MIMF

You can always remove some material from it and add it back on with tape in the future if you found it doesn't work. Personally I can't imagine working that precise and would prefer to leave some wood for adjustment. I have always cut mine with a hand saw so I really don't know a thing about doing i...

I can't get past the tool wall. There's a guitar?

I spent some time doing the math and cutting a circle from cardboard and making a hole about 3/8" from the center. Low and behold, I've drawn a nice arch. Thank you. In the past I've used templates or just eyeballed my mandolin tops. I'll give this a try next time and see how it lines up with my tem...

I made this repair with thin CA. As much as I wanted to use something else, this crack was just to tight. My question is, would you go further in an attempt to hide the line.? I obviously did a better job of aligning the wood towards the lower bout. Tint some CA?
Repaired

Whoa, I love this. Thanks so much for sharing your design.

Well worth the time. That's a beauty.

I agree with Barry. But, I have no experience with electric mandolins and you are probably partial to that bridge after all the work you did. Make one and change it and see.

I really like the outcome. You have me thinking

I find buying luthier tools and wood to be like crack. I have a rather large order coming from SM today. I'm so excited!!

Brent, where can I see your tops? I would love to buy some based solely on tone as you select it. I don't need any right now but hopefully I'll get to guitar number 3 someday.

IMO the 12-fret 000 or 14 fret OM size (15" wide lower bout) is god's size for the steel string guitar, especially for fingerstyle. I would also try to get away from scalloped bracing and lean toward 'straight' or 'tapered' bracing. Scalloped emphasizes bass and 'punch', where straight bracing, and...

Well, since I started this thread, a lot has changed. Screw the hand tools, I bought a bandsaw and a Supermax 19-38 drum sander. Got the sander on sale while it was out of stock and now it's 150.00 more. Yay for me. But I'm still waiting for it.

I've done it a time or two

And this has what to do with hand-planing?

I no longer own a thickness planer and hope I never do again. I'm now finding it so easy to do with hand planes and I derive a lot of pleasure from the dust and noise free environment. Of course I still have and use a tablesaw.

I make my own double stick tape by running two strips of masking tape on my work bench and two on the work piece that mate when the piece is placed on the board. Run a line of CA on one set of tape strips and hit the other with accelerant. You can place the piece down and it will hold against plann...

Clamp the wood firmly to a bench, using a softer caul, such as Masonite if needed to keep from denting it. Plane away from the clamp. Pushing the wood toward the clamp will cause it to buckle and break: DAMHIKT. Once you've got one end smooth turn it around. I plane very small pieces wood quite thi...

Something to experiment with. Instead of using some kind of block to hold the stock, place dabs of hot glue (like tack-welds) around the edges. That way the entire piece can be secured, not just one end so you are less likely to run into the buckling problem. Also, if you hit the glue with your pla...

@Matthew Lau , I think you have the labels backwards:-)

I posted this on a few different forums. It's amazing how many different way folk choose to do this. I'll have to make a list and try them all!

How do you hold these thin pieces in place while planing?

What a great design!