Plough plane for guitar truss rod routes?

[GazPal]

For fitting the heel on a guitar with a neck angle, is it possible in some way to use a shoulder plane to get a nice fit?

Yes, but having such a tool would only tend to be of benefit if moving on to produce more than a couple.

The simplest means is by gauging angles via a sliding bevel, straight edge and clearances at the bridge location before paring and flossing the heel joint for fit at the guitar's shoulders. Which type of guitar are you making?

 

[LuptonM]

I'll be making a les paul junior dc style guitar when I get back home around christmas. The body is already, cut and routed to shape but I need to get the bushing for my router to continue. Its made of Idigbo or summit

Basically this is all I've done (I did this in the summer)

There was a small bit of tearout but I found the piece and stuck it back in

I struggled to cut it out with a jigsaw. However it won't be suitable for the neck blank when I get one so I'll probably have to use a hand frame saw or something else

 

[GazPal]

Looking good. :wink:

One hint for you would be if you sanding seal (Dilute Shellac) it while working on other things and this will prevent dirt build up from handling. Shellac can be sanded or scraped back at any point before applying your body contours and finishing.

Will you be binding the edges?

 

[Setch]

There's no place for a shoulder plane on a LPDC guitar, as the neck mortice is the full width of the neck - there are no shoulders to plane!

Like this:

I also use a router for cutting the trussrod slot. It's an easy task, and IMO getting comfortable and familiar with a router and it's wide range of uses is essential if you're building solid body electric guitars. I use mine tons!

I also suggest a bearing guided cutter for template work, rather than a guide bush.

 

[Trizza]

Here, Trizza uses a Record #043 for the purpose:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/budg ... 44456.html

As bugbear posted - yep, I used a #043 in a recent build. It was very easy, although I didn't have a 10mm wide cutter (I was using a 10mm wide U-channel truss rod) so I used my 1/4" in two passes. For that you need to plan your cut so that you've got a good shoulder for the skate to bear against, but aside from that it was absolutely trivial. Practically zero setup time, a couple of minutes of swiping, and no noise - you guys can keep your routers

I went all the way through with my truss rod slot. I covered the hole at the body end, and the hole at the neck end was covered by the truss rod cover anyway. If you did the scarf joint the other way around then you wouldn't have any visible hole left anyway.