Ok being a rank amateur at joinery, what is the best way to get the sides of the wood you are going to join perfectly flat so that they fit snugly? I'm trying to resist the urge to buy power tools so any advice appreciated, even if it means I have to invest some money in a decent jigsaw or something. I do prefer hand tools though :)
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everyone pretty much said what i was going to say so ill tell you how i do it . i glued a sanding belt 120grit to a 2x4 . dont use and downward pressure let the sand paper do its job . once it moves smooth and freely check your stock with a flat edge . I refuse to buy power tools too . although i am debating on a dremel for carving bridges .
Thanks, good tip about not using too much pressure, the only thing I remember from doing woodwork at school was always tips like that and "let the saw do the work" type stuff, and it's true.
I caved in and bought a Dremel a few months ago for intricate work like smoothing the rough bits from frets and gouging out enough room under a bolt to fit a rod piezo in. Removing rough bits from frets with a file was getting tedious.
Thanks for the replies, been a bit busy to respond. I was making a wide headstock for the first time and needed to add "ears" to it, and I just rolled out a long bit of sandpaper on my workbench and did it, seemed to work fine. I am going to go down the plane route though, I'd like to use hand tools where I can and learn this rather than machine it.
Remember that you need a fairly large hand plane for head stock size pieces. In order to avoid scooping down at the ends of the piece, the flat of the plane will have to ride across the piece all the way through the cut, from end to end. If you have a small plane you will end up with two halves that are beautiful mirror images of each other, but will not join when glued.
Yes, I learned this the hard way. I have a newer small plane and a lovely old mid-size one that was my grandfather's. For some reason, I picked the small one without thinking and generated more than twice the work to do the piece.
I use a 2 1/2 inch wide, 18 inch long aluminum sanding block I got at a local hobby shop for $10. Also, a good square, I like a smaller 6 inch. About $8 at home depot. Its easy to sand or plane a surface flat but square is another thing. I like to start with 80 grit to remove bulk, then work my way to 150 grit. With a good sanding block you can get a good flat, level, smooth surface with clean sharp edges. I like sharp edges for more accurate layout work. I always round them over before finishing though.
For flat surfaces, especially when you are glueing them together, there's not much to beat a traditional well-set-up hand hand plane. You need a sturdy bench and a vice to hold the work, a good steel straight edge and try square to check your work, and that's it. I hate to say this, but sometimes its a good thing to learn how to do things the traditional way and not hope that a machine will do it for you. I've got a fair amount of power workshop tools, but before I had any of them I had 3 old secondhand Record planes, a decent handsaw and 2 spokeshaves to cut and shape my timber. In the long run it's way better to learn how to use hand tools, you learn a new skill, it's satisfying and gives a great result. Yes it takes time, but what's the hurry, unless you are making 10 or 20 guitars a week? When you go on to use serious power tools, you have a better understanding of how to achieve and check the accuracy of your work.
A belt sander is a handy tool, and I wouldn't be without mine, but my Record plane will flatten a piece of maple or mahogany far more accurately. Most belt sanders don't have a truly flat bed, only being constructed of pressed steel rather than the cast iron of a plane, the joint in the belt gives a little "kick", and unless you buy a really big one, you won't get a long joint smoothed in one continuous pass without running past the rollers on each end. Power tools are great, but there's no substitute for a sharp blade, a keen eye and a bit of muscle.
...where can I get that keen eye and bit of muscle....??? I was sure that I used to have some......maybe over there in the .... No?? Darn, what was I looking for???
:-)
I don't care too much for sandpaper.
It rounds the edges over and leaves grit behind.
if you were to match up your pieces the way you wish, then flip one over, end for end, stack them on top of each other, you could then run your plane down the edge and have a perfect match for a glue-up.
well, you'll need to clamp them together... :-)
rc
I use the sanding trick and the shooting board too but if you use the sanding method make something perfectly square to the granite to use as a guide and I tend to do both sides at once. I like the shooting board best but will sometimes touch it up on the sanding board. Youtube has lots of stuff on shooting boards.
You can get rolls of bulk sandpaper from Harbor Freight.
Ah gotcha, told you I was an amateur! Thanks.
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