Guitar Body Push Block

I recently picked up a Delta Milwaukee 6 inch jointer from 1948. Naturally whenever purchasing a new tool the first thing is to make sure it functions properly as well as start making jigs for it. I wanted some sort of large, secure push block for pushing stock through the jointer safely. Looking online I found a helpful article from woodbin.com.

In the article there is a picture of a double hump style push block which immediately made me think, “hey that looks a lot like a guitar.”

Luckily I have an old guitar body, it is a leftover from when I built the MIDI guitar.

D.I.Y. MIDI Guitar

I started by cutting off a side of the guitar body and then gluing it to a piece of 2×4 that I squared up on the jointer. After the glue had dried I re-enforced the joint with some dowels. After cleaning up the bottom of the push block again on the jointer I glued on a heel to the bottom of the push block.

The last thing that I decided to add was a pick-guard to the guitar so that I closed up the holes to not have anywhere for my fingers to get caught on or stuck in. I cut the pick guard the same way as the guitar body on the table saw and then used the bandsaw to cut out a blank to cover up the jack hole.

Overall this is a pretty simple project and I am happy with the result, it’s cool and attention grabbing but more importantly it is functional and should be a tool to help make other projects in the future.