Tools and Fixtures

This section will show you some of the different jigs and fixtures I have made to help in the process of making guitars.  If you have any questions or need some information about what or how I did what you see, please feel free to send me an email.  Just click on the link at the bottom of the screen.

	When I built my first guitar, I had nothing but basic hand and power tools, and not many of those either.  One of the firs things I needed to do was to make some sort of a form to hold the rim of the guitar in during fitting and assembly.  I found some information in a couple of books and on the internet, and decided to go ahead with a design of my own. I took some MDF, and using the template supplied with the guitar materials, I cut out the shape of the guitar.  I glued the two halves I had cut to a backing board of the same MDF, and then screwed little hooks all around the form, then lined the sides with cork.  In hind sight, I have no idea how I built a guitar that functions and plays as well as it does.  This sort of a form works well enough if the sides are about 2" tall, but 3/4" is no where near tall enough to stabilize the rim, especially when gluing the neck block in place.  The hooks were designed to hold the rubber bands  I used to clamp the back to the rim during the gluing process, and worked very well.
I took the area I cut out from the backing board, and covered it with cork.  I then attached some pipe fittings, and some 3" pipe, and screwed it to my workmate.  The work height was very comfortable, I could walk around the entire project and work from every angle, and clamp from any angle as well.  It was a good idea, but because of the folding and mobile nature of the workmate, it moved and rocked a lot.  Weights on the bottom of the bench helped a bit, but if you have enough room in your work area, then I would recommend mounting it permanently to a stable bench.
	Once I started working on the Les Dragon, I needed a fixture to cut pearl out for the pearl inlay.  I had a jeweler's saw, but needed something to back up the work I was cutting.  A simple scrap of maple did the trick.  I drilled 3/16" hole through it, and cut a slot to the hole.  This allows me to keep the saw in one position and to move the work around the cutting jig as I need to.  I did the Dragon in my office in the city, and the dust got everywhere, and it is not healthy to breathe.  Once we moved north, I cut the Lion and the Lamb in the garage, and I had a shop vac nozzle near where I was cutting that took most of the dust away immediately.
Also for the Lion and the Lamb,  I needed to make a new form, as this guitar was an OM and the previous was a Jumbo.  I used another template to create the shape, then cut out two layers of 3/4" plywood.  I laid strips of 3/4" ply between, and screwed it all down.  This way, I had 2.25" high sides, plenty to stabilize the rim, but didn't have the weight of three solid sheets around the rim.  I then lined it with cork, added a hinge to one end, and a clasp at the other end.  The fixture did relatively well, though I am not sure the flat area at the neck block is as good as it really needs to be. I wasn't quite so handy with a router and following templates when I started this, and "trued" up the inner surfaces with a spindle sander and sanding blocks.  It was perfectly perpendicular, but I had difficulty keeping the neck in line with the centerline of the guitar, which might have been because of the fixture.  I will try refining it or building a new one for the Mango OM.
	This guitar bench vice is extremely handy!  It is very simple, and made from plywood and piping.  Pipe fittings attach two 3/4"x12" pieces of pipe to the side of the bench.  I cut two panels of 3/4" plywood, cut slots into them to hang on the pipes, and then covered them with 1.4" cork to protect the guitars.  I connected some pipe clamps to the ends of the pipes, and lined the pipes with foam insulators, again, to protect the guitar. This vice is handy in a bunch of situations....routing the end graft, working on a sound port, installing the end pin, scraping the sides after installing bindings, cleaning out the dovetail or mortise after gluing the back and top to the rim, attaching/fitting the neck, and a number of other purposes.
I built a side-bending pipe out of mostly materials I had already.  The base of the pipe is Ipe, a truly rock hard wood that caused my saw blade to spark when I cut it.  It is also very massive, and provides a good stable base for the pipe.  It does, however, need to be clamped in place when used.  I covered the threads with foil, and put a cap on, but I need to increase the airflow in the pipe to even the heat and prevent the flame from going out.  I will probably drill some holes along the bottom to promote air flow.  The cradle for the propane torch  was some spare mahogany I had lying around after the Dragon.   There is also an extension for some of the tighter radii around cutaway guitars.  It works well, but the metal needs to be degreased, cleaned, and sanded smooth.  There are a lot of casting marks that could be ground and polished, just in case they mark a good piece of wood.
	I also made a scarf cutting jig to use on my table saw. In theory, it was a great idea, but it is difficult to get things clamped just right.  It is also important that you have a very good saw with a very good blade, or blade flexure becomes an issue.  I have a Ryobi contractor's saw,  which works well enough for most things, but this isn't really one of them.  The body is plastic, and the motor mounts attach to the body.  Any difficult cutting, and the whole motor armature flexes, ruining a straight cut.  Typically, a scarf joint is going to be at least a 3" cut, which will stress the motor mounts.  The blade will also flex without anti-run out bearings on it.  The saw will give me a good straight cut through about 1.5" material.  After that, it better be nothing more important than framing lumber. The blocks that the clamps are attached to are critical.  T this angle, the blade of the saw cuts right through the back wall of the fixture, so these create a "pocket" for the blade to go into.  Once the top of the blade has gone all the way through the neck, the cut is complete, and the part can be withdrawn.  There will need to be some clean-up of the cut to present good gluing faces, and that is something I desperately need to work on learning.
I also built a side bender of more the Fox-style.  I created a base that contains the electrical components, wiring, bulb sockets (which need to be ceramic or they will melt), a timer and a dimmer to control temperature.  There is a sheet metal shroud around the bulbs inside that keeps the wood from scorching.  In the photo, I have it lit with three 150 watt bulbs, but they are not quite hot enough...water barely steams when spritzed on the surface after it has been on for half an hour.  I think I will go to a higher wattage bulb.
	The actual form is removable.....it just sits on the dark colored rails in the photo.  I have a form for an OM style, jumbo, and a dred.  The forms are noting but plywood cut-outs from the molds I made.  I cut slots into each one every few inches, and hammered in aluminum bar stock to hold the sides together.  It works very well, though I have to redo the jumbo.  It is torqued somehow.  My suspicion is that my slot cuts are not quite straight in one or two spots.
The sheet metal slats are some HVAC duct work flat stock.  Very thin, very flexible, but actually works quite nicely.  I used a cutoff from a stair rail to form the waist clamp.  Initially, there was a stainless pipe cut off fixed with two springs to hold it in place, but it was too large a radius for the OM and Jumbo waist, and the springs were somewhat awkward and dangerous.  I need to do some more work on the waist and end clamps, but they are pretty close.
	Since the Curly Mango guitar is a cutaway, I needed a different form to bend it with.  I wasn't going to make one, but I just did not seem to have the right touch bending with the hot  iron.   It took about 45 minutes to make the form, put the braces in, and create the clamping bars.  The slats will sizzle water in about 8 minutes, and getting the side in and clamped up took another 10 minutes.  I cooked it for about 10 more minutes, and will let it sit in the form over night, as the bend is so tight.  There will be less of a chance of spring back in this case.
Click on the Photo to the right to see a thickness sander I have been working on!