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Over time I have become more of a fan of laminated plates. Almost everyone plays plugged in and they offer a lot of advantages.

I do still have a source for excellent quality laminated plates for 15-16" models but there is some concern that may no longer be available in the future. Acme Archtop under the new ownership seems to have disappeared. I am not seeing much else with web searches.

Does anyone know of a source for laminated plates for 17" and smaller that is currently active?

For that matter CNC roughed in solid plate sources as well. It does not look like Smith Creek is in business any more. I do see that Allied is offering CNC services for archtops.

Thanks

Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Terry, I just purchased two laminated mahogany back plates from a guy on another forum. He included unbent laminated sides to match. They are 16 inch non cutaway and my plan is to use at least one to build a carved top laminated back and sides guitar.

I know he has more (he offered me 10) - I don't want to give out contact information here but I would be happy to send you a picture of two of what I got plus his e-mail if you want to PM me.

Some years ago I bought some laminated single and double cut sets but that person was selling his stock and equipment. I don't know if Ken McKay is still in business but he was a contributor here.

I have been wanting to build an Archtop for a long time now and I cannot for the life of me find this place that I had reviewed before that did CNC tops. I believe it was Hans Brentrup who mentioned it to me in a mandolin thread on this forum. The place was in Vermont IIRC. They would CNC to your specs and then of course you would fine tune it by your own hand. But it would be great to hog away all the waste on a CNC.

Anyway in looking for this place which I can no longer fine it appears that Allied does this kind of work:

https://alliedlutherie.com/products/cnc ... late-carve

That was Smith Creek Mandolins. Hans had one of their sets that I bought from him and I got a couple more sets from them. They were great. Solid wood not lams.

Their website seems to be down.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

FWIW making your own plates is not that challenging. If you have a CNC, you can cut a plug out of rigid foam and fiberglass it for strength and a smooth surface. The rest is just vacuum bagging your veneers.

I was planning a YouTube tutorial, but I just don’t have the time to learn video editing on top of everything else.


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Even cutting it by hand isn't that bad. I'm making a cello niw. I had one started, but I didn't see the back in half very good, and the arch got too low. I used to same slab I used for my archtop!

It probably took longer than the archtop, it's 30" or so long; but in a week working a few hours with planes it is down to looking like a cello. The recurve is not done, but I do that way later.

I work from the inside first, defining the arches that way. I don't have the ribs bent and glued on yet, so the outline is just rough. I don't do that until later either.

I got mostly chils, but the Jet filter box still turned white!

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Why be normal?

Actually. Cutting the slab twice lengthwise, and slicing six, 5.5" wide sides off by hand, and planing and scraping them to size by hand is far more work than carving the back! At least for me.
It is dustier too.

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Why be normal?

Making fully carved plates is a rewarding project. But the OP specifically said he liked laminate plates.

To reiterate, Making a plug for forming laminate plates is a fairly easy project. The bonus is that if you have a plug you like you can make many plates before it gets too beat up.


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