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I hope to be cutting the dovetails pretty soon and I want to build a jig. Do any of you have a plan that you would share?

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I guess I'll cut it by hand. It should take less time than building a jig anyway.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

We're you meaning how to make a neck angle jig? There are plans available including from here I believe. You can buy one commercially from LMI (fairly cheap) and LuthierTool (fairly costly).

The cheapest way I'm aware of is to watch the Robbie O'Brien tutorial online for using the jig and glean from there how to make it (it's not hard, I built two along the way) and then get templates from LMI.

Does that help?
Brad

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Are you committed to a dovetail? There's a lot of other systems which imo are better...

Buy these templates, and then follow the instructions on their website on how to build a jig:

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/T ... lates.html

Or, buy one of these on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Luthiers-Neck- ... Sw8CJcdbpN

You can wing it yourself, but that sounds like an expensive learning curve to me.

This is my first guitar and there are many many tools to buy. I hope to have them all someday, just not all at once. The jigs like the the one on LMI looks like it would take a lot of time to build and that's a project for future guitars if there will actually be any. I have hand cut dovetails for 3 F5 mandolins so that's not going to be an issue. At some point I would definitely like to try a router jig but there's no way I'll buy one ready made. What the heck, I'm a woodworker, I can build one.

The SM version looks really easy to make but doesn't have that cool angle setting bar. Rather than make something that's not what I want, I'll just cut this by hand and build Robbies jig down the road when I'm not in the middle of building my first guitar. I actually am looking forward to building it along with side bending jig. I bend sides by hand with no problem but the rig looks like fun so that's on my list.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I have the LMI jig. It was a good value IMO, and only took an hour or so to put together. I only worry about dimensional stability over the course of its life.


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That's an hour with all the parts cut for you and hardware in a bag. If I do it myself I have to round up the hardware and figure out how to make all the parts. For me, it's a weeks worth of building and researching. I will probably purchase the plan. I think that would be$20 well spent.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

That's why I think it's a good value. An hour of time vs. a week. Regardless, the goal is a working finished guitar, and whichever route you take to get there is perfectly valid.

I'm not sure fun is what I would say about a side bending jig. I actually get more fun out of hand bending sides on a hot pipe. Of course, hand bending has a higher risk of the misery of breaking a side. Is the absence of misery equal to fun? I don't see the pleasure spectrum in that way. A side bending jig actually feels kinda boring to me. I get the side in there, I let it cook, then I turn it off. In contrast, you get to feel the side turn mushy when you bend by hand. To each her/his own.

Bending by hand is quite satisfying and with the right woods, very easy. But I think the grass may be greener on the other side so I've got to go there. I won't know until I do. It seems like a factory kind of thing though. A form for this guitar and then another form for that guitar.

I'll build one for the sport of it and then see for myself if it's worth it. I do believe that anyone that starts out with one is missing out on an enjoyable process.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

We use the Paul Woolson neck jig for mortise and sockets and a shopmade tenon and dovetail jig. The Woolson jig was the basis for both the Luthier Tools and LMII jigs, is fairly simple to build, relatively inexpensive in terms of material (ours is built out of Home Depot hardwood ply; Baltic birch would push total cost closer to $140 when the $85 for the dovetail templates is included). The only real limitation of the Woolson jig is that it cuts the tenon or dovetail only, but we prefer using a separate jig for the mortise or socket in any case, so a very acceptable trade-off. Plans for the Woolson jig were at one time available from OLF, but can be borrowed or perhaps purchased second-hand.

A much less expensive approach for a dovetail neck joint would be to cut the socket in the neck block prior to body assembly and cut the tail on the neck when the neck blank is still squared up. This approach is mentioned in Mr. Allan St. John's book, Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument.

We use this approach on milling up replacement dovetailed necks - measure the two angles of the existing socket, then set the blade tilt for the slope angle of the socket and use a jig block against the fence or mounted to a sled to establish taper angle.

If the body is already assembled, the socket may be cut by hand with accurate layout - I've done this for a baritone uke, and while a bit slower than a routed socket, it works well and makes for a stunning still process photo for your future web site.

The dovetail neck joint is a full-blind dovetail, so errors in milling and subsequent adjustments (e.g., neck resets) are easily and discretely accomplished...worth practicing on some glued-up scrap to gain a bit of confidence. Some of these trial pieces are so nice that I keep them to around for use as kindling.

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I have the Luthiers Tool Jig, excellent. Woodie mentioned using a tablesaw. John Arnold and Wayne Henderson locally use that method. John Arnold has mentioned that Martin used one in the early years.

If you decide on building your own neck jig, like the kind LMI sells, I have a set of their templates for either dovetail or mortise and tenon that I would let go of for fairly cheap. I only used them to copy the outlines to build my own.

A dovetail isn't that hard to cut by hand. If you are building LOTS of guitars in a production set up, then routers are probably the way to go. They will work if done well. Some production ones aren't.

I found a Harmony Baritone Ukulele at a garage sale with a case for $5. It had a split rib. I fixed the rib and while doing that found that the neck was loose. It had a small dovetail block screwed on to the neck. The fit was sloppy, and had only the glue on the ribs, (why do they glue on the ribs and not the block?) was holding it in place. I glued on a bigger, well fit block, replaced a missing peg, and gave it to one of the Grandsons, after adding a thin coat of varnish to make it closer to the requested red.

The important part is fitting. You have to make sure everything is lined up as you slowly drop the neck down in elevation. The neck angle has to be held. The fingerboard face has to be level. And that's about it. When done it will be really strong, and you don't even need ear protection. It is even a lot of fun using hand saws, files, and chisels. Yeah I know that many people like their power tools, but I've been a CNC machinist for over 40 years, and I enjoy working back in the 18th Century instead.

We will see what I say when I get to banding.

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