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Would you guys mind sharing how you shoot the joint before joing the halves of the top or back? Curious how you sand/cut the joint smooth and how you keep the halves vertical while doing this. Also, I assume you thickness the halves to even thickness and have the tops smooth before joing. I need to do this in the near future.

Thanks!

I use a shooting board and a plane, much like the one Robbie shows in this video..

http://youtu.be/2xOJAjdGZUY

NinjaEdit:
My shooting board is slightly different. The upper surface of mine is slightly higher at the far end. This makes it so you don't use the same narrow part of the plane blade.

Another popular way is to use a jointer, or even a router with a straight edge, and then cleaning it up with something like a level with a piece of sandpaper on the edge.

John Bogdanovich has free plans for various shooting boards and bench hooks available on his website.

The link can be found on this page
http://www.jsbguitars.com/guitar-making-products-news/

I have used Ken's method as linked to above; it works fine, no big fuss, it makes a good joint and you can trust it.

I have used the method shown above to good results, but also have since gotten a grizzly 4.5" jointer....Love it! Does a great job jointing for me, not expensive.

I use my table saw, PSA sandpaper, and both fences to help keep the woo square. It's worked real well for me so far and pretty quick. The one pic has the cut-off of a back I just jointed and am in the process of gluing in the back spline.

A good tip for checking the joint is to put the pieces together on a window and check for light. The glass helps to keep the pieces flat.

Ben, it's not apparent to me how the jig is held perpendicular to your table saw (I'm sure I'm overlooking something obvious). So if you place the top/back halves against the wooden jig sticking up in the air, what keeps the jig 90 deg to the surface of the table saw?

I guess if you move both halves together across the sandpaper, it doesn't make a big difference if you are slightly off 90 deg.......wouldn't the two surfaces still mate up perfectly? Of course, I want to be as close to a 90 deg joining surface as possible.

I jointed a yellow Alaskan spruce top yesterday using Ken Cierp's shooting board method. There is no balancing, since the pieces lay flat on the board, and a couple of minutes of patient sanding yields a good tight fit for gluing.
I used the tape method for gluing the top, just so I would have the experience to draw on. Easy method, gave perfect results.