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I wanted to share a modest improvement on how I hold guitar bodies and necks for finishing. I am currently brushing on finish, but aspects of this design would work well for spray finishing, too.

My design goals were:

1. Being able to rotate the body/neck around a longitudinal axis, but also being able to lock it in any position.
2. Having a cantilevered attachment point, so as to allow better access to what would otherwise be a second attachment point.
3. Because of 2., extra rigidity. I wanted to minimize floppiness.
4. Ease of removal of the handle from the jig, so that I can hang the body/neck for long term curing.
5. Ease of attachment to, and detachment from, my bench, where the brushing of finish (and all other hand work) happens in my shop.

This is what I came up with:









The handles are modified table legs from Lowe’s. They are oak, 17” long, 1.5” in diameter, and not tapered. One end is rounded, and the other end has a 5/16”-18 threaded bolt stub.

The brackets are from StewMac. They are sold as extra parts for their steel rotating guitar holder. Their jig looks sturdy, but it is designed to be clamped in a vise, and I needed something different. These brackets fit over 3/4” diameter oak dowels that are also glued into holes in the ends of the table legs. Very sturdy in the end. Here is a close-up:



The threaded bolt stubs received matching coupling nuts and eye bolts, for later ease in hanging. The eye bolts are smaller than the 1.5” diameter table legs, so the legs slide out of the jig easily. Here is a close-up:



The jigs are simply screwed pieces of construction grade plywood. The secret to the rigidity is the fact that several inches separate all the parts, so you get a torsion box sort of strength when everything is put together. The bases are long enough to span two dog holes that are a foot apart, and get attached to the bench with bolts and t-nuts. The uprights are 3” wide and 6” apart from each other. The side brackets are a little over 4” wide and the same length as the bases. The holes in the uprights for the handles are made with a 1.5” hole saw; they fit the table legs loosely (just right) to allow rotation. The locking bolts go through threaded inserts in the tops of the front uprights.

As stated, when everything is put together, it is all very sturdy. If I had used a single upright per jig, sagging would have been the thing to fight. With two uprights, the front upright is being pushed straight down, and the back upright is being pulled straight up, when weight is applied to the bracket end. Well screwed wood holds up great to those forces.

Someone spraying finish could use this with a Workmate or any shop built table. Be careful about cantilevering; either add lots of weight or put the base support under what is being cantilevered. Tipping is a danger if you don’t plan right.

I hope this provides useful ideas.

I ended up using a drill press vice on a 2x2 piece of 3/4” plywood for the base of the SM thing. It’s pretty sturdy in that config and the vice gives it some weight. I like your setup!




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That's a good way to do it, Brad, and definitely less work than what I did. But I like what I came up with, in the end.

One thing about those StewMac brackets: A person could save a little money by just using angle brackets from the hardware store, but I tinkered with those, and they are nowhere near as solid as the StewMac brackets. I could bend the hardware store angle brackets with my hands. They would be less expensive, but they allow for much more wiggling around than the StewMac brackets. I would rather spend the extra money and have the rigidity.

I've got the SM holder mounted on a small pallet with ball type casters, a 6"x6" post and a small vise to clamp the holder at varying angles. I can rotate it around to keep the overspray directed toward the exhaust.

That's cool, Carl! I have some cut-offs from some 4x4s that I thought about using, but then I realized I would be happier with two thin uprights instead of one thick upright.

Yep. All stuff from the scrap pile except the holder.

Those holders look slick, Don. My shop space is small and I don't have much room to store largish items so I came up with the swiveling holder below which goes in my vise. It's a 1/2" eye bolt (for hanging) that I had sitting around run through two scrap wood blocks. I'm brushing on finish too and this setup works well in my small space. There's enough friction around the bolt that the guitar stays put when brushing. The vise swivels around the vertical and the holder around the horizontal so the guitar body can be positioned in a variety of ways.

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That looks like a good way of getting rectangular parts to rotate, Jay.