Planning the glue joint of the back. Low angle plane, with it hotdog handle. (like the Stanley #62)
Nice shaving of curly maple.
Maple rose, with its baby.
Gluing the joint.
Tracing the contour folowing the template + 5mm. The righ hand side of the template is the exterior contour, the left hand side is the mould contour.
Contour before cutting out.
The back, cut and fixed on the carving platform. Planning at the max heigth (18mm).
Starting the carving, with the two handed gouge.
Marking the level curves.
Symetry.
Roughing out the steps.
Using the spoon gouge in the C bouts.
Cutting along the edge, 4mm height.
Pay double attention to security with this tool !
Roughing out with the gouge finished.
Shaping with the thumb plane with toothed blade.
Longitudinal profile.
Checking with side light.
Transversal profile.
I use the toothed blades to avoid any tear out with curly maple. See the article on the making of these blades.
Seeing the arch.
Going to the scrapers to erase the teeth marks.
It\'s time to cut the final contour. Using the rim.
The old trick of the washer. Never found better since.
Cutting out, protecting the face and lifting the edge.
Adjusting the final contour with a plane in the bouts.
Using the spindle sander inside the C bouts.
And with the knife in the angles of the heel button.
Final contours.
Preparing for the scribing of the purfling. A layer of pore filler on the edge.
Scribing the channel for the purfling.(see the article on the making of this tool).
The tool only scribes the channel, you need then to deepen the edges with a luthier knife.
The knife must be slim and sharp. Only the best steels allow to keep the edge sharp, slim and durable. Here it is Japanese steel.
Carving the groove with a little purfling chisel.
My purfling chisel.
A piece of purfling allows to evaluate the width of the channel.
And its depth.
A point, ready to receive its purfling.
Re-use of the counter corner blocks to shape the purfling with hot air.
The bevel is cut with a chisel.
Ready for gluing. You must be quick, because the hot hide glue has a very short open time. The setup allows to blow hot air on the working area in order to get a longer open time.
The purfling is pushed into the groove with a light hammer.
The glue is brushed into the groove. It must be diluted to keep it very thin.
The angle is the tricky part. The miter cut must be pushed towards the point.
The back with its purfling installed.
Detail of a point.
For adjusting properly the back onto the rim, I install on each block a little index that will allow the rim to keep its exact shape, once it will be removed from the mould and when it will be fixed on the back. The index will also prevent any slippage while gluing the back onto the rim.
The index are brass pin tips.
It is first used with the point upward, it allows to mark the back where the holes will have to be drilled.
We push slightly just for marking the back plate.
Here is the mark on the back.
Setting up the depth of the hole. Take care of the thickness of the recurve. No more than 2.5 mm.
Drilling. The depth stop has been set up.
Turning upside down the indexs.
Pushing just enough down in the blocks.
The back on the rim, not yet glued on.
Preparation of a solera for hollowing the back.
The back is installed flush in the solera. The bottom also just touches the bench, protected by a leather sheet.
There is still to carve the recurve at the edge of the plate. The recurve starts just before the purfling line.
Here I use for the first time my thickness punch to mark the depth of the recurve. The gouge will erase the punch marks to insure an even depth of the recurve all around the plate.
The recurve in side light.
Side light.
Semi-finished back arch.
Oups, here there is a flaw. The recurve as bitten nearly all the purfling.
I must remove several sections of the purfling. In fact I realize that the channel was deep enough, but it was filled with some glue that didn\'t manage to squeeze. The glue was too thick or the channel too tight.
The joint of the fix is pretty invisible on that side.
In the C bout, idem, invisible (at the tip of the knife).
Here the seem can be seen, but well ...
Starting the hollowing. Rough carving with the two handed gouge.
Using a leather layer to protect the already finished face.
Using my thickness punch to mark the zones to be dug. I keep above the final measurement.
Marks to be dug.
After the gouge, I use the toothed thumb plane.
Nice shavings
The final measurement is reached with a scraper. Finished areas are marked with shalk.
The center is finished
I mark with a pencil the measured dimension, so that I can weigh my scraper action.
Progressing
For my recording, I weigh the finished piece.
Side light. Still some bumps to be cleaned up.
Still for my recording, I record the resonance of the back.
I have no particular target, but if the instrument happens to play well, I would know what to reproduce if I ever do an other one.
Using my micro marking gauge, I trace a 1mm chanfer.
On all sides.
Drafting the rounded edge cutting a straight chanfer with the knife.
The edge rolling is then refined using the knife and scraper.
The scrper must be carefully sharpened.
All contents under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
Older readers comments