Thicknessing the side

What's next? It will be doing up the sides.
Of course I haven't carved the peghead yet but I am waiting to purchase a good set of forstener drill bit.
The ones I had wasn't sharp enough and I don't want to ruin a good neck.

So I began to thickness the sides.
At first I tried my regular block plane, it can't cut w/o a tearout...
So I had to use my MJF high angle block instead.
It works great but a bit slow.
The thickness was about 2.8mm region
After some work I only managed to bring it down to 2.5mm
I am targeting at 2mm for easier bending.

The sides

Planing using my MJF HA block

Thicknessing in action.

Thicknessing the side is sure hard work especially with a block plane that is so small.
In the end I tried to tune the #4 making it having finer cut and even the blade.
It works just fine.
Luckily previously I have already tune the sole of the plane and mouth as tight as possible.
The plane iron is Lee Valley A2 and has been sharpened recently.
The tearout is minimal; nothing that can't be sand away.
Well in woodworking, the importance of having sharp tools cannot be overlooked.
I thickness one of the sides to 2.0mm ready for bending.
Now have to work on the other side.

Planing with the #4.

Thickness 2mm just nice.

I have completed thicknessing the 2 sides.
After some rough sanding I am ready to bend them.

I trace the back curvature from my existing Gutmeier guitar which probably was shaped using a radius dish. (Well it looks like it)
And when I cut out the template, the it's pretty much the same except that it start to slope in at the waist portion.
Anyway this is just a rough guide.
I measure the excess and cut the excess as a binding.
I probably can get about 3 binding from the excess.
After that I mark out the position of the UB, W, LB and End.
Now I am all set to bend it.

The template

Cutting the binding.

Binding cut

Marking out the UpperBout Waist LowerBout and End position