Official Luthiers Forum!

Today I was working on a hand drawn plan for a new instrument. As I was using one of my favorite simple layout tools, it occurred to me that I didn’t always have something like this; my building life has been much better since I made it; and boy, would I have benefitted from having it earlier. So, I thought I would pass along this idea to some of the newer builders.

This is an acrylic layout square:



I put it on top of a StewMac workpad so that would be easier to see. It is 1/8” thick acrylic, 18” wide, 24” long. I was very careful to make sure it was square when I bought it. Then I scribed a center line down the middle, and scribed lines across the center line that represent the ends of a 20” long body (a standard size for me) and the locations of each of the four back braces I use on a guitar of this size. There are also small holes that help me draw dots that represent the width of the braces.

In use, it is important to put the scribed lines down, so that they are right up against the surface of what is being measured.

Getting your back braces precisely square to the center line of the back is more challenging than you would think. Using a layout tool like this makes it faster and easier.

But before you get to the building stage, having a large acrylic square like this makes new hand drawn layouts go way faster. Once you draw a center line on some paper, this large piece of acrylic allows you to draw lines perpendicular to the center line in a flash. Just align the scribed center line (again, scribed line down) with the drawn center line, and put the end of the square on whatever measured point you have drawn, and swish, you have a precisely square line that is perpendicular to the center line. Need to draw a straight line from point to point? Just line up the edge of the layout square to the two points.

It’s simple and easy to make, and man, I wish I had done it a lot sooner in my building.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to some of you.