Rollover on Belly Carve (3.6 lb Alder JM Body)

[Beebe]

I just picked up an unfinished 3.6 lb solid Alder JM body from Supra-tone on eBay for $120.

I'm pretty excited about the weight. As well as the chance to do some finish sanding... because it is rough!

The wonky belly carve needs shaping up and they didn't add any rollovers to the belly or forearm carves.

Any tips on how to carry the rollovers onto the carves? Other than just eyeballing it with some heavy sandpaper?

Maybe a scraper with a radius of some sort?

[Beebe]

Maybe something like this but with a 7/16" radius? That is the rollover radius on jazzmaster body right?

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/veri ... lsrc=aw.ds

[epizootics]

It's one of those where you need to remove more wood than you think, and doing it with sandpaper only will take ages!
I usually trace a line that follows the edge on both sides, offset by 1/2 of whatever radius I used for the roundover. You can use a marking gauge for that but I tend to just use my middle and ring fingers to follow the edge whilst holding a pencil between my thumb and forefinger. Anyhow, you know you need to remove all of the wood between those two lines. You can use chisels, rasps, round spokeshaves, whatever you have on hand for the job. After that, you can make secondary facets, but there is usually little wood to remove. Most of the time I just break the edges with a file and finish with sandpaper. I'm pretty sure Ron Kirn uses a similar method in one of his epic Strat builds on the Telecaster forum? It's a quick and almost surefire way of doing it.

[Beebe]

Awesome advice! I thought of drawing lines where the edges of the round-overs should be, but I didn't think of drawing lines past which all of the wood can be removed flat with a rasp. I like the idea of starting out this way.

[Beebe]

It's one of those where you need to remove more wood than you think, and doing it with sandpaper only will take ages!
I usually trace a line that follows the edge on both sides, offset by 1/2 of whatever radius I used for the roundover. You can use a marking gauge for that but I tend to just use my middle and ring fingers to follow the edge whilst holding a pencil between my thumb and forefinger. Anyhow, you know you need to remove all of the wood between those two lines. You can use chisels, rasps, round spokeshaves, whatever you have on hand for the job. After that, you can make secondary facets, but there is usually little wood to remove. Most of the time I just break the edges with a file and finish with sandpaper. I'm pretty sure Ron Kirn uses a similar method in one of his epic Strat builds on the Telecaster forum? It's a quick and almost surefire way of doing it.

... in addition, I shared your response in the TDPRI thread where I posted the same question.

Post in thread 'Rollover on Forearm and Tummy Carves' https://www.tdpri.com/threads/rollover- ... t-12294548

[Guppy]

Awesome advice! I thought of drawing lines where the edges of the round-overs should be, but I didn't think of drawing lines past which all of the wood can be removed flat with a rasp. I like the idea of starting out this way.

I think epizootic misread your post and thinks you want to sand in the entire carve. You're just trying to get a small radius on the body's edge right? Go at it with some 150grit sandpaper max. Work your way down to 320. Heavy sandpaper will just make deep scratches that will take quite some work to sand out again. Leaving you with a much to big a radius. Just be careful. It won't take much.

[Steadyriot.]

Awesome advice! I thought of drawing lines where the edges of the round-overs should be, but I didn't think of drawing lines past which all of the wood can be removed flat with a rasp. I like the idea of starting out this way.

I think epizootic misread your post and thinks you want to sand in the entire carve. You're just trying to get a small radius on the body's edge right? Go at it with some 150grit sandpaper max. Work your way down to 320. Heavy sandpaper will just make deep scratches that will take quite some work to sand out again. Leaving you with a much to big a radius. Just be careful. It won't take much.

No I think Epizootics got it right, Ron Kirn (and I) does it the same way, you draw a line from the upper and lower edge of the roundover, and the halfway point between them and the edge of the body, that way you know what wood to take off.

Here’s some pic’s from Ron Kirn:

[Beebe]

The body was such a mess I ended up just sanding away all of the round-overs and then softening the edges with a sanding sponge.

I forgot how to post pics. So it anyone is interested in how it's looking:

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/rollover- ... t-12396560

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

Nice!