First hiccup. It’s useful to think of a mould for a vacuum press more like a wrap, which is why my extensive copy routing for the sides fell at the last hurdle. Your lamination will wrap round everything, not just…   Read more»

  @tv101 But weirdly, much less forgiving. If you cut out the various layers assuming that you’re going to be shaving them back, you cut them oversized. You can…   Read more»

Right, off to make a new mould for the guitar back. More posts when I’m finished with that.

So soon I have a big pile of joined veneers.

Now I need something to go onto the moulds. I’m kinda sorta following Making a Laminated Hollowbody Electric Guitar by Jim English, so I’m laminating 3 layers of 0.6mm veneer and one 1.5mm veneer. The 1.5mm veneer is the outer…   Read more»

And then an awful lot of copy-routing ensued.

This time we took the thickness of the lamination into account, and used a bearing router bit to reduce the first layer of the side mould by around 4mm (oh look, is that a top template I failed to mention…   Read more»

Woosh! Didn’t even touch the sides! Oh no, here they are.
Crudely cut lumps of MDF and plywood were copy-routed using the top template I failed to mention earlier.

Tiny little planes don’t tend to carve out long smooth curves, and paper-thin MDF can tear, so car body filler is used to smooth out the dips. Mark says that’s what all the professionals do.

It should have been obvious to me that, if each concentric lofting contour was equidistant, the rise would just be in a straight line. But no, so out came the scrapers to try and realise an elegant arch.
 

The unanswered question at this stage was just how smooth that mould would need to be. We’re not using a huge steaming press, just a little vacuum pump. Will a 4-5mm lamination follow every bump or just approximate the general…   Read more»

Why 3mm layers? Why six of them? Because 5 x 3 plus baseboard gives a height of 15mm and, according to Mr Bagpress (of whom more anon), if Gibson never bent their laminations more than 15mm, then neither should we.  Oh, the unused inners…   Read more»

According to Mr Bagpress (of whom more anon) a concave mould will be more effective than a convex one. This also means that you don’t have to compensate for the thickness of your lamination when building the mould. So the…   Read more»

@tv101 You’re always right.

I originally planned to draw the moulds in a 3D program and then get them cut on a CNC machine. The technique for making this sort of complex shape in 3D is called lofting – from pre-computer aeronautics and boat-building….   Read more»

Bargain!

Thanks @tv101. your fortitude and resolution is admirable. But having stepped out onto the wide open plain of possibility that is wax finishing, that Black Bison is calling me; the musky scent, the impossible shoulders, the resistance to fingering… Last…   Read more»

@tv101 Thanks. Totally understand. We’ve got the new stove working in here so it’s 28°c in the living room. We’ve sealed the door and Ruth, me and the dogs are waiting for April. No-one is going out to the bedroom…   Read more»

  Maybe it’s just my age, but I’m feeling in the need of a fancy wax myself. You neglected to mention which one though. One of these,…   Read more»