back & top trimming to size for assembly

[peter havriluk]

I'm preparing three backs and tops for their bracing. I'm at a point of running the blanks through the bandsaw and cutting away the excess. So... I originally marked the pieces by tracing around my template with a pencil in a small fender washer, giving me an overhang of three eighths of an inch past the template . I can cut to that line and not feel like I'm causing a problem. I've also penciled in the template outline on the plates, which gives a flat-plate footprint of what will be a domed back and a slightly-domed top. After I install the bracing, how much more trimming of the overhang is safe to do? Leave an eighth of an inch past the inner pencil line for the top, and a quarter-inch, for the sake of discussion, on the backs? Up to the inner pencil line on both? Do the closer trimming before installing the bracing?

Thanks, folks.

[John Parchem]

The 3/8" sounds good to me all the way through preparing for glue up. Right before fitting the braces into the linings and glueing on a back or top I trim the top of the upper bout to template line so that I can more easily place the top and back in the correct position. Especially the top as my measurements relative to the body join (bridge plate, sound hole, braces ... ) are indexed to the template line at the top of the guitar.

[peter havriluk]

John, thanks for answering. Sounds reasonable to me. I wanted to be sure I didn't over-trim when I should not and leave a plate too small, after all that. I also didn't want to be working past something too oversize to accurately place. Much obliged.