On my first build I made the mistake of carving the scroll on the top all the way to near finished sanding before I attached to the side assembly. I then realized that to make the edges of the top flush I had to sand down a substantial part of the edge. This resulted in an uneven distance from the side of the finished mandolin to the "ridge" of the carved scroll--particularly at the bottom of the scroll where the ridge curves around in to the body, where the ridge was much closer to the side.
For my current build, I am not carving the scroll until the top is on the side assembly and the edges are sanded even. I'm hoping this will result in a more pleasing appearance and uniformity on the carved scroll.
But in thinking about how I wanted to approach this I looked at a good number of pictures of F5 models, and it seems like there is at least some variation of distance from the side to the scroll's ridge. My assumption was always that the ridge is the same distance from the edge all the way down until it disappears in to the mandolin body. Does anyone know if this is the case? For F5 builders, do you allow fluctuation in this, or it it always the exact same position?
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