Luthiery Laboratories

It really helps to make full-sized drawings before you start a guitar project. But finding guitar-size paper can be a problem. My Home Depot has big rolls of brown wrapping paper outside that are a good size, I tore off a few yards. Below, I've drawn a plan on a nice big piece of cardboard I saved that was the backing for something. But how do you transfer these plans to wood? I don't want to cut up my master, I need some extra-large tracing paper. So I went to Staples, but the closest thing they had was still too small, and $20. So I went to the supermarket next door, and found this baking paper.

This baking paper is 15 inches wide and as long as you need and nearly transparent. You can see I have traced only the outline, with the rest of the plan showing through. This paper takes pencil very well, and even has a grid on it that might be useful. It is a little slippery and doesn't like tape, but for FOUR BUCKS a roll, I can put up with that. Now I can cut out the tracing and copy it to the wood, and still have my master completely intact. Sweet.

BigPrint

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks really promising. All you need is a decent picture of what you want to build and a single known dimension. I do this by hand using math, but this would be a lot easier. For a guitar or bass, the dimension can be picked off the neck, remembering that compensation for the G-string is usually zero.