Official Luthiers Forum!

Todd,

Thank you for posting this. Tips and tricks are my favorite!

I usually add these to my build threads but am reminded that they can live on their own.

As they come up I will share as well.

_Mike

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_Mike Tracz
MCT Guitars
https://www.instagram.com/mustcreatethings/
https://www.youtube.com/mustcreatethings

Not exactly jigs or fixtures but these are my latest shop improvements:

400 watts of light out of 2, 60 watt sockets without overloading the outlet for all of us working in a garage shop:


$5 Hide Glue warmer (Parent's Choice Baby Bottle Warmer adjustable) from Craigslist:

I built this little jig yesterday. It slides in the grooce of my table saw and cuts tiles at an 22.5° angle. 16 of those wooden tiles make a nice rosette.

@Christoph I like that Jig! Brilliant! Can't wait to get in the shop tonight...

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Tarhead's bottle warmer reminded me. I'm bending cellulose binding for some mandolins and a tip I picked up from the mandolin cafe' was to use hot sand for the warmer. So I hit the goodwill and for $3.50 got my warmer

http://dunwellguitar.com/blind/35BendGlueTopBinding2.jpg

Just a cheap cup warmer but it has a "hot" setting so I poured sand right in the depression. It works slicker than goose s#@t on linoleum.

Alan D.

I use a little jig to aid in the drilling for side marker dots. I mark a center line on the fret board where I want the marker to line up with, the jig has a center line mark on it too, so I line up the two marks and drill away, works great.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Great posts! Thanks everyone.

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Filippo, the base of the jig registers against the back of the fingerboard. This places each hole the same distance from the back of fingerboard giving a nice straight line when sighting down the length of the fingerboard.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Filippo,

Nice!! I'm going to steal shamelessly...

Classical bridge string hole drilling jig.


Joe

Maybe others here do this similarly--for our student-project (simplified) guitars, we use a pair of spacers to cut the neck taper on the tablesaw. We also use a vertical featherboard on the tablesaw fence so fingers can stay away from the blade. (The cut is stopped at a line on the back of the neck, which gives the right length cut on the front side.)

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David Malicky

I think this thread is a great idea. I really like seeing other’s creativity in coming up with handy and inexpensive solutions.

So here’s my really, really cheap ‘tilt base’ for cutting binding channels free-hand with a laminate trimmer. Probably not for the faint of heart but it actually worked surprisingly well. The tape should be built up using progressively larger pieces so that the edge of the last layer of tape stays flat against the base allowing smooth gliding; that and careful attention to the orientation of the base when making the cut.




Joe

Hi guys! I shouldn't be revealing the full extent of my stupidity here, but if this encourages one other lug-head like myself to get safe with his/her table saw, then I'll take the flack. You probably all have made units like this (or probably much better), but here goes.

For thirty years I've been cutting the bevel on my head blocks on the table saw just using the fence and a scarey amount of blade protruding ... close to my hands. I can't even get the blade insert cover on the table because the stabilizer and arbour nut come above the surface of the table. Any push-stick device I make just doesn't seem to hold the block well enough. Dumb.

Believe it or not, just last week I took ten minutes to make a small parts sled out of scraps I had around the shop ... 1/4" mdf for the base ... a couple of pieces of maple dimensioned to fit the miter slots, for the base to travel on ... a couple of pieces of 2x4 type wood glued on the top to hold it all together ... and a little DeStaco clamp to hold the block. Keeps my hands away from the blade and can be adapted for other components. Yeah, I know, not a new idea or even well executed, but effective none the less.

Have a happy holiday season everyone!

David Wren http://www.wrenguitarworks.com

That first pic could be the single scariest thing I've ever seen on a table saw! I'm glad (for your fingers) you made the jig in the second one, although that worries me too...

Great ideas guys, thanks.

David... you've got guts. That looks like one of those saw blade rooms out of a horror movie I can't imagine putting my fingers anywhere near that over a little hand sawing and block planing. Good for you making a safer alternative. Even then that's a scary lookin' blade

And Jim, that fingerboard side dot jig looks great. I may just make myself one of those. Both accurate positioning and blowout prevention

Hey, haven't been on here for a long while. Here is a fretboard taper jig I use. Holes outside nut and last fret go onto pins that sit in sliding rails to cut any width/taper I want. Works for bound and unbound FB. Cut one edge, flip fb over and cut other side and the holes give me a perfect centre line. Carefully setting out holes means I can line up final FB for best grain pattern without having to reference off an edge.
Cheers
Dominic

Heres another one. This for routing the end/tail graft. It is a vac clamp that is very secure without threat of damaging the guitar. Can fit any shape template to be used with a follower bit on the router. I do it before the binding is put on. Pic is of a finished guitar without template
Cheers
Dom

If you use the other face of the block against the table, can't you move the fence on the other side of the blade and make the cut with the blade tilting away from the block instead of toward the block? It owuld be safer and also the blade could then be lowered down to a much safer height.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......