Day 24: Laminating the Sides

After conferring with my neighbor, a master-of-everything kinda guy, I decided to go ahead and laminate the faux body sides to strengthen them. This means I will be layering two 3mm pieces of maple around one 3mm sapele strip. Before embarking on bending the maple, I threw the pieces of sapele back into the mold just to make sure everything was lining up properly. It was.

The first step of the lamination is to bend the pieces so they will more easily conform to the mold when it's time to laminate. This means I got to break out my trusty, old Home Depot bending tool setup.

Rather than spend hundreds of dollars on a bending tool from a luthier supply company, I put this together for around $30 and it works great. You can see in the photo below how the strips bent using it.

I left them in the mold for overnight cooling/drying and will be gluing them up tonight. It should be interesting to see if I can get a tight enough seal between the layers. Only time will tell.

Until next time...

Day 23: Resawing Some Maple

In thinking about preparing the sides, I decided to go ahead and laminate the sapele with some figured/flamed maple. This will provide a nice contrast, as well as strengthen them against unforeseen mishaps. The first step in the process was to resaw the maple.

Tonight, I will plane the pieces down to 3mm thickness and get them sanded for the lamination, which I may also start tonight. I can at least get the pieces into the mold for drying overnight.

Until next time...