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Hey guys I just started my first build and as I don't have access or money to buy any expensive tools I'm doing it all with hand tools after talking to a few shop owners and repair men around town they wanted to see my building process so I decided to catalogue it here it will be a pine top with purple heart sides and back with a slight hand carve to it this is what I've finished so far I'm going to catalogue what I learn and the build process itself

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Are you going to hand-resaw Purple Heart wood with that hand saw?

And then plane it to thickness with that block plane?

Thats courage right there.

I would see if you can get some help resawing the Purple Heart. That stuff is like working stone.

i recommend getting a #4 bench plane (or bigger) to use for thicknessing plates.
2 of them if you can...
If you can't - get another iron.

Slot one iron with a dremel cutting wheel into a toothing iron for bulk wood removal. Use the other as the smoother. If you don't - you probably won't make much headway on wood that hard.

Lol yeah John I'm looking for a bigger plane it's kinda slowed my process down a bit after I tried to joint the top plates I split with the block plane I figured out its far too small I've been trying to find a larger one. This is what I have done the last 2 days though I used a crayon to mark the center line to cut for my top next I carefully used a Dremel to cut along the corner lines to seat a place for the saw to cut, because I didn't want to risk tear out and the groves help keep the blade from wondering especially if I rotate the board while I cut. (Allows me to envision the sound while I cut) k I also marked lines for my center, nut and joint for my neck.

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FWIW, I do almost all my thicknessing work using a block plane with coarse toothed blade (just 4 notches ground into it with a dremel wheel), followed by card scraper. I suspect purpleheart will work best with the blade pointed straight across the grain, and moving at a 45 degree angle. But of course be careful of tearout. Plane from the outside in, stopping before you hit the edge.

Jointing does need a longer plane, though. Also a very flat one, with a very sharp blade so you can take fluffy thin shavings. Mine is made of wood, 13" long. Works great, but does need reflattened more often than I'd like. At least it's a lot quicker than flattening metal planes.

Purpleheart is indeed horribly slow to saw, so good luck with that. The only consolation is that it doesn't tend to gum up the blade the way some rosewoods do.

I'll have to look into one of those wood planes I'm gonna check first with my uncles to see if either of them have a longer plane I could borrow or buy. Well this is what I got accomplished today I started sawing the board in half which is a long process 2 hours = 2" I think my saw needs sharpened but I did play around with the wood a bit when I got to this point I decided to tap the wood for a tone kinda sounds like taping on a cardboard tube though I liked the sound the pine made a bit better I just hope when I thin it out it gets a bit more sustain BTW I have no idea if it reflects the final tone but I thought it was cool

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Hi guys got n slightly bigger plane today

And I made a prototype hot wire foam cutter off a guys design I found on youtube

It's not quiet working as well as I'd like it to yet I think the guitar sting I used to make it isn't conducting enough power. Might have to up the power to 12v to cut the aircraft isolation foam I have as it seems to be pretty heat resistant

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