Rough maple stock removal

[laddy jota]

I noticed that in an early edition of the Siminof book, he is using a rough sanding disk on a drill press to remove stock from his maple back. I don't think old Stradivari did it this away. But I find it to be better than any other method I have tried in getting the wood into rough shape. Finger planes won't cut it for me. Too much finger pain. What do you think is the best way to rough out a maple back?

[TomTyrrell]

I'm pretty sure the old masters used apprentices for that type of rough work.

[amowry]

I use a Safe-t-Planer on the outside and a Lancelot on the inside. They remove the bulk of the wood, but there's still a lot to do by hand. The spoon carver that Woodcraft sells works really well for the next step before planes and scrapers.

[Geoff B]

#7 sweep gouge with a mallet. My all-time favorite chisel is this one. (http://woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=1298) The Swiss Made #7 sweep, 30 mm gouge. Awesome. Works well until the finger planes.

[Magnus Geijer]

On the inside I use a router, followed by an orbital sander to remove the steps. On the outside I remove as much as I can with the drill press, and then I go after it with the belt sander. I have limited patience.

/Magnus

[buddyellis]

I've got a rather large, rather old (flea market special for $10), #7 or so sweep gouge that, when sharpened correctly and used with a mallet, makes this work a lot easier than my first few goes. Once I get the most of the work done, I go to the 40 grit sanding disk to level things out, and then planes.

[toddjoles]

Drill press and then move on to an angle grinder with 50 grit paper!!

[Dan Voight]

Establish arch height, edge thickness, scroll height with Safe-T planer. I then go at it with an Arbortech power chisel. For the inside, I drill and then chisel.

[Stephanie Reiser]

Although this photo shows a top, and it shows the outside, the tools are the same: I use those two gouges then followed by a 12 mm finger plane.

[McCandolin]

Acetylene Torch!

..wait, what?

[Paul Hostetter]

On a neck I proceed from bandsaw definitions to very coarse rasp, then to finer rasps and files. But I know if I'd been taught to use gouges such as Stephanie and Geoff and Buddy all do, that would work equally well. It's not just the tool, but how well you use it. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Eww. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif