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Hello everyone,

I'm looking for a bit of an advice on a topic that seems to be one of the most difficult ones for me to grasp, the topic being which plane is suited best for different tasks - specifically the thicknessing of guitar sides and backs. This must have been discussed already somewhere, I just couldn't really find anything though. Feel free to put a link, anything helps.
I've been comtemplating getting into luthiery for as long as I've been working with wood, it's acutally what made me purchase my first set of tools. Back then I've had little to no idea how to go about the whole idea, where to start, what tools to use and what not. That has been some 10+ years ago and at some point I've sort of set the idea aside figuring that I'd come back to it when I feel that I might be up for the challenge. A few days ago I've finally desided on what wood I'd like the guitar to be made out of (I've settled on rosewood for the back and sides, sitka spruce as top wood - both of them staight grained). I'm aware that rosewood is proably not the most beginner friendly choice, it is however what I'd like my first guitar to be made of.

I do own a couple of planes and have used them to thickness and smooth pretty much everything I've worked on: bigger and smaller projects like furniture making, things that I usually refear to as accessories and even a / the wooden bandsaw by Matthias Wandel. What I mean to say is, that I feel like I know my way around planes - and then again I seem not to. I think I might have searched to whole of the internet, read as many books as I could get my hands on and still don't seem to be getting a final answer to what plane is best suited for a specific task.

I do own a No4, a No7, a low angle block plane, a spokeshave and a wooden smoothing smoothing plane that I've modified to work as a scrub plane.

I've long thought that what I'm still missing is a No62, not because of the hype that seems to have developed around them, but because of the ease of use and the results that I've been getting when using my low angle block plane. The world of woodworkers and luthiers alike seems not to be in complete agreement on the matter - my thoughts went along the line that wood which is hard and brittle, possibly including diffcult grain might actually best be planed with a No 62 - as long as the ajustable mouth is tightly set and one is not plaining against the grain. A lot of luthiers that I've read and watched seem to disagree though; most of them are using bevel down planes of different varieties (most of the time anyways).

Steep angles seem to work in a way, that is more related to how scrapers work - thus seem to be the right choice for diffcult grain of brittle wood.
Low angles are more of less cutting into / peeling of the wood, so as long as one planes WITH the grain, this seems to work fine on almost any kind of wood. And if the wood still tears, I tend to ajust the mouth opening which seems to work on most problems.

My No 4 has the original Stanley blade, whereas my No7 has a Hook replacement blade, which seems to make somewhat of a difference too.

Paul Seller said somewhere that bevel down planes where made popular because they where invented at a time when this was the only tool that carpenters and cabinet makers had available and it did most of the task equally well - whereas low angle planes only works for specific tasks. Also multiple planes might have been a bit less affordable at the time.
He also states that guitarmakers might prefer a low angle plane:

Which made me wonder: Might he be up to something?

I'd be thankful if anyone had any advice as to which plane might be suited best for planing those rosewood backs and sides by hand - and which plane might be a helpful addition to what I alread have. I've even thought about just getting a Veritas No4 for the superior quality, maybe a No 5.
No 62 after all? I'm at a loss.

There is a book called Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, by William Cumpiano and Jonathan Natelson. That book has extensive information on how to hand plane backs, sides, and tops for guitars. You already have hand planes; what you now need is task-specific knowledge. I recommend buying that book and reading the sections on hand planing.

Most folks these days opt for abrasive planing of backs, sides and tops, but that means buying or borrowing time on a drum sander or a wide belt sander.

While the Cumpiano and Natelson book is not reflective of how most guitar builders do things these days, it was the most important text of its time, and if you want to use hand methods, it is still a very important resource, as is true in this instance.

Hi Philipp, welcome to the forum.

I figured I'd answer because I do thickness with planes and scrapers. #62 jack plane? I had to look it up! I have a 18" Craftsman, with a "corrugated" sole. It works great for joining backs and bellies. Never thought of using it for sides; it's kinda big. I have walnut sides that I thought I cut to thickness, but never did. I might try that today and see what it does.

I would venture to guess that most here thickness with a drum sander. I don't have one. Get things close with a planer. I don''t have one. Bend on a bender, with silicon belts. I don't have one.

I started by making violins. I just thicknessed, and bent, and glued on Wenge sides for a 5 string viola. The wood is cut right on the quarter; that's why I bought it. It is probably as hard, or harder than the Rosewood, but maybe less curl in it. It does seem to have interlocked grain, so you have that weaving thing that changes grain direction; but it didn't seem to be a problem. I had some Birch with REALLY deep curls, and that was a lot of trouble.

Thinning the Wenge sides I had real good luck with my baby plane I got last winter, a Woodriver #1 (I got a great price! ) Tiny thing. Worked great. I didn't even have to shim the blade, because it has a adjustable frog? to keep the gap small.

My little brass finger plane worked good too, but it is too small.

If the baby bench plane worked, a well set up larger one would too. I just have the big one and the small one, and the finger plane with a flat bottom. I have another, but i have it set up with a toothed blade for real problems. I haven't worked with Rosewood sides, or backs. I've planed a lot of hard fingerboards, with figure, and I just get them close, and do all the finishing with a plane blade used as a scraper.

Best of luck. I'll try the walnut with that big plane today. It is just a conventional bevel down. But it has a good blade, and a VERY thick backer, patterned after a Hock.

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Why be normal?

A plane close to the length of the work piece works well for jointing the top and back, so jack, fore or jointer planes would all seem appropriate for the work. That said, I find the jack to be the most generally useful of those choices, with my favorite the #5-1/4 junior jack and the 5-1/2 high angle wider jack lovely for longer jointing work. The #5-1/2 is often called out as a substitute for the English-style panel plane in cabinet work, but I found the extra mass and robust construction of the Bedrock-style bench plane variants worked well for working figured grain on both face and edge. I always found the #7 to be a bit cumbersome on narrow stock when used on a jointing fixture, but I am of below average height... although I might have to try a #6 if I can find one... it seems to be the closest to top and back length.

The first planes I used for smoothing and jointing work at Greenridge were the bevel-up #62 variants from Lie Nielsen and Lee Valley/Veritas. Removing the cap iron setup task from the mix of set-up and use concerns was useful to understanding exactly what honed angle did for cutting action and overall effort. I ended up preferring standard and high angle-frogged planes for this work, but still think a nice set of first planes for a luthier's bench might well be a small bevel-up modelmaker's plane, a #60-1/2 low angle block, and a #62 - all bevel up.

To get to the point of the post, the usual progression of scrub, jack, and panel plane or smoother in cabinetmaking is unlikely to be needed with most stock coming from the vendor at around 1/4" - 3/16" thickness and more or less flat. We always joined plates in the rough or lightly scraped as needed to identify problems, then worked the plate to thickness by hand (during early training) or on the 22/44 ODS sander. A jack with a very slight radius and a nearly dead-flat radius on a second jack blade or smooth plane (a nice #3 in spruce and a #4 with high angle frog in figured stuff to wrap up) finished up. On wildly rowed or figured stuff, we had two bench scrapers available - a #85 bench-plane-style and a #80 cabinet scraper... the #85 was a bit fussy, so I learned to put a good edge on the #80 and work to a decent surface with that.

The most important characteristic of planes used to work guitar timbers is that they be sharp. My early struggles with using a hand plane for thicknessing and jointing were perhaps three-quarters sharpness and the rest tool set-up and form. Flawless setup of the plane combined with excellent form still yields poor results in most timbers with a dull blade. On steep angle bevel-up planes and high-angle (50 degree, 55 degree) frogs, my understanding from the near-lifetime plane users I worked with was that the higher angle was more about turning the chip quickly to avoid it generating greater leverage than duplicating a scraper's cut. That aside, there was no denying the somewhat greater effort and need to resharpen the blade more frequently with a higher honed angle on the bevel-up jacks or high angle frogs on the bench planes, suggesting that the operation must be similar to card or jigged scraper use in terms of increased friction and edge wear.

Finally, having a good bench to hold the work at the right height is also a factor in achieving acceptable results. We had three different bench heights at Greenridge: too high, much too high, and "may I borrow a ladder?' high. A bench height set for a lanky six-foot-plus gentleman will not suit for a more normal-sized sort of person, so consider the traditional guidance of making a joiner's bench no higher than wrist height when standing with arms relaxed and at one's sides. Besides better leverage on the plane, a longer work stroke may be made when jointing or planing without that little skip of a dance step done when working a longer piece of work.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I burst out laughing at that
Frightened the wife sat next to me.

I like a my no6 Stanley plane (blade microbevelled at 40 degrees) for plain Back and Sides, and I've used a #62 bevel up standard angle for tops.
Figured woods, you might look at a no 80 scraper of a scraper plane (I have a Veritas bought second hand) - some people find it a bit trick to set up, but I just followed the instructions.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Many thanks for the instant replies!
As it is, one of the two books on guitar making that I own is the one by Cumpiano and Natelson. I found it to be a little overwhelming, but I went through occasionally. As you mentioned, it was written in a different time and I don't plan to work with a workboard but rather with a mold and a CNCed radius disc. Not everthing in it is outdated of course, especially when working with hand tools. It is a bit of an encyclopedia tough, which is probably why I bought the other one by Jonathan Kinkead - very different, more hands on. I will take your advice though and dig it up again.

I've decided to bend my sides the old fashioned way (have I mentioned that I like hand tools?), I've gifted myself a caramillo bending iron so I don't have any excuses left as not to get started. So far, I've used it for bending inlays for woodturning projects and it works wonderfully, Andy really knows what he's doing! It seems a tad small tough, we'll see how it work on larger pieces like guitar sides.

I've heard of toothed irons but I've never used them. The idea behind it seems to be deviding the shavings and thereby the different grain directions into seperate, smaller sections. Almost like having several blades next to each other. Never heard of the use of a plane blade as a scraper, stands to reason tough. What angle do you put on the blade, 30°?

I'm sharpering my blades on waterstones with a lie nielsen honing guide. Occasionally I have to sharpen my smallest chisels by hand, they don't get anywhere close to the results I get by using the guide. I'm starting a 1000, 6000 after that and finish on a strop with diamond paste on it. I though about maybe getting an even finer waterstone (8000 - 10000) if that makes any difference at all? I never seemed to be in the need of it, but then again I've never had it so far.

I don't consider myself lanky, I am 1,82 m or 6?ish ft though. I'm usually working on a table with a thick mdf workboard on top and have build myself a mini workbench for applications that require a vice. Their about the height that you've mentioned. I might have to figure sth out as soon as get to the neck work though. I've never used a cabinet scraper, they seem to be used all over the field so that might be an option. Also they're more on the affordable side of things. The question then is what scrapers actually do? They seem to turn the chips / shavings almost in an instant.


So in conclusion one can never have to many different planes, the No 62 is not really needed though and more of a bonus. With what I already have, the No 7 and No 4 are the way to go, maybe a high angled plane for difficult grain. A cabinet scraper like the No80 might be a sensible addition and I've always planned on finishing with scrapers, might get a thicker one though. Mine are 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 mm ... that is.... 0.08, 0.16 and 0.24" I think?

Why do you use the No 62 for tops? Any specific reason? For me softwoods usually plane fairly easily with a regular bevel down plane. My line of thoughts was that the No62 might be better suited for more difficult, exotic wood. Mostly because of the adjustable mouth and the possibility of put a different presentation angle on the blade.
I don't mean to reprimand, I'm merely curious.

Check out a safety planer. You can buy used ones for ebay and or buy a new one from StewMac. I pretty easy way to thickness materials.

I used a belt sander and random orbital for the first 4 Ukuleles I made. Fyi I've been utilizing woodworking tools my whole life so this was pretty easy.

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