Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

Having a few issues bringing down the thickness of my rosewood back and still got sides and top to do

I just bought an electric hand planer but it seems to brutal and uneven (one little drop off the end and it will take off a couple of mm

Just tried large hand plane and had some success but still doesnt seem all that consistant.. have been cutting at various angles across the wood
Am i missing something with planing. I am now way to scared to thin the top as its so much softer.

Any tips be appreciated thanks

I would not turn the electric plane loose on it. Stay with the hand plan.

Make sure it as sharp as you can get it and adjust it to less than paper thin cut. Go at it at about 45 degrees then reverse it 90 degrees and plane it some more. Stop .15" from your final thickness then use a sharp scraper to get it smooth and level. Again stop about .05" from final thickness and use a sanding block to get it nice and smooth leaving some material there for later. After you have the body braced and assembled you can bring it down the rest of the way with sand paper.

For the sanding portion you can use a ROS but I wouldn't use anything coarser than P320 and be careful around the edges. Actually a variable ROS set to low speed or a 1/4 sheet sander are safer than a standard ROS.

Anyway, that is how I use to do it before my drum sander days.

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Hand plane, large, fettled, sharp blade.
Sorry, did I say Sharp?
I meant SHARP!
I believe Joe said it.
Sound advice Joe.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

A cabinet scraper is a tool while a bit labor intensive is less likely to cause you trouble but gets the job done effectively. Level with sanding block made from half sheet paper on 3/4" stock (ply or mdf). I feel for you and wish you luck.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

What Joe said covers it, and if you keep making instruments you will soon find yourself shelling out for a drum sander. It just does the job so much better than hand tools!

You mean faster, not better. I've been making instruments for nearly 40 years and I don't have a drum sander. I know for an absolute fact that there are other professionals (some who are seriously good) who don't own a drum sander either.

The sander is a great tool and is for sure a lot faster and accurate. Some builders like old school and plane and scrape. In the states most of us do use the power sanders , as we can thickness a set in a few minutes but if you have the time you can do this by hand. When you are in business time is money I can't afford spending a day thinning wood.
Good scrapers are only as good as you can sharpen them as are planes.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I certainly acknowledge the bragging rights to those that thickness plates with hand tools -- but as pointed out above there is the economy of effort that must be considered, even at the hobby level. There are few videos on YouTube showing good hand tool thicknessing set ups and tools used (they are not inexpensive) If you plan to use a power hand plane -- just go ahead and order another set of plates.

Again if you don't have the proper hand tools and they are not sharpened perfectly the effort is going to be futile.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I would describe it as "way better...."

This is of course if your objectives include some of the following:

1) Guitars are tools for musicians the vast majority of time and not nearly as often designed to be museum pieces or GLOs (guitar like objects) where concerns such as playability, set-up, fret work, serviceability, and.......................value come into play. As a tool for a musician do you think that musicians care if you planed the top or drum sanded the top or both?

2) Of the what now about 4,000,000 guitars produced annually buy all makers what percentage of them are built exclusively with hand tools? Surely less than .1% and likely far less than that. This does not speak to what's better but it very clearly speaks to what's important to clients..... Seems that very nearly 4,000,000 folks simply don't give a rat's arse if you use a plane or drum sander....

3) If you believe that a planed top on an instrument has noticeable superior tone to a drum sanded top please remember to share when smoking the drapes.... I have yet to have a client purchase a guitar or know of a client purchasing a guitar because of many of the nits that get stressed over here. Things such as semi-hemi fret ends, planed tops, even glue choices although HHG does have a following these days in the player community. We tend to stress over stuff that is not important to most prospective clients.

Surely the word better is subjective but for the very VAST majority of guitar builders and producers you won't see them using hand planes to thickness tops.

If you like using hand tools more power to ya and there are advantages as well such as less dust, the look, etc but again when someone says "I'll take it" and purchases a guitar how often do you think that hand plane use is a factor in that decision? In my experience how the instrument sounds, plays, looks, and is priced as well as if the builder inspires confidence from a support point of view are ALL far more common and important than if someone used a Record #5 on the top.

There are niche builders who find a market for exclusively using hand tools to build and that's great. For the rest of us who's eye on the prize includes emphasis on other qualities as mentioned drum sanders are fast, reliable, safe, constant, and many of us will tell you that it was a big improvement in our building worlds when we bought our drum sander. I'm one of em...

So perhaps, just perhaps the term "better" is best used in the context of what's better for a specific individual. If this was the case a drum sander is WAY better for me! YMMV and usually does....

Where does this notion of 'better' come from? It's only 'better' in the sense of speed, not quality. Speed isn't everything though. Sometimes it is about the journey. I also suspect that your drum sanders aren't going to beat the drum sanders of the Yamaha corporation. So if you really believe that speed in thicknessing is the ultimate, I think that Yamaha will have us all beat.
Anyway, the OP asked about thicknessing using a hand plane, not how he could make everything much quicker.
I suspect (as others have said) that his sharpening skills aren't quite what they should be, either that or the Plane isn't set up as good as it could be. Either way sharpening a Plane blade is a vital and basic skill that transfers to the sharpening of other tools.
Cablepuller. I can thickness a Top in 10 - 15 minutes, a Back in 30 -40 minutes. If it's something like Walnut, quicker still. Nothing like 'all day'. It's all about the sharpness, perhaps a 'trick' or two but sharpness is a good 80% of it.

I just thought of something --- actually as a general/normal practice I do much final smoothing with a very sharp scraper blade (takes a few minutes) -- is that not the best of both worlds?

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I would watch an enjoy a real time video of hand thicknessing a common 3/16" EIR back set in 30 minutes that to me is impressive.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Cumpiano's book has a very detailed instruction for thickness planing.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Ok thanks for replies. . Couldnt afford a drum sander anyway.. will be taking back my electric planer and giving the hand planer another go and a good sharpening.. it is however a cheap plane but i hope will be ok

The 'trick' is to have two or three Planes prepared, adjusted for specific tasks. I start with a wooden Plane (light, less tiring) set for what I term as a 'gentle scrub'. Some might term it a Jack Plane. It has a cambered blade, set to remove the bulk quickly. It should take you down from say 5 mm to around 3.5 mm's.
The next Plane does not have a cambered blade as such (perhaps very slight) but it is set to take a medium shaving. Sometimes I use a wooden Plane, sometimes metal. The last Plane is the very finely set smoother, only used right at the very end, the last few tenths. Of course you can do the whole thing with just the one plane. You don't need expensive Planes either. The two wooden planes that I use cost around £30 for the pair. My smoother is an old Stanley.

Nothing wrong with an old Stanley.
I've just been using an old USA Stanley 4 1/2, newly fettled and properly sharp to smooth top plates for the first time, and am well smug with it, even compared to my LN 62.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

This helps too:



It's a Planing board for Sides. Clamps in the vice. It should have a 'stop' on the near end (it does now). It allows the Side to be planed without having to be clamped. The Plane is used across (or 45) the Side, not along the grain, which would probably just buckle and break it. I have another much wider one for Tops and Backs, again you have to be a little careful when the Back/Top starts to get thin.
This Plane is great for hogging off material. Someone gave it to me gratis. Foolishly I ignored it for a long time before curiosity got the better of me. It need a bit of work to get it to sing. The sole was in a very bad state, the wedge was locked in and the chipbreaker allowed shavings to pass under it. Of course the blade wasn't in great condition either. I use it mainly for thinning Ebony fretboards (and Backs), going from 10 mm down to 6/7 mm's. I could do it on the Bandsaw but by the time I've swapped out blades I will have thicknessed 2 fretboards + my bandsaw struggles a bit with Ebony anyway.

Michael, I like your planing board. I'm glad you showed that to us. Nifty idea!

Hand held power planes are for removing large amount of materials without much precision. It is not designed for planing any thin boards.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

EEK!

Put me in the "want to try" camp regarding planing my next set of wood to thickness. I made a moxon vise two months ago by laminating a bunch of 4/4 maple. I wanted to get attractive glue joints, so I smoothed them with a #5 set fine after running them through my 10-20. I thought the surface would be perfectly level out of the sander, but it wasn't. It required more touch up than I was expecting.

The 5-8th graders we're doing the guitarmaking woodshop with plane their stuff with block planes with results that surprised the heck out of me. If they can do it, I can try.

At the production level obviously speed and efficiency is way more important. They have better sanders than I do

I have to say that yes a thickness sand is indeed better and more economical when looking at time and material. With a plane you will have a chance of chip out and the tolerance of a well set up sander is within a thou. As a reward for mastering hand tools that is also a reward but when it comes to the economy it is hard to beat good power equipment.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Thanks jimmy

Planes have always been a mystery because never really tried setting it up and foolishly assumed it would just work... i will persevere with it and get to know it better.

You also need 5 different types of plane set to various functions to thickness plane rosewood/hardwoods. Ideally you'll want A2 steel blade which is going to cost unless you like sharpening every 10 strokes. The planes will cost more than 2000 dollars altogether if you get a good one. For that price you can get a thickness sander and be able to work much faster.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com