Side Taper & Tail Block - Day 13

DAY 13 - (HOURS 5.00, TOTAL TIME 33.30HRS)

My longest day yet!

It went quite well too. I started by making a template of the side taper, which is basically a piece of paper the length of the unbent side, with a width of 3 7/8" at one end, and 3 1/8" at the other. I traced mine from the plan, but I could easily have made one myself. Keep in mind though, one side of the length must remain straight, as the top will be affixed to it, so you can't be curving it!

Have a look:

- I traced a line around the template, after I had chosen which side to have as the top, keep in mind that the sides are book matched, so try keep the same pattern running around the entire body.

- keeping about 3mm outside of the line, I stuck it under the bandsaw.

- a rough finished shape.
- clamping the side in the vice, I took off the large overhang at the shoulders. You can see the crack still there, but very close to the edge. Sawing had to be done carefully with this crack in such a delicate place, hence the clamp where it is.

- using the tenon saw flat across the crack helped, then the other side cut be cut normally.

- done!

- keeping the side well clamped I started to plane the side down to its final thickness.

- as you can see the first few inches are at the correct width, but I had to keep checking I was keeping it all on the level. I removed one clamp at a time, replacing it when I had past that area. You can see I've a rough 3mm edge before the template starts there, just to make sure everything will be OK!

- one finished side! I never thought I'd see the day.

- with the second side finished shortly after, I began working on the tail block.

- getting a width for the tail, I cut it to size...

- then with the Japanese pullsaw, I took the last lump off.

- planed down to a slight curve, to keep in line with the curve of the sides, I measured up before I did the final shaping.

- One tail block made. As you can see in this picture, my mould wasn't aligned right. I had to make a wee wedge to slot in there.

- I jumped ahead and put the glue on the block and clamped, but it didn't seem to fit right. I couldn't tell if it was the glue making it 'float' or if the block was the wrong size. I took it all apart and wiped the surfaces dry of glue.

- so going back to the step I should have done first, I did a dry run! Putting all clamps on without any glue. Now the time between me wiping the glue and taking off the clamps here was only several minutes, but I had a wee bit of trouble trying to prize the block off the sides. There was obviously some glue permeated into the block, and in the dry clamping, had come and bonded the two! So if you do skip a step, look out for this!! Or better yet, don't skip it ;)

- So the dry clamp told me it was all OK, and I went ahead and glued it and clamped. Tony had come in at this point, which was lucky, as a second pair of hands was almost a requirement to keep everything aligned. It's worth getting a second pair of hands for the parts like this. They don't have to be a skilled luthier (Like Tony!), anyone that can hold something steady will do.

- Last thing I did was repair the crack up at the shoulder. Where the crack could be prized apart (i.e. the first 6" or so) I put wood glue. On the the part of the crack that wasn't really wide enough to squeeze anything in (i.e. down where the crack was running down the side with the grain) I put a thin superglue on the wood. It has almost inviscid properties, so it ran down in through the crack and bonded it. Placing masking tape over the whole thing, the day was over.