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i have a marble chess set that i got at a yard sale for $5. it's great for a flat surface but I wish it were larger sometimes.

John, dimensions of the parallels you use (have tried to eyeball them from your videos)? Also, an affordable source for those of us who can't make our own?

I use 2 sizes
for 000 and smaller bodies they are 5/8 in thick about 1 in wide 10 in long
for dred 3/4 thick 1 in wide also 10 in long

I bought my granite plate from Grizzly. I had the occasion to be passing by the Pennsylvania location on a trip from home to Wisconsin, so I stopped in. Lugged it home, along with a angle-iron base. No freight charges.

Thanks for the parallel dimensions. I have a granite surface plate but it's only 18" x 6" x 2", use it as a nice solid base for fretting. We used steel surface plates to build prototype cars on in the automobile business but I didn't think it was that critical for building a guitar, I mean as long as the table surface is reasonably flat...my main workbench is 3 1/2" maple and all the work tables are alder wood and when I lay my surface plate on them, don't notice any daylight between. Now, for making fudge, that would be a different story!

I put sand paper on it and use my veritas tool to sharpen my chisels. I install flooring for a living and in one of the houses I was working in the granite counter tops were not what the customer ordered and had to be replaced. The old counter tops were basically trash so I scooped up on several pieces.

David Lewis

try a headstone cutter in your area or a counter top fabricator . Heavy glass will also work if you can find it

Most of the sources I'm finding for pre-made parallels of the appropriate thicknesses have lengths of 6" or 12" and the 12" ones are very expensive, like $90 per pair. Anything you'd recommend instead of steel machinist parallels?

planer blades make great parallels

Sorry, I'm not following...do you mean taking two planes of the same type and laying them on their sides like in this photo? Wouldn't the "blades" themselves be too thin?