Thickness wiggle room on hand planed top

After all is strung up and finished, will it matter much if the top is .095 in spots, .092 in spots and .099 in spots.
This is about as consistent as I can get doing the hand planing/sanding route.

-tommy

[johnnparchem]

After all is strung up and finished, will it matter much if the top is .095 in spots, .092 in spots and .099 in spots.
This is about as consistent as I can get doing the hand planing/sanding route.

-tommy

When I look at the measurements is the GAL publications of great guitars they all have at least that much discrepancy.

[tippie53]

should be ok

[B. Howard]

My work is not much tighter.

My work is not much tighter.

Brian,
My procedure is to pencil mark the backside of the top, then plane off the pencil marks, repeat and sand smooth. I do this as many times as it takes to reach the target thickness. What's your procedure?? What plane do you use?
-tommy

[B. Howard]

I only use witness marks these days on badly warped stock at the initial true up cuts. On tops and backs I take the majority of the stock with cuts at about a 45 degree to the grain, I simply follow the edge of the last cut with the edge of the plane hanging over it about 1/8 inch ( slightly more than the blade sets in from the edge. After a few sets of passes like this I make a finishing pass with the grain, often working out from the center joint in the direction of cellular runout, only the best tops can be finish planed in the same direction all the way across without getting little bits of tearout. I then measure the thickness and either repeat or get out the scraper to finish it. simple division will tell you how much you are removing per pass and then you can get an idea of how many passes to make. With practice it will become very easy, I used a lot of witness marks long ago when I was learning to work wood. I use a #3 Bailey for the bulk of my work, it just seems the perfect size for making guitars. It is set up as a jack plane. That is followed by a #112 scraper plane to flatten out the surface left by the jack plane and then a hand scraper to put the working finish on the pieces. For obstinate wood I add a #4 Bailey with a toothed blade to the mix and switch back and forth with the #3 to make the initial cuts.