Looks great! Now I'm getting the itch to start building again....
Looks great! Now I'm getting the itch to start building again....
A little decidedly non-glamorous work with some plywood scraps, and I have my carving cradle mostly done. I did a little wood wasting on the top with the Saf-T-Planer so that I don't have to carve away as much spruce with my aching fingers. No particular plan, just continuing the angle of the wedge-shaped halves of the top all the way around to remove wood with no worries of cutting too deep. I'll carve the arch by eye later.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Anyone else notice no matter how many of these things you build, you still enjoy watching build threads ?? It's what's so great about lutherie !! Thanks for posting this stuff John, and dispensing so much good advice on here. One tip that i'm sure you're aware of that i got a long time ago was , if you get some sides that are particularly hard to bend, take a piece of clean, white-t shirt , a soak it in some water, ring it out and drop it right on the pipe. That helped me tremendously and i use it every-time i bend no matter what wood or figure now just out of habit. I use a clean piece every-time so nothing accidentally gets in/on the wood,and just that little bit of steaming cloth between the wood and the iron seems to keep me from scorching.
Jim
Last edited by Mandoborg; Mar-02-2014 at 9:56pm.
Good advice, Jim. Actually, I had been bending rosewood and mahogany most recently, so some of the marks weren't so much scorch marks as they were cooked-in residue from the "junk" on the bending iron. I scrubbed it with a wire brush before starting, but still...
This maple (at just under .080") wanted to bend at a temperature that seemed to be about half a degree hotter than when scorch marks started showing up. I didn't think about the wet rag trick... should have tried it.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
This is a great thread, thanks for posing all these great pictures. I have built a few brass instruments, but never built anything out of wood. I have nothing but respect for craftsmen of all sorts. Very impressive.
-Sean Mason
www.AlsMusicShopNY.com
Bernie
____
Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.
Building an instruments is like building a house in that it looks fast in the early stages. When a house is being framed, it goes from looking like a low cement wall to looking like a house in a few days! Then comes wiring, plumbing, mechanical, flooring, wall treatment, trim, etc. etc., and it looks like the contractor went to the Bahamas with all the bucks he got from framing the house!
Fear not, this project will slow down (haven't even started the plumbing yet ).
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Last edited by Pete Jenner; Mar-03-2014 at 11:16am.
In this case it's strictly acoustic, so no electricians required.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Bump....
Mike
Those who think they should think, like they think others think they should think, need to think out their thinking, I think.
No envejecemos, maduramos. -Pablo Picasso
Yep, this is one of those "periods of time when there is no progress to report" that I mentioned at the beginning of this thread. Lots going on around here, hoping for time to do some carving of the top soon...
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
I actually meant to ask you about this build yesterday... Glad to see it got bumped up!
"A creative man is driven by the the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
Rayburn Mandolins
https://m.facebook.com/rayburnmandol...urce=typeahead
I found a few minutes to do a little work on the 'cello.
I believe we left off here:
I used a couple of planes to waste wood down to the edges of the rough contour lines left by the Saf-T-Planer.
With that wood out of the way, I made a preliminary cut for the "re-curve" area to establish a uniform-depth tough around the edge.
As you can see, I carved into some color in the wood. No problem, the sunburst will cover it.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
At this time, I have the center height established and the trough height established, and I've started carving the arch and checking the shape and symmetry using a marking gauge. Here's what I started with, just from eye-balling the arch shape.
A little more refining...
...and onward from here. Pretty boring for a while, I'll try to photo some steps along the way to the completed top arch.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Yawn... ...just kidding.
I was thinking about this a few days ago and hoping you would be doing more soon.
Looking very nice indeed.
John at one point you mentioned a 25" scale but I don't think any other dimensions have been discussed. From the one pic with a mandolin back on top of the mandocello back it looks the box will be about 14 -15 wide and 17 - 18" long? How deep will it be?
Bernie
____
Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.
The width is about 15 1/8" to 15 1/4" I don't remember the body length right off and I'm not in the shop where I can measure. The depth is still undecided, but it will be under 3". I think I remember thinking of maybe 2 5/8" or so, but I'll have to look back at some earlier work to remember where I was on that.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
OK, here's the top after scraping and checking the contours with the marking gauge. It's lying on my down draft sanding table with a side light to allow me to see the contours of the arch.
I started out with coarse sandpaper (80 grit because I let myself run out of 60 grit) smoothing the recurve area, just using a folded 1/4sheet of sandpaper, fingers and thumb.
I sanded the whole recurve area...
Then moved on to a sanding block to smooth out the scraper marks.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
To make sure I'm keeping the arch symmetrical, I draw contour lines, using my marking gauge, periodically throughout the carving of the outside of the arch. Here are the lines, and a 12" scale held down to the top. I got this one pretty well centered so I don't have to do much work to get it symmetrical. I'll do some selective sanding to smooth up the curves of the contour lines as I continue to sand, continuing to check with the marking gauge and side lighting.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
Bernie, the body length is 19 1/4" and the rim depth (preliminary) is currently just over 2 1/2" It might get to be a little less after gluing the linings and re-surfacing for gluing the plates.
John Hamlett
www.hamlettinstruments.com
It's starting to look pretty good, John. We know it will get better too. I'm looking forward to seeing your final steps.
Nice work John. I am about tostart on my plates (or I will be as soon as I can buy or borrow a thickness planer to get my top and back whittled down to size...) and the tip on maintaining symmetry is right on time!
"A creative man is driven by the the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
Rayburn Mandolins
https://m.facebook.com/rayburnmandol...urce=typeahead
It is going to be a monster that is for sure! Watching that top come to life is just great.
re post #71: I don't think that I ever knew you could buy those metal engineer's rulers in 12" size (or I'd have one!) -- I have collected three of the 6" ones -- its often handy to have 1/64" markings.
Bernie
____
Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.
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