THE NEXT STEP – ARCHING OF THE FRONT PLATE
Now we’ll continue with the front plate. Before the two boards can be glued together, they must first be levelled with a plane. Try to get a right angle at one edge and plane the boards lengthwise. If there is almost no light coming through the gap between the two boards or only an even fine line, both parts can be glued.
You can warm the wood slightly before applying the hot glue. This will give you a little more time to align the pieces and put on the clamps. If everything fits correctly, the glue can cure overnight.
Then the underside is planed flat. The shape of the corpus is slightly scribed on the back and marked with a pencil, (taking into account the overhang of the plate of about 3 mm). This contour is carefully sawn out without touching the line. With the file you can work up to the contour.
Then a lot of material has to be removed with the gouge. The aim is to get closer and closer to the given height of the arching templates. If you want to work more carefully and finer, you switch to small thumb planes.
After the outside is shaped I’m beginning to hollow the inside. I’m using my „strad-spike“ set to a certain depth to mark holes. They indicate the thickness of the material or respectively how much material has to be removed.
After Graduating the plate it’s time to cut out the f holes and fit the bassbar.
