HTS Make Plywood

Plywood is used extensively in guitar building, from making tops to sides to even making necks.

In this instance, we are going to make a plywood pickguard, the purpose of using plywood rather than a single piece of wood is simply, single thickness woods break easily, plywood has more flexibility and strength.

Time to manufacture approx 2 hrs over 3 days (glue/paint drying times)

We buy the wood from the lumber yards and cut them up into the desired sheet sizes that we use, these are readily available from luthier suppliers, already precut and shaped.

Like so.

This pickguard is going to be made from Wenge, each sheet of Wenge is 0.6mm thick, laying up 4 sheets will give a final 2.4mm thickness.

Lay the first piece over our mdf.

We need to trim it to size, so we use masking tape as our point of reference for cutting, it also holds our edges together.

Sharp scissors is all you need.

First sheet down

We cut another sheet (ref top of photo), with the grain going the opposite direction, this will allow strength in the final piece

We need a small piece of mdf wood, big enough to allow us to layup some wood sheets to the desired shape and size.

As I am making a pickguard, I will use the original pickguard as a reference for the mdf block size.

The original pickguard is also 2.28mm thick.

I wrap the mdf block of wood with some baking paper, this is to prevent the glue from adhering to the mdf.

Here, I just use a vacuum plate for doing my clamping, you can also just use heavy blocks of wood