How To Carve A Guitar Top?

[@IPGuitars]

Do you have any questions about guitar building? Leave a comment below and I'll answer it in a video!

[@tligon]

Great video. These are the same techniques I use as well. Shinto for life!

[@IPGuitars]

Shinto for life indeed! Don't know what I did without it

[@steveroberts]

Nice video Thompster. Thanks

[@TheEmre1979]

Bro... how can i carve a esp frx body?

[@IPGuitars]

Great question and I really didn't go into "proper" top carving in this video, but for a carve like the FRX you'd probably want to use a series of different gouges to work in the basic shapes, then finesse the curves with curved scrapers and/or thumb planes. A whole new different kind of beast, that I hope to do a video on once I actually get the tooling for such myself.

[@stevlajang]

really curious on carved top guitar such an PRS carved top style with modern 2 point trem, do i still need a slight break neck angle ?.

[@IPGuitars]

Usually you always need a neck angle of some sort. While there are tons of brands that have none, having the angle work with your bridge height makes a huge difference in playability. Usually hardtails and trems will only have about 2-3 degrees, so that's why it's easy to get away with not having any. And a lot is up to you, the player :) if you don't mind a higher action moving up the fretboard, then there's no worries. If your action (so measuring from the top of the fret and bottom of the strings) stays the same throughout your neck, then your guitar's neck has an angle built in already. Hopefully the somewhat lenghthy response was atleast a bit helpful :D

[@stevlajang]

IP Guitars thanks a lot.. i been asking a few luthier is always answer the same, advantage on flexibility to set up rather than super flat..or as simple just hate any protruding neck which bother the overall looks and design..

[@patrickselley2518]

if I wanted to round the sides (I guess continue the bevel) to create something like on a warwick thumb or an ibanez soundgear, would I basically just like facet the edges that are created each time I go at it with the rasp and spoke shave?

[@IPGuitars]

Yupp, that would be the way to do it by hand. Of course if you have access to a router and a larger roundover bit, you'd be able to get that rounded edge that way :)

[@patrickselley2518]

@@IPGuitars cool good to know, thanks for the response. I will have access to a router but I figure it's important to know how to do something by hand first, for me anyway.

[@IPGuitars]

@@patrickselley2518 That is exactly my mentality with a lot of processes :)

[@johnmalan6802]

Do yyou ou use a recurve? Thanks

[@IPGuitars]

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure what you mean

[@johnmalan6802]

@@IPGuitars the way I understand it is the recurve is a trough created just inside the guitar edge that is slightly below the edge of the guitar. Hard to explain?

[@IPGuitars]

Ah okay, I got what you meant. No recurve on this one, have done on some guitars. And might do at some point. Usually I prefer to do bevels