Official Luthiers Forum!

I’m working on build #1. Its going to be the classical from Cumpiano’s book. My question though is specifically on setup for the rosette and binding routing. He uses what I guess is a porter cable router (or a rockwell) that he has drilled the base to accept a locating pin at 1/16 intervals. I however am building mostly with hand tools and don’t have a fixed base router such as his. I’ve been looking over at Stew Mac’s site and saw their dremel base kits that can be used with their rosette guide to allow you to do binding, rosette and the added plus of being able to use the dremel and base to route out pockets for inlay work.

I mainly wanted to get peoples input on if they feel the dremel and Stew Mac’s setup is up to the task or if I should stick with the router for rosette and a laminate router or such for the bindings? Like I stated earlier this is my first so I’ve just been buying hand tools and the occasional power tool as needed, so in either case I would need to buy every thing. If you have a special setup that works great I'd love to hear about that as well.

Also as a side note, does any one have a good site/store for getting toothed plane blades for #4 and or #5 bench planes? I have an old Stanley I tuned and need a toothed blade, but for the life of me cannot find any place that offers them…

Thanks in advance for all your great feedback!

I have the stew-mac base, rosette cutter and a Dremel xpr-400 I think its called. The base and cutter attachment are great, easy to setup and adjust, great quality. Dremels on the other hand are not the best thing ever, they can have a lot of slop from the [plastic bearings?]. It will get the job done, but you have to really be careful and make small passes multiple times. I tried a pass the full width of the bit in scrap and the results were very poor. If you can I would go for a laminate trimmer and something like the wells/karol rosette jig, this way you will also have a good router for bindings. Personally, I will probably replace my Dremel with a Fordom eventually to use in the stew mac base.

Oh and I found this using the search function, maybe it will help you if you decide to get a laminate trimmer:
viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=18858&hilit=karol

Good luck with your guitar!

Nathan-
Rosettes are 'easier' than binding in some ways-not much power is required and lots of small passes work well- you can do them by hand in the traditional way (some builders score the top with a hand cutter before routing anyway), with a circle-cutter in a drill press, with a Dremel/lam trimmer and jig. A full-size router would be my last choice for rosettes.
For binding, more power is helpful, so most folks opt for a laminate trimmer and jig. If you own a router you can use a router table but it can be tricky. Some folks do use a gramil and chisel/file for cutting binding channels, but that wouldn't be my first choice unless I'd taken a 'vow of hand tools only'.
I use the lam trimmer with adjustable radius jig for rosettes and lam trimmer for binding. I've also used a lam trimmer with the 'holes in the base' system but I prefer the micro-adjustment available with the jig.
BTW, if you are 'handy' enough to build a guitar, you can build all these jigs yourself. Some folks don't like to spend the time on homebuilt jigs, thus the offerings from the luthier supply places.

Cheers
John

It's very easy to make a plywood or acrylic base for a laminate trimmer in 1/16" or larger intervals. I use the old StewMac base (originally for a Dremel) that I adapted to work with a DeWalt trimmer, works great.
I would recommend against a Dremel, especially for a wider classical rosette. Somebody posted about a firesale on PC trimmers at Amazon not too long ago, they're excellent.
You have to file the teeth in a blade yourself with a small triangular file, then sharpen your blade. I've never seen toothed blades for sale, maybe they exist.

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Laurent, Lee Valley has toothed blades for their Veritas planes, I have one for my low angle smoother. I am not sure if there would be any the right size for stanley planes though.

Thanks guys! I'll have to take a look at those videos at home.

Sounds like a laminate trimmer is a sound option for both rosette and bindings, and yes i did see that post on the PC trimmer and am very tempted to push the "add to cart" button.

By no means have i made a vow against electricity but i have found i prefer the control you get with the hand plane, chisel and coping saw. I have however come to the realization that it would be nice to have a good drill press and band saw (possibly router table at some point).

Not for Nathan (who doesn't have a Dremel/knockoff) but for other readers...
A cutoff wheel in a rotary tool (Dremel or knockoff) makes quick work of 'toothing' a plane blade. Just make sure you keep it cool.
(Good) plane blades are pretty hard and can be tough on a file.

Cheers
John

Lie-Nielsen has toothed blades for their irons and will fit a few other brands (make sure it will fit yours ). I'm assuming you need a toothed blade to thickness your plates ala Cumpiano. If so make sure you get the type with square teeth and not the triangular shaped teeth that are meant for scraper irons.
FWIW, I decided to postpone thicknessing my plates with a plane until I can afford a #4 Lie-Nielsen smoothing plane. I currently own a Bailey # 5 jack.

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=512

René

In the same thread - check the Rigid - it is $99 but comes with thread holes in the body to make a quick circle cutting jig

_________________
It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I use a Black & Decker Dremel-type tool (cheaper, and from what I've heard, better) with the Stewmac base, and I love it. Especially for inlay routing, but I got my truss rod slot done with it too (took many passes though), and I'm going to attempt binding with it before I go buying a laminate trimmer and building the usual style jig.

I'll be routing my first rosette soon too, so I'll let you know how it goes. I have no circle jig, but the Dremel setup is very easy to keep under control, so just scoring the lines and routing out by hand should work. Or maybe I'll use the same method I did when I made a small section of a rosette to test an idea, and just tie a piece of floss to the router base and around a post at the center. Worked pretty well, actually

Another thing I love about the Dremel setup is that you can run it on low speed for shallow pockets, where it's quiet enough to use indoors without earplugs, and doesn't throw wood chips very far so it's easy to clean up. It's already very lightweight, but the Foredom tool would be even lighter and better, but a lot more expensive.

Picking up one of their planes has been an option i was toying around with as the stanley was my uncles and though i tuned it, it is still just the sum of its parts. would you recommend the #4 over say their #5 for surfacing and thicknessing the top, back and sides?

Nate,
I have a #5 jack plane and at 14" I think it's a little large especially on the top and back plates. If I was buying a new plane dedicated only to lutherie, it would be a #4 smoother or even a #3 smoother. They are more compact and will save a little weight and not tire you out so much.

René

Actually i had a thought just now. My one friend has a drumsander in his workshop that would be large enough to hit the full sized plates in one pass. would using this to rough thickness, then scrape the plates to their final value be a workable solution? My only fear here is that since they are essentially big cantilever beams you wont end up completly flat.

(P.S. I ordered the PC 7310 off Amazon, even had free shipping, the video on the home made circle jig convinced me. Also even with the construction of the jigs it should also be less expensive then getting the dremel setup)

Nate, most of us use drum sanders to thin plates and many of ours are the cantilevered type. It's not too difficult to get them adjusted so the plates are flat within about 0.005". As far as the circle cutter goes, I'm assuming you're talking about a Wells/Karol circle jig, you will be very happy you took the time to make it

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

If you don't want to spend the $65 on the LN toothed blade, these are available for about 60% less: http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merc ... h=toothing

I don't personally have any experience with them but I've heard these are pretty good plane irons and the guys from Tools for Working Wood don't generally don't sell junk.

-william

Took a look, these are for their block planes, not bench planes.

That takes my discussion in a different direction. I have LV's low angle block plane, for which they do make a toothed blade. Would this function well enough (IE be long enough) to effectivly thickness the plates? (as a side note im using a German spruce top with Ind rosewood back) Just off the top of my head i think its only 6-7" in over all length. Maybe i'm just over analizing this (engineer in profession).

Also for reference this was the response i got from LN on their toothed blade

"The only potential issue is that the blade may be too thick to fit into your plane. We do not tooth the Stanley replacement blade, because they are too thin. If you are willing to file the mouth opening on your plane you may find that the thicker blade works. Please let me know if you would like to try one."

I would probably need LN's chipbreaker too i would imagine, correct?

Nate:
It does depend on the grain in your IRW, but my feeling is: "Yes, you could do that with a sharp block plane". And, if the IRW is straight-grained, you might well not need a toothed blade, either. (I believe LV has some hints about increasing the effective cutting angle on a low-angle blade.)
John Bogdanovich (in his classical guitar building book) shows pic of thicknessing plates using a (Stanley?) block plane.

Don't be afraid to 'pay attention to the wood' when planing- sometimes this means planing with the plane at an angle or across the grain to some extent- whatever works. Check the thickness often (a home-made thickness gauge with a cheap dial indicator is useful here) to make sure you don't get 'thin spots'. Use light cuts with the plane-usually when I've 'gotten into trouble' with chipping, it was because of 'impatience' when planing off the surface roughness/saw marks, and setting the plane to cut too deep. Another classic beginner mistake is to set the cut coarser to try to compensate for a not-sharp-enough blade. Keep a piece of scrap handy for setting the plane cut, before 'attacking' those plates/sides!

Cheers
John

I have been using this one and it is OK.:
http://www.dick.biz/dick/product/703640/detail.jsf

and also:
http://www.dick.biz/dick/product/703640/detail.jsf