2groggy's 2021 Brotherhood Experiment - laminated archtop

Very cool... I checked out the vacuum setup and now I'm anxious to see this one in action!

 

That is going to be awesome and thanks for the link to that site!

 

This should be a very interesting build! I’m excited to see how it goes. I have actually done some experimentation with making laminated arch top plates myself. I am no expert on this type of construction, but if you don’t mind, I feel like should share some of what I have learned from my own experience. As they say, it’s better to learn from someone else’s mistakes than it is to learn from your own. Haha!

I used the roarockit 1/16 maple veneer as well and I have to say it’s rough. And it’s thick. I found that it needed to be sanded a lot to make the surfaces suitable for laminating. Also depending on how drastic your top arching/recurve will be, it may be too thick to form to your mold. I ended up having to thin mine significantly with a drum/thickness sander. My first attempt was with the veneer at near full thickness and it didn’t form very well at all. I was attempting an ES335 style top that has pretty drastic arches/recurves on the horns. That is where I had most of the problems. But even in the recurve areas of the lower bout I had a few areas that didn’t form well. Some of my problem may have been that I used too much glue. In the recurves, glue would be forced in to those areas because the don’t press down as easily, so I ended up with thick glue lines in these areas. My second attempt which came out very nice, I only applied glue to one of the mating surfaces between each layer. It also consisted of thinned veneer versus my first attempt. Another helpful idea I did the second time around was, after I had my layers all glued and stacked, I used a dry hard rubber roller on the top of it all to work as much excess glue out to the edges as I could. It helps press everything together well and makes for nice thin glue lines. I assure you the vacuum bag will not squeeze out much excess glue. So I recommend doing it before bagging.

What type of glue are you planning to use for the laminating? To avoid spring back, I recommend something that cures very hard and rigid such as Urea Formaldehyde glue. I think I used something called UltraCat that I got from some veneer supply site.

Anyhow, that’s about all the useful info that I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, it may jog my memory of something else helpful.

Here are a few pics of my experiments.
Bagged glue up:

This was my second attempt. It came out pretty decent I think. I’ve had it hanging on the wall in my not so climate controlled shop and it has remained nice and flat for nearly a year now.


My first try, not so good:


and it warped after a day or so for some reason. Too much glue moisture possibly...

 

I'll be watching. I've built three laminated top/back/side guitars but I cheated and bought the plates from someone who did all the work of making the mold and laminating them.

 

I'll be watching too. Vacuum forming with veneer is something I want to someday try too. Good luck with your build!

 

Nice work!

 

For those of you that didn't realize that there was a recent Winter Bass build off in the "Bass Place" section of the TDPRI. Several really cool basses were made.

@2groggy, participated and built a mind boggling Tbird inspired bass. I still have a hard time getting my mind around it. Here is a link for any who might be interested in the bass which is his/her avatar.

2021 Winter Build Off - Thunderbird 5 | Telecaster Guitar Forum (tdpri.com)

 

This probably isn’t much help, but I cut my maple veneer with a heavy duty utility knife using multiple passes along a clamped straight edge. But I also did my laminating with the pieces still in rectangular form. But if you are wanting to cut your veneer to a rough body shape first, that’s gonna be tough to do without using a jig saw or something similar.

 

Now that you mention it, using a template and a router would probably have the best results. I’m afraid any type of saw would cause chips or cracks in the edges of your veneer.

 

A bandsaw with a fine tooth blade is probably your best bet.
Cheers,
Woody