Maple Fit to Laminate...

Upon return to the shop yesterday, I was pleased to see my two pieces of maple had become one and that the joint was as invisible as I was hoping for.  I pulled the masking tape off and it felt solid.  Not bad considering it is only a 1/4" thickness glued together.  Of course, the strength of this particular joint is somewhat irrelevant since what is going to hold the maple together will be the fact that it is laminated onto the marine plywood.

The next step is to plane/sand/scrape the bottom face of the maple so that the bottom face will be flat.  I don't want anything to break when I vacuum bag the maple to the plywood, so I need to make sure the bottom face sits perfectly flat on the plywood.

The last thing I need to do is cut my maple piece to the same size as my plywood piece.  If I don't do this step, when I put the two pieces in the bag, the vacuum will torque the overlapping edge and make for a very bad/impossible lamination.  Trimming the maple to the size of the plywood is a bit tricky.  Keep in mind that the joint between the two pieces of maple marks the centre line of my guitar face.  That is my guide to centering my maple rectangle onto my plywood rectangle.  But, seeing as I shot the inside edges of my maple, there is nothing to say that the outside edges are parallel/perpendicular to the inside edges.

What I have to do is find the center line of my marine plywood and line it up with the center line of the maple (that is, the joint).  Then, I have to decide what section of the maple I want on my guitar face.  Once it is all lined up, I draw a line on my maple exactly parallel to the center line that corresponds to the edge of the marine ply.  With the line drawn, I cut it heavy with the band saw and then clamp a straight edge to the line and take off the excess material with a trim bit on my router.

Now, it's easy because I have a straight, parallel line to my center line.  I can cut the opposite edge easily with the table saw and cut the perpendicular edges with the table saw and a sled.  The sled just lines up with grooves in the table saw to make it possible to make a perfectly perpendicular cut to any straight edge.

Voila...I'm left with a perfect rectangle exactly the size of my marine plywood.  Here is one picture:

Maple Cut to Size

I put my 6" ruler on there to show scale.  Here is another closeup shot:

Closeup of Body Blank

This right side will be the neck side of the body.  How about that quilting, eh?

Last shot to show thickness:

Body Blank Thickness

Two pieces of marine plywood at 3/4" thick and 1/4" of maple equals 1-3/4"...perfect.

Next step is to throw it all in the bag with some glue!