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My grandfather & uncles were both hobby carpenters and they always had a few of these things in a few different sizes hanging with the hand planes. I think it’s like a rasp plane kind of thing.

Yup, got one from my stepfather's tools after he passed. Got to get a blade for it.
They do work and were popular, but lose their sharpness quite quickly.in hardwoods.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

If I recall correctly they were based on tools originally used to shape foam surfboard blanks. And yes, they didn’t last long working on wood.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

SureForm? They were like a plate of little shapers?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Hmm might work for bringing spruce tops down like a toothed plane.

I'd be cautious about that.
As I recall, they are not flat, but convex length-ways, can dig in at the edges on flat surfaces, and are basically a collection of mini-planes, so will seriously tear out if used against the grain.
More suitable for neck carving I think.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

There are much better tools available today.

We use a tool like that in the kitchen for grating cheese.

I have one of those. I have never found a task in guitar making that it is useful for.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Surform, used in the auto body trade to shape body filler before it had a chance to harden completely.
Not the best for shaping wood. A good rasp is much better for wood.

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Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

Ditto to all of this. The only thing I would even consider using a Surform for in guitar making is neck carving. But other things (like Dragon rasps) do a better job. Keep that cheese grater away from your spruce!

I used one on my first guitar around 1990. I think that tool was in Sloan's book which is what I was using back then. It's a bit brutal on wood but it does work.

Yep we have several and use them to hog off material on bridges that are too high on lower end guitars where shaving the bridge as a last chance save at neck reset time when the economics are not there. They make very fast work of material removal.

Microplanes are very similar, but do a much better job.

I still use one for neck shaping. The blade lasts a long, long time on mahogany.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

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John

I have a selection of them, with extra blades still in the package. Round, short flat, long flat.....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

You can get a microplane blade to fit your surform handle.

Steve.

I like my horses hoof rasp!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Lovely tools for drywall fitting and crafty large-scale foam work (e.g., children's Halloween costumes and set construction for high school musical productions...uncounted hours spent), but I would agree that Microplanes work better for our sort of shaping tasks in mahogany if a cabinet rasp and draw knife are not at hand.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower