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I do it like Burbank, or the rope, wedge and batten method if the plates shapes are irregular, or so thin that aligning the plates perfectly is critical, or they are the lest bit cupped or twisted (but we never build with wood like that, right...?) Got to try the tape thing, I guess.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Another vote for little wedges

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I made myself a jig for that purpose. Nothing new conceptually, but it has the advantage of being 'storable', meaning I can store in on a shelf while the glue dries, allowing my to work on something else during that time.

Pretty usefull for a small shop such as mind.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

YOU MADE A JIG

Just bustin you're walnut's Hesh Buddy

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

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

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Alain, that is a cool joining tray.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

What I like about the spanish tourniquet system is that you can get it out of the way and off your bench right away. With pretty much all these other systems it takes up space while waiting for the glue to dry.

Here's a mock up of my setup.



Once you've got the wedges set, you can pick this up and place it against the wall out of the way to do somthing else.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

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

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I like the string, wedge & batten method because the whole thing can be set aside to dry, not taking up any bench space.
The tape trick works great too. No matter what kind of glue you use. Cedar & Engelmann Spruce always get the wedge & string method... too easy to pull up fibres with the tape.

Thanks Waddy!

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Here's my Top/Back joining fixture. This is based on the one I used at the Romanillos workshop and works quite well. It does require that you trim the pieces to a wedge shape .....

Inlay strip detail