000 guitar build - 0.8 radius dishes

The radius dishes I'm making in this step will be used along with the go bar deck as a clamping rig for the top and back braces. There will be a shallow dip in the middle so that the top and back will have the right curvature (flattop guitars are not really flat).

Huge thanks to Freeman Keller for curved sticks with the proper radius to make this part possible.

The first step was to cut two circles to make the dishes with. I used 3/4" MDF (medium density fiberboard). To get the circles the correct width, I used a spiral cut saw and a floor shim to create a cutting compass.

Once I had a couple of 2 foot circles, I used the radius sticks from Freeman and a laminate trimmer to carve the bulk of the shallow concave cavity. With a small block between them, the sticks made a track for the trimmer to ride on. Cut a strip, rotate the track, repeat.

After the main carving was done, I cleaned things up with a sander. In one of the pics, you can start to see the lines from the trimmer disappear.

There are two sets of radii... A 25 foot radius for the top and a 16 foot radius for the back.

Not sure what order the attached pics will land in. Hopefully they are self explanatory.