Maple Inlay for Walnut Guitar

[Steve H Graham]

If I ever manage to assemble my walnut guitar body (Telecaster type), I want to inlay 3/16" wide maple strips over the glue joints to make it pretty. I could use some advice.

I figured I could make strips on the table saw, thin enough to be flexible, and then glue them into slots routed over the glue joints. Then I would put the guitar on the router table and use a flush-cut bit to grind off the excess maple.

Will that work?

I saw Doug Stowe use the table saw to make inlays for boxes, and I figured it would work for a guitar, but his inlays were not thin and flexible.

[Josiah Bartlett]

Its a lot easier to just laminate the maple all the way through like you would glue up a cutting board, but it might affect the tone a bit. Maybe in a positive way. A lot of neck-through-body basses are this way. It looks cool, too. Emphasize the joints instead of hiding them.

[Steve H Graham]

Yeah, part of the point of the project was to see what solid walnut sounded like. That's why I can't make a maple sandwich.

[John Coloccia]

I don't think a thin strip of maple will hurt anything tone wise, but I do think it will look kind of goofy. Personally, I think a good joint looks far better than a stripe down the middle of the guitar. If anything, I would only do it on the back, where it won't be book matched anyway. Make your groove, make an inlay strip slightly oversize, and the sand the strip down for a perfect fit.

I would do all of this work BEFORE you cut out the body shape. You will find that making a guitar is an exercise in doing things in the right order. There are very few straight and square lines on a finished guitar. You need straight and square lines to be able to easily do your work. Once you shape something, that line is gone forever and if you need it back you're made a lot of work for yourself.

So doing it before you shape the body gives you nice straight edges for make your groove.

[Prashun Patel]

I'm with John on this: nix the inlay. It will look prettier and more timeless (IMveryHO) if you concentrate on grain matching the pieces and jointing a clean glue line.

If you want to do an inlay, (I'm assuming the joints are in the middle of the body?) I think you want a bottom-cleaning bit in a plunge router on rails if you want to trim with power. I think the easier-to-control method though is to cut yr strips just barely proud and to use a plane or sandpaper to make it perfect.

Whatever u do, resist the temptation to use an orbital or belt sander to make it flush; do it by hand. It's very easy to make divots which will show up on yr beautiful guitar only during finishing.

[Steve H Graham]

This guitar will have one joint down the front, one joint down the back, and two around the sides, where the front and rear caps are attached.

I'm thinking the front and rear joints should be left alone, and I should just cover the side joints.

[John Coloccia]

OK, so you're talking about binding the top. That will be a pretty easy channel to make because the top is flat. StewMac sells a router bit/bearing set that will make the proper channel to fit standard binding sizes. Be aware, though, that if you use wood binding, you will have to steam bend them to fit with a bending pipe or iron.

[Steve H Graham]

I don't mean edge binding. I'm talking about something that would be farther down on the sides.

It looks like it's very hard to find router bits that will do the job. I need something with a bearing, so I can go around the side of the guitar and cut a 3/16" slot all the way around.

[Steve H Graham]

Maybe this is just too hard. It looks like I would have to get a slot-cutting bit 1 1/4" in diameter and then find a huge bearing that would leave only 1/8" of the bit exposed. And I can't find a bit with a cutting length of 3/16", so I would have to go up to 1/4". I found a bit with a length of 1/8", but I would have to adjust the router's depth and do the whole job twice, and I have a feeling I would end up with something other than 3/16".

[Steve H Graham]

Maybe the answer is to rout the edges of the middle slab (like routing for edge binding) before putting the three slabs together. That wouldn't require a crazy bit.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I guess now that you are describing it I misunderstood how you were laminating the body of the guitar, I didn't realize it was in the plane of the thickness of the guitar body instead of the width.

You could use a pin router or the template of the guitar body to rout the groove instead of having to use a bearing, and then use an OSS or some other kind of edge sander to clean it up.

[Steve H Graham]

I'm fiddling with this today. It turns out it's very easy to make 1/8" by 3/16" maple strips on the table saw, but they don't like being bent around the horn of the guitar. I'm soaking one in the kitchen sink to see how flexible I can make it. I suppose I could go down to 3/32" in thickness and leave 1/16" in the guitar.

The table saw is amazing. If all woodworking tools are as easy to use and precise as the table saw and band saw, I'd be surrounded with completed projects by now.

[Steve H Graham]

Wow, it turns out that once you go below 1/8" in thickness, you can wet this stuff down and bend it right around a Telecaster horn.

[jerry cousins]

i would suggest using a card scraper to bring the inlay flush with the surface rather than a bit in the router table - much less opportunity for problems.
jerry