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I am going to be undertaking my first try at building scales and was looking for a little feedback. I was thinking about starting with some purpleheart in a 1/4 thickness. I measured my existing scales and they are about 1/8 at the thickest.
Should I use 1/4 so that I have a lot of material to work with? I am a little afraid that once I start sanding/shaping I'll remove too much material from a 1/8 piece.
What do other people use?
I set my saw at 3/16 that way I have a little to work with, 1/4 is a little thick and takes a lot of sanding to get down to the right feel, even on a belt sander it takes to long....
I don't have a lot of power tools, so I will be doing most of the shaping/sanding by hand. And, because of the lack of tools, I'll also be depending on the size of wood that I can find locally in store as a start.
In that case I would have to go for the 1/8 inch choice.....
If I was limited to using a minimum of power tools....
I agree with Glen. If you don't have any power tools and start at 1/4" you'll probably want to give up.
+1 on what Glen and Alex said so far. For regular scales, 1/8" or perhaps even 1/10" is the way to go for 99% of the woods out there.