So I took the clamps off the back plates and the seam was uneven more that I would have liked. After talking to Mr. Belote he pointed out that I should have placed clamps underneath to counter the pulling upward motion of the center clamp. I’ll remember this when I glue the top seam.
Uneven Back After Gluing
Close Up
Instead of ungluing and cleaning up the mistake it is just as acceptable to re-plane the bottom side of the back plate which didn’t take too long.
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Underside Glued and Planed
Closeup After Planing
Upon doing this I took the thickness/height of the arch on the back down to 16.5mm. This is an acceptable height that I will plane down from when creating the arching of the back plate after cutting out my pattern.
Back Glued without Clamps
Gauges
Even though it will change over all the carving and scratching the flame always excites me when looking at a violin, especially to see how it develops through the process of making one. Here’s a close up of how the flame lined up around the center seam after the planing. This will be close to what you see in the end and what will be brought out by the varnish.
Flame on Unfinished Back
The wood I’m using for the top was cut on the quarter. This is more easily described as looking like a slice of pie. You can see how the rings of the tree curve around and line up showing how they grew at some point as one. Some people think that by cutting the wood this way and joining them together you end up with a more even and more flexible plate. Whether that’s true or not, it is a very traditional cut and common to join the wood this way. Compared to the wood I used for the back this wood involved less initial “grunt” work to flatten and square off the sides. They were already fairly close which made the required planing a lot easier.
Top Quarter Cut
Top Plates Before Planing
Top View
Mr. Vartanian gave me some hints as well to help things along and I noticed as he was helping me that he holds the large plane more efficiently by extending his index finger on his right hand. This gave him and me more balance and, more importantly, more control by adding another angle variant. He also helped my frustration finding a hump as I tried to get a good joint and he pointed out that the plane needed to be sharpened which helped immensely.
Top Plate Flat
Top Plates Flat
After Planing
Comparatively I took less time to work the top than I did the back but I will get better at this over years instead of weeks.
Here’s an idea of how tight the grain is for the top, something I personally really like to see in instruments and will be interesting to see how it’s brought out when there’s varnish on the wood.
Closeup of Top Grain
Gluing the plates was much easier this time because Mr. Belote let me borrow two bar clamps that the plates could rest flat on and still be clamped together. They’re located on the outside of the joint. I also countered the upward bend I dealt with on the back by placing the center clamp on top and the quick grip clamps on the bottom.
Front Plate Glued with Better Clamps!
Underside of the Front Plate
After everything set it still looks like I’ll have some planing to do before it is perfectly flat but I’m much closer than I was last time which is great news and will allow me to focus on getting the plates cut out soon!
