Official Luthiers Forum!

At the request of some of the people that have purchased dishes from me I am offering this method of shaping your braces with a dish. This is the jig I use for my braces, it is easy to make, easy to use and effective!



Let's get started!



The first thing that I do is cut a piece of 1/2 inch birch plywood. In this case 3.5 inches by 20 inches (I am making this one for a flamenco build I am about to start and is a 30 foot radius)



Next I place the plywood on the dish and use the dish to scribe a pencil line on the bottom edge of the plywood to the contour of the dish. Close is close enough at this stage.



Next I saw the curve on the band saw, again, close is close enough!



Now I add the Pressure Adhesive paper to the dish (I use 80 grit, a one piece paper is a must! IMHO). Make sure the dish surface has no bits of anything on it. Once the paper is placed I use a 'J' roller to roll out the paper so that it is well pressed onto the dish and so that there are no wrinkles.



Next I sand the bottom edge of the plywood so that it is absolutely smooth and is absolutely the same radius as the dish.



With the bottom edge sanded I drill 3 holes to accept 3 - 5/16 x 2 inch carriage bolts that form the hold downs. As you can see I also like to use the other edge of the plywood for a second radius. The completed jig is 25 foot and 15 foot radius, for my steel string guitars.



I make two dogs out of maple. To get the slotted hole I just drilled a series of holes with a brad point bit and cleaned the slot out with a file. I did this while the block was still rectanglur. The centre hold down is just plywood but another dog might work also. I like the plywood as it has a larger surface area for the small braces that can only be held with the one hold down. You need to add a piece of scrap the same thickness as the brace on the back side of the plywood hold down.



I place a brace blank in the jig, lining up the centre of the jig with the centre of the brace piece. I then eyeball to make sure that the same amount of the brace stock is hanging over the plywood curve at each end. You can measure to be sure but the braces are going to be shaped a fair bit so I just eyeball it.



Next I run the jig through the router using a 1/2 inch straight bit with a bottom pilot bearing. I tend to climb cut (running the wood in the direction of the cut, hold on if you do this) to remove most of the waste and then do a final cut running into the bit.



Here is an x-brace that has been routed.



The last thing I do with the dish is then sand the bottom edge of the brace to make absolutely sure that the brace will make good clean contact over it's entire length.

Once this is done, I use a jig on my small table top belt/disc sander and thickness the brace ends and then take everything to the go-bar dish to start glueing the braces down.

There are lots of ways to do this and I hope others will share their methods, but this is what I use and I hope it is helpful to others.

Thanks

Shane

_________________
Canada

Brilliant, I really like your method, and your timing couldn't be better. I'll be bracing the top of my #2 this weekend, using my (home made) dishes for the first time.

This is how I'll do it. Thanks for sharing Shane.

EXCELLENT Paul, I happy that this is helpful. The very best of luck with it and let me know if there is more I can add.

Shane

_________________
Canada

Thank you very much Shane, great detailed description that i'll be following closely when i'm ready for bracing! Great tutorial

Great work Shane,

A most helpful and descriptive post, I really like your method also, it looks to be a simple straight forward solution to allow one to consistently radius bracings to a high degree of accuracy, well done.

Like Paul, I can certainly see myself adopting this method also.

Your a major plus to this forum buddy thanks for your input.

And please don't forget to PM me the outstanding shipping cost .

Cheers

Kim

[QUOTE=PaulB] Brilliant, I really like your method, and your timing
couldn't be better. I'll be bracing the top of my #2 this weekend, using my
(home made) dishes for the first time.

This is how I'll do it. Thanks for sharing Shane.[/QUOTE]

Paul,

How did you make up those dishes?? I've just stuck in an order with LMI
for 4 of their dishes....I just hope I get to the mailbox when the Visa bill
arrives before SWMBO does!!!

Cheers Martin

Martin take a look in the Library of Palns. I have a jig in there to make bowls. It is pretty simple to make and cut the forms.MichaelP38778.4318171296

Awesome. Great job!

Lance / Brock - a sure candidate for the tools & techniques section, no?

Great job Shane! I like your method, very easy and effective. Thanks for sharing!
Tracy

Thanks, Shane. I also like the small router table!

Ron

Looks good Shane, thanks for sharing. However (you knew something was coming ), I think I'd play it safe and use a router bit that was shorter than the height of the knobs.

_________________
Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Good point Don. The bit actually is shorter, the angle of the picture makes it look higher. When using this jig the handles are turned quite hard on the hold downs and then they become the handles I use to feed this jig through the router bit. If you keep your fingers on the handles, they can't get into the bit. As always, these are power tools, play SAFE!!

Thanks again Don,

Shane

_________________
Canada

One other, "just one thing". First you created a jig to route the bottom of the brace on the sanding dish right? So after you cut the brace, you have a very nice "planed" surface, or at least you should have. Now you go and sand 80 grit scratchs on the bottom of the brace. Do you clean up those 80 grit scratchs?

I would think that you would get better adhesion if you were to leave the brace planed and not sanded.

I don't have a router table setup (I know it just takes a piece of plywood and the router mounted to the bottom for a cut like this) so I have preshaped on the bandsaw and did the final shaping on the dish, than i would at least put some 120 grit on the dish and sand away.

Incedently, I do the same thing with the rims when shaping them.

_________________
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

Rod,
I don't know if I'm speaking for Shane, but the reason I go back and resand is because after you cut on the router, you have only cut the brace in 2 dimensions, and not in a sphere. When you put them in the dish it adds the sphere to the bottom of the brace so when you glue in the go bar, the brace sits straight up, and does not tend to lean over. You can put some 120 grit sandpaper if that makes you feel more comfortable. Hope this helps explain the rational.
Tracy

Exactly what Tracy said!!

Many fine guitar builders, the likes of Ted Thompson, David Webber, use like 60 grit or lower to sand the rims. That is an even smaller glue surface area and they have had no problems after, well David has clocked guitar number 800. I think that it may be better to get it smoother but this is the method I use and once passed over the dish I don't like to touch the bottom again for fear of changing that "domed" shape.

Shane

_________________
Canada

[QUOTE=kiwigeo]
How did you make up those dishes?? I've just stuck in an order with LMI
for 4 of their dishes....I just hope I get to the mailbox when the Visa bill
arrives before SWMBO does!!![/QUOTE]

Hi Martin,

I bought Michael's bowl making jig plans from the OLF library. It works great, but if I lived in the US I'd buy some bowls ready made. I shudder to think what your visa bill is going to look like. I hope you survive!

Ok, cool thanks for the reminder about the sphere Tracy. I do agree.

Of course I may have opened up a can of "glue surface" worms here with the 80 grit issue.

There is always that fear of "did I do this right, will the joint hold, _____________ (fill in the blank)". Till the confidence (what 100-200 guitars) is there, I'm sure I will continually change and question how things are done.

Great photo tutorial Shane Rod True38778.7942708333

_________________
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

Hey Rod, there are a number of ways to get things done and many of them are the RIGHT way. There is nothing wrong, and actually a lot of things right, about modifying how you do things over time. It has been said many times, this is a journey. That is also why I added at the end of my description "There are lots of ways to do this and I hope others will share their methods, but this is what I use and I hope it is helpful to others". I really enjoy seeing how others do things but rarely follow exactly what they do, but I sure get a lot of good ideas. At the end of the day one has to use the tools and skills they have to get to that end result and all work differently in that regard.

Thanks for the kind words on the thread.

Shane

_________________
Canada

[QUOTE=MichaelP] Martin take a look in the Library of Palns. I have a jig
in there to make bowls. It is pretty simple to make and cut the forms.[/
QUOTE]

Will do Michael...thanks.

Martin

[QUOTE=PaulB]   

Hi Martin,

I bought Michael's bowl making jig plans from the OLF library. It works
great, but if I lived in the US I'd buy some bowls ready made. I shudder to
think what your visa bill is going to look like. I hope you survive![/QUOTE]

Thanks Paul,

Yes the freight on the LMI forms wont be cheap but the upside to
spending half your life working out on oil rigs is you get to be able to
afford such extravagant purchases!

P.S. If youre down Adelaide way dont forget to drop in and check out the
workshop.

Cheers Martinkiwigeo38779.624849537

Shane
received just this morning my special edition double radiused side dish "a la Gg". You're right its really speciale. And this is the very best way to show his usefulness.
Great, thank you so much buddy, both for the dish and the instructions. Wait for the next step
Gg

That's GREAT news Luigi. I am glad that it arrived! I think we would all be happy to know how sturdy it is in the go-bar deck. I don't think it will deflect much if at all but would like to know for sure. If it does deflect then it will need a block in the middle for support.

Thanks for letting me know that it arrived!

Take good care!

Shane

_________________
Canada