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Hello all,
So i've gotten myself into constructing my first archtop. After joining my spruce wedges, i plan on trying the drill press method with different depth holes to use as guidance. My question is, has anyone here tried this? any tips or tricks to help understand the process? i ordered the spruce wedges from stewmac ( )
any help is greatly appreciated.
-Austin from Jersey

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measure twice, cut once.

Hi Austin,

Check out Jordan Aceto's thread in the tutorial section.

Steve

Chris,
I can't find you on youtube. Do you mind posting a link?
Steve

I remove a lot of the wood from the outside with a drill press planer (Wagner Safe T Planer). I develop a contor map for the arch and trace it out on the top one level at a time, starting with the highest one. I use 2mm steps, and take off everything outside of the contour line. This gets most of the wood off, and will be quite close the the finished arch shape by the time you smooth out the steps.

Once the outside is done, I switch to a drill bit and a stop. The DP is set up so that the bit stops at some fixed distance above a rounded pillar that is clamped to the table, and the inside of the top is dimpled all over. It's easy enough to carve down to where the dimples disappear, and you've got a uniform thickness. I start by roughing to about 7mm, then going down to the thicness of the thickest part, and then, when they're smooth, going after the thinner areas.

thanks for all the tips guys, i just started a few days ago and its lookin pretty good.

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measure twice, cut once.

Id love to show you more chris but i didnt build the guitar, good old google image search provided my avatar.
if you'd like to see pictures of my current , or previous two builds you can see them here (austinmh.blogspot.com)
my first two were done at a school in Georgia.

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measure twice, cut once.

Keep us posted on your progress, there are a few archtop makers here, and it is nice to have company and show and tell time!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Hey Jordan, I saw your tutorial on roughing out tops using a kind of faceting. How do you decide the length of the "tip of the pyramid"? Or is it really all that important?
Jason

P.S. I would love to see some pics of an archtop with a cutaway if ever you get a chance.

Here's a picture of some progress. Now this is my first unsupervised build, so we'll see how it goes. Probably not the best choice to start an archtop but i sure do like a challenge.
p.s. i just ordered a small ibex plane to help get into the contours. For now im using the plane seen in the picture which is pretty bulky. So far im taking down a lot of the waste and using holes drilled to depths matching the arching template provided with benedetto's book. So far it's going slower than i'd prefer, but im not complaining. slow and steady wins the race, right?

-austin.

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measure twice, cut once.

The faster you go, the faster you mess up!

It is not that critical, when looking at the long arch (the arch from the neckblock to the tailblock) from the side there is generally, depending on your preferred arching style, a gradual rise up, then a fairly flat area usually called the "table", and then a back ramp down. I just eyeball about where that all will be and plane the facets in to get rid of maximum waste fast. For a guitar, i would maybe roughly divide the top into quarters the long way, and facet one quarter of the length at either end. For the side to side bit, it again depends on your desired arch, i like to keep the arches pretty sleek and not puffy, so i carve in pretty close to the centerline with the flat plane.


Not the greatest picture of a cutaway, but it sort of shows what is going on there, i will try to dig around for something better, the bennedetto book has pretty clear pictures of cutaways.


Yeah, everything slows waaaaay down huh? It's looking good so far, get ready to have a few painful blisters if you don't already!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Thanks for the heads up about the plane! its really the only thing i have to work with right now so im more or less making it work for me.
and yes, i have developed a blister or two

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measure twice, cut once.

I usually wrap a few fingers high-friction guard tape from leevalley first...less pain. To maintain a constant edge thickness, I first run the plate under a raised slot-cutting bit on the router table, then fair the curves down to that, if that helps.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Well, he said he has one of the small ibex planes on the way, and i do a good deal of the carving with a flat bottom plane, most of it in fact. You can get almost everywhere with a plane like his and a smaller flat model makers type plane. Everybody has a different way of skinning this cat, an archtop can certainly be carved with a 60 1/2 and a 12mm or 18mm ibex, a more aggressive tool would absolutely speed things up, but going slowly may not be a bad thing the first time around.


That's why i like a flat plane, you want to end up with a nice smooth flowing surface, not one with a bajillion little grooves in it, using flat planes means less cleanup and adjusting with a scraper later.

In the end, whatever gets you there is the right way, Chris, you obviously do a really nice job, and have a system that works really well for you, the only way for the OP figure it out is to try a few things and see which way the chips fly!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Hey Jordan, I meant a pic of a roughed out top or back w/ cutaway. I'm just trying to get my head around what happens to the facet at the cutaway.
Jason

I've never tried a flat plane but it makes sense for a good portion of the top real estate. I do however use an Ibex palm plane for most of the carving after first removing most of the wood with a safety planer. As stated, a ROS takes it down to smooth pretty quick with 60 or 80 grit. I'll have to try the flat plane on my next one for comparison.

Well, you can't really, just almost, and i think the smaller model makers size is a little bit more handy, i was just trying to let Austin know that he could keep whacking away if he wanted to. I agree that a more aggressive tool like a big honkin' carving plane, or even better a big honkin' gouge would be my preferred tool for the early stages.


Doih, well, it seems like this is one of those areas where everybody likes to be a little bit different, i keep it pretty symmetrical until fairly late in the game, sometimes i bandsaw the plate out as if it were a non-cutaway, do most of the rough carving, and then bandsaw the cutaway part out and finish up the shaping- gotta run, hopefully more later

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

well i ordered a ibex plane and really got into the cutaways and took out all the huge chisel marks. Here's what it looks like now, still not finished, but getting there. Quick question: on the inside of the top, how much room do you leave from the edge before you start carving. 1"?
Thanks for all the comments and input guys.

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measure twice, cut once.

The inside needs to be flat and level where it contacts the liners and blocks; otherwise it's carved away.