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Thomas
Beltran uses
a selection of planes. In the above
photograph, the long plane is a Bailey No. 7. It is just
a bit over 21 inches long. The next largest plane is a
Wards Master No. 5, which is the plane used most often.
This plane was bought it at a garage sale in Grand Forks,
ND. The wooden plane is a nice smoothing plane, made in
Germany. In between the Wards Master and the wooden
plane, is a plane that has an integral fence for planning
a narrow face at 90 degrees to the vertical side. On top
of the wooden plane are small planes, used for brace
work and binding. The two smaller planes in front, are a
bronze scraper plane and what is known as an “apron”
plane. These planes are used for fretboard work, and the
scraper plane is used for leveling the rosette after it is
completed in the guitar top.

The above photograph
shows chisels, used throughout the guitar construction
process

The large black surface
shown in the above photograh is a granite plate. It is
accurate, across its face, to one ten-thousandth of an
inch. It is used as a standard of flatness, and for
planing guitar tops on the plate. It weighs a bit over
400 pounds.

The blue vise shown above
is a pattern maker’s vise. It is very heavy, and is over
80 years old.

This is a photograph of
the vacuum pump which is used to power several vacuum
clamps.

Here is a photograph of
the power tools. In addition to two drill presses,
band saws, belt sanders and other standard power tools are
used in the construction of guitars. |
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"One
nice thing about making guitars, is that it takes
very little specialized tools to build one."
Tom |
There are several
companies that make specialized tools, but they are
not absolutely necessary to build nice guitars.
None-the-less, it is easy to accumulate such tools
over the years.
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