Update time again.
Just when I thought that I was nearly done with the body I decided that I might route out the top and the bottom layers of the guitar and make it even more chambered.
There was method in my madness, as at some stage I want to build a guitar out of a solid piece of timber, but cutting the neck pocket was always going to be the challenge for me with hand tools. Router planes can run anything up to $400 for a good one so it was back to the DIY tools again.
I got the idea from a “poor man’s router plane” video on the web and used that as my basic design. After several prototypes this is what I came up with. The blade started as an old unused chisel but with my over enthusiastic adjustment method (belting it with a hammer) I now just have the blade.
Here it is with the complete chisel before my adjustment mishap
This is how it ended up, sans handle and with a wedge for adjusting the depth of the cut.
The idea is to chisel out the bulk of the waste and then level off with the router plane. It is not yet good enough to do a neck pocket but I am sure that I can improve it with the next prototype.
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