the price. Still, an acrylic version for the price of the MDF.... back to thinking that i will make an MDF set.

The shipping was fairly reasonable, much more so than StewMac's if you have to pay for it. I have bought a lot of tools from them and they're top-notch. Delivery times are in the 2-3 weeks timeframe.

Best tip I can pass on : they'll slash the euro TVA off (that's around 20%) if you can prove you are a business. Maybe it applies to any overseas customer, but I'm not sure about that.

Now, have a look at their aluminum radiused neck sanding blocks and tell me they aren't the biggest deal this side of the Atlantic.


Pierre
www.torvisse.com

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Pierre Castonguay

Right you are. They've been staring me in the face. Shipping shouldn't be that expensive as they go about it according to weight, and it goes through some sort of "levels". So you can add more items until you go up to the next level. I’m usually filling up my orders with light items to make the most of it.

Service is great, very professional. This is a great source for tools.


Pierre
www.torvisse.com

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Pierre Castonguay

Anybody besides me get a strange page when they enter guitarsandwoods.com ??

Nevermind. This is that UK site that does StewMac stuff as I recall.

No, they're in Portugal.


Pierre
www.torvisse.com

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Pierre Castonguay

This fellow has way-more than he shows on the site

https://www.ebay.com/sch/tnwhittlerinc/m.html?item=201261468034&hash=item2edc1e4982&pt=Guitar_Accessories&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Don't know nothin bout no prices. No affiliation, yada, yada, yada

Ed

PS - it's all straight lines - could you make one yourself?

I am trying to make one of MDF. Not a woodworker by trade and hardly one by hobby. I have lots to learn. Amazing just how hard it is to keep things square!! (and neat!)

What i am struggling with at the moment is (was? i think i partially figured it out...) why Robbie's plans for the dovetail joint don't look like they will fit together. I think it may be because he designed them to use a 1/2 router bit with a 5/8 bearing, so visually, the two templates don't look like puzzle pieces that fit. The outside and inside cuts will make the finished pieces different sizes from the template..??? If i accept that, then i will have to make the templates on faith and find out whether they work or not later when i finish building the jig.

So that leads me to this question.... why use a 1/2" bit with a 5/8 bearing? would that just be because that's what he had, or is there some better reason?
I am tempted to adjust the template to look like two jigsaw pieces that mate together... i would use them with a 1/2" bit with a 1/2" bearing.... so the finished pieces would look like the template (?) ... is there some reason that would not work?

Thanks!

“Ed

PS - it's all straight lines - could you make one yourself?”

I’m with Ed, if you can build a guitar, you can certainly build a template/jig.
But I am confused, are you wanting M&T or dovetail?
I would likely want a template to do a dovetail, but find it unnecessary for a bolt on M&T.

B

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

on my first guitar, we used a M&T but it was triangular, not straight, it just wasn't undercut. According to the instructor, when it's done right you can just slap that sucker in and it's enough to hold the neck on. Maybe "wedge-shaped" is better than "dovetail"?

we used an acrylic template to cut the neck and body on my guitar, so what do i know? It was good enough for the instructor, it's good enough for me.

I was interested in the jig because it also sets up neck angle and it's been too long since i made my first to remember exactly how it was done.

I'll take some pics of the first few attempts at my templates and show you just how easy it is to screw them up. lol

And that right there is why it might be better to purchase them... You've probably spent enough time to pay for the templates.

As for the 1/2" router bit with 5/8" bearing (collar), that is very common when using a full size router. Router collars are the most common way to follow a template, and the difference in bit vs collar size needs to be accounted for when making the template.

An easier way would be to cut the mortise in the head block on the table saw before you glue it to the rims... Then for the neck you can also do the job by hand.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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After messing around with templates that I made for a dozen or so guitars, I went ahead and bought the LMII templates for the latest builds. They were expensive, but a nice upgrade from what I'd been using.

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Heh-heh... agreed, but i needed to figure this out to understand some of what i was doing.

So here's my first couple of attempts in using the router.... lol


You can see i had NO idea what i was doing!! the main fix was to do the cut in several passes. I thought with MDF it would no be a big deal to take off 1/4 " but apparently it was. Of course, i had nothing to make the bevel cut so i used a countersink... lol

The arrow points to the fact that i made the top of the jig cockeyed and the centerlines didn't line up, so i needed to make a new top as well...


The finished templates cost me $3 in mdf and my free time. I don't charge myself for learning. i could have paid for a class instead, so overall i am ahead...



Not perfect, but i think useable. I decided to use a 1/2" bit with a 1/2" bearing as the guy at woodcraft also said the larger bearing is standard with full-sized routers... i have a smaller Dewalt. I needed to make the templates as is... so the finished piece will be the same size of the template. I hope i am not overlooking some important aspect of the jig, but i'll find that out when i go to use it.

Thanks for all the comments!...

Rob