The New Template

This has been an eventful week. Due to some things that I should have fixed earlier on, I’ve put myself behind a little and had to change my plans some as well. I continued roughing the arching down and found I was more successful going ahead and using a finger plane than the gouge from the previous week.

Now that my edge was thinner I started taking it down again to the pencil line with files and using my original template as a guide. At one point I was checking a few things with Mr. Belote and he went ahead and took the button down at the top of the plate as well.

At this point I decided that there were too many imperfections in my template and I had gone a little too narrow in the C-bout that I could no longer use it on the side I was working. An untraditional move, Mr. Belote helped me make a new template. We used a thick paper instead of the poster board and to save time, Mr. Belote cut out the template for me. When cutting out the pattern, you have to do it in one cut because lifting will cause inconsistencies in the pattern which I didn’t want to deal with again.

The reason I had to cut a new template was to trace it onto the other side. Since my pattern was based on the template from Henry Strobel’s book, I needed something new to make the side symmetrical. I want to take this time to apologize to Henry Strobel. The information in his book is quite helpful and in the right hands can produce an amazing instrument. A few poor decisions on my part led to what I have now and say nothing to the information he provides in his book.

I clamped and traced the pattern on the other side under supervision and started taking down to the line again. Even when the line is mostly gone that isn’t close enough. A fraction of a millimeter can make the entire side look lopsided. It was imperative I get the side down to just the pencil line.

Once I had the pencil line taken away I brought the plate to Mr. Vartanian for inspection. He was approving to say the least, though he could easily tell I had to cut some corners to get to where I was. He told Mr. Belote to help me take down the edge to four and a half millimeters with the drill press using a special circular saw. Mr. Belote took down the bulk of the edge to 5mm as I observed and took pictures. I then took a pass and took it down the rest of the way.

A key to this quick trick is to keep pressure on the plate so that it doesn’t lift up as you slide it under the press. Twice I let up the pressure and the edge is a little thin in those spots. That’s something I’ll just have to live with at this point.

Now that the edge was flat, it made a lot easier to see and measure angles that Mr. Vartanian wanted to check. Most importantly he wanted to adjust the edge of the corners so they pointed a certain way. I started to file these down and then he showed me to take them down with a knife instead. As I took the second corner down the right angle I slipped and heard a crack. I split the wood!

So, we glued it. In the end, this edge/crack will be rounded off so it’s nothing to worry about; it could have been a lot worse. It’s nice to see instruments made today that look perfect to the naked eye but they too may have had small mistakes like this happen.

A little more time was spent finalize the shape off the new template and other symmetrical measurements and I had to get the new pattern to the top wood. My corners were a little short compared to the template so another untraditional technique/idea was given to me by Mr. Belote. Usually, the template is used to trace the back and the top. Since both of mine are no longer the same as the end product I just clamped and trace the back directly to the top wood. I used a pin to trace the plate which is a trick used by Mr. Vartanian with his template.

Once the pin imprint is in the wood it can be traced with a pencil making it much easier to cut out and file down. Hopefully this will save me time and catch me up to getting the arching more complete over the next few weeks.