Official Luthiers Forum!

Just curious if anyone on the forum uses an Inca mortising table for anything related to guitar building. I have an Inca tablesaw with the chuck and mortising attachment, all bought new in the early 80's. I've only used the mortising attachment once or twice and I'm thinking of selling the mortising attachment, unless there is some use for guitar building that I am not thinking of. The saw, on the other hand, is great and I will keep it until I am too old use it anymore. Wendy

Thanks Todd, I'll probably end up selling it unless someone here finds it useful for luthiery. The only thing I have ever used it for is to mount a sanding disc in the chuck and sand small parts. Not worth keeping it for that. Wendy

You could make your own cam clamps.

I know that most of you build steel string but I am still surprised that no one uses that mortise table for lutherie. This comes from living and working in a place with very little outside influence I suppose. That Inca table saw has been the only saw used for guitarmaking here in Granada for as long as it has been available and 10 years ago every maker (30 to 40 of them) here was using it to make the holes in the bridge and especially to open the slots on the classical head and drill holes for the tuners. These days more and more of us are finding other ways to do these jobs.

John Ray

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John Ray
Granada, Spain
blog: http://www.granadaexpert.com/johnray/

Thanks John, I was going to put an ad out for it this weekend, but I'm building classicals and I would sure like to use it to cut the slots in the head. I'm going to have to give it some thought now. Any leads you can give me or pictures of the setup and type of bit to use? Wendy

Sorry I don't have any photos and I no longer do it that way. Basically you need to fix a large square block to the table (easy with its hold-downs) and then clamp the headstock to the block so that it is perpendicular to the bit. The only way to get a really clean slot is to make full-size holes at each end with a forstner bit and then using a smaller mortise bit to slowly work to the dimensions that you want. An indexing pin attached somehow to the table or the large block which fits into one of the aready drilled tuner holes will allow you to repeat the operation on as many headstocks as you have. Doing some test runs, working out how to do it on your own and coming up with a better way is what lutherie is all about. Have fun.

John Ray

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John Ray
Granada, Spain
blog: http://www.granadaexpert.com/johnray/