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There’s a couple ways to do this. You could do it with a light on the inside of the guitar in a dark room. My eyes are trash, though, so I used magnets to define the braces.
I linked all of the brace tangencies together with a 6 inch rule and then did an etching of the pickguard area with mechanical pencil lead.
I 3D Printed a caul for the inside of the guitar. It was kerfed so that I didn’t put any undue strain on the spruce when I was clamping it up.
Here is a video of the modeling and printing process.
Important to inspect the fit once it’s printed.
Its really hard to get all the clamps you need for good pressure through the sound hole. I put is a scissor jack in towards the waist to support two quick grips from the outside edge of the guitar.
I also 3d Printed up an outside caul that was also kerfed. Pretty much followed the pervious video tutorial minus letting in the braces.
Put down cork and sliced it to the kerfs.
I put wax paper over the cork.
I applied, to the best of my ability, an even application of Titebond over the side of the pickguard that wouldn’t make me angry.
Then it was just fussing it into place and getting the clamps on with out shifting it around.
squeezy squeezy
Little bit of squeeze out to clean up, but pretty psyched.
Responses
Wow! Thanks Ian, this came at the perfect time — I am replacing the pickugaurd on a D-35, and while I do have cauls I made years back, they don’t take a shine to what you have. My friend Ceil Thompson is going to help me print them (as you know I have not yet mastered my 3D printer that we all bought in the early days of the Looth Group). I even packed it away when Ceil left for Bryan Galloups Guitar Building school last year. She did great at school and is back in town for awhile. I hope she’ll have time to help me print some of the other looth files that members have kindly donated to the cause. I wish I could learn to create my own files, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s tough to teach an old dog new tricks I guess.