Official Luthiers Forum!

I’ve got my scarf cut / joint down pretty good now with my test wood. Now its time to thin the headstock down to ?”. The book, “Guitarmaking”, says to clamp it in the vice and use a plane. This takes forever! (30-45 minutes)

Is there any reason I can run it through my thinkness planer and knock it down to say 5/8 and then use the block plane to finish?
alambert39062.5352314815

Is this attached to the neck yet? If so then there's no way it will go throught the planer. If not, it should be fine. My only concern might be that it's too short. Not sure of what planer you are using but make sure the piece is long enough to safely go through.
Don't take it all the way down to final thickness. You'll want to leave room for error when the scarf joint wants to scooch a bit.

Alan, just plane one of the boards for all three headstocks at once. I ran mine through the planer when I did mine. Leaving a bit extra for adjustments as Paul says.

Shane

_________________
Canada

Paul,

No its not attached. And its a Lowes issue DeWalt single speed.


Shane,

I guess I could do that. What do most people do? Use the plane?

Alan,

Whatever you have that does the job. Everybody is different depending on the tools they have, the experience they have and whether or not they just like to do it one way over another. Me? I would use a planer or tables saw to get it to rough thickness, followed by my thickness sander. They I would cut the joint, glue it up (as he shows in the book) and then finish off with a flat board with sand paper glued to it. I have a 3 inch thick by 4 inch by about 30 inch long pice of oak that I flatten on the jointer and then attach sandpaper to it....works GREAT!

Shane

_________________
Canada

I don't think it really takes all that long with a plane, but I guess 30 min doesn't seem like terribly long to me unless you're in a production situation. You can set your plane blade to cut a little deeper and it'll hog off the material pretty quickly. I've done a couple this way.

In Harry Fleishan's class, we used an oscillating spindle sander with a block clamped next to it spaced at the desired headstock thickness, and then you'd slowly feed the headstock into it, almost like a vertical thickness planer.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

letseatpaste
There are plans for a vertical thickness planer like you describe in an issue of Shopnotes I have,
I was looking at that and thinking - hmmmmmm that would be great for side thicknessing! But as you state obviously its good for other parts of guitar production as well - mabye Ill spin that project coming up. thnx
Cheers
Charliewood

It probably takes me so long because I've not realy learned how to use it.

It's actually a good way to learn how to use a plane, because you've got a lot of thickness to work with so you're less likely to screw it up. So you can mess around with depth of cut and whatnot and see what your plane can do. I think after you get going it'll go faster than you think.

The first and only time I tried to thickness some mahogany sides with a hand plane, I ended up going way too thin because in my brain I thought it was supposed to take a long time so I didn't stop to check progress that often.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Thats no fun!

Wagner Saf-T-Planer here too.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Jon, I made something similar to what you are talking about. But I had troubles holding it perfectly veritcal. So I made a jig that holds the neck blank. I made a throat plate that sticks up a bit (very similar to a template guide on a router table). My jig (which is the exact shape of the profile of the neck minus the distance from the throat plate to the sanding drum)then rides against the throat plate and makes a perfect profile. Works great. Though a little time consuming.

Cool, Paul, I'd love to see a pic of your setup for that... This sounds similar to a pattern sanding thing I was thinking about for an OSS that I mentioned in this thread, but of course I never acted on it.

The thing in Harry's class was just a big glass block or something clamped to the table. We'd thickness the headstock after the scarf joint was glued, so it didn't seem that hard to keep vertical.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I just run my headstock through the bandsaw, it's just like a bit of small scale re-sawing, then hit it with the plane.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

To use your thickness planer with a short piece: Two similar thickness sacrifice boards 12 or so inches longer and 3/4" wide. Use double side tape and attach to a long flat board with the headstock piece in the middle , Looks like an "H". Run it thru the planer. This prevents"skipe". Or just resaw with a band saw.

_________________
Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/

Er... make that, "prevents snipe"

I run mine through the jointer after cutting and before glue up or "resaw" like Collin after the glue up.

How about thinning from the back ala John Mayes, for the "smiley" volute?

Has a nice look to it.

_________________
http://www.presnallguitars.com

I glue mine up then use my jointer to thickness the headstock.

Al

Jointer on the face and then drum sander on the back of the headplate veneer here.

[QUOTE=Colin S] I just run my headstock through the bandsaw, it's just like a bit of small scale re-sawing, then hit it with the plane.

Colin[/QUOTE]

+1.

only I use my japanese handsaw.

I really hadn't throught about resawing. I think thats a plan. Guess I will have to buy a fence!

Wagner here too...

-Mark

_________________
Pullman, WA

The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

trippguitars.com
OR
Find me on Facebook

I put a fence on my spindle sander and it works beautifully.
-j.

_________________
“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy