Day 26: More Bending and Gluing

Once I had one side of the faux body belly bent and glued up, I started on the other. Not much to report from the last entry because it's really the same drill: Bend, let cool and set up overnight, glue. I'm making progress, though it's really been too cold to glue anything for several days over the last couple of weeks.

As you can see in the second photo above, I'm less rigorous with the clamps when cooling a bend off. The final glue-up, though, take a LOT of clamps and a LOT of pressure, especially when using Gorilla Glue, which expands when activated with water.

As you may know, I'm also working on another project, the Molnar Opus 1 Harpsichord Project. I've been at that project for the better part of two years. If you've checked into the blog, you'll know that I generally cool down the build process this time of year because I don't have a climate-controlled shop and the downtime allows me to do maintenance on my tools - cleaning, greasing, oiling, etc.

This year, I'm working on getting my various hand tools - planes, scrapers, spokeshave, etc. - into shape. Some of them are quite old, so it requires the use of a wire brush and some elbow grease to get them back into working order.

Once I got them cleaned up a bit, I went ahead and threw them against the Grizzly wet grinder/sharpener to get a nice, clean edge - most of them needed it. Badly.

I suppose hat's what you get when you purchase your hand tools at antique and junk stores.

Ultimately, I'll hone all of them up using he four new, ceramic "Shapton" stones pictured in the photo above. The grits are 1000/4000 and 3000/8000. I know, it's pretty astonishingly high. Imagine sandpaper at those grit levels. I will be using the 1000, 4000, and 8000 sides progressively until I have edges that I could shave with. Plus, it's really gratifying to grind and hone your own blades.

Until next time...

Day 25: Gluing up the Sides

Once I had the faux body/belly side lamination pieces bent and in the form overnight, I went ahead and started the process of gluing them up. The first decision was centered on which glue to use. I have several options available in the shop: Titebond I, Titebond I Extended (longer setup time), Garrett Wade Gap-filling glue, and Gorilla Glue. I was surprised during a recent visit to a prominent Portland harpsichord builder's shop to learn that he uses Gorilla Glue for all of this bentside laminations, so there you go.

I started with a piece of maple and a piece of sapele. The idea was to present light/dark/light layering that would look kinda cool in the end. Now, the thing about Gorilla Glue is that it's activated by water, so I sprayed both pieces and spread the Gorilla Glue and quickly realized that I don't really have enough strong clamps for the lamination process. It takes a LOT of clamps and they must be really, really strong to hold the lamination pieces in place, even after they've been bent.

As you can see in the photo above, I did the best I could, but the Gorilla Glue expands when it's activated, which resulted in a slight spreading of the pieces that left discernible gaps between them, which is simply unacceptable. The result is that I will be capping the sides with a thin piece of bent maple. This will be a vastly easier task than the laminations, yet it is a bit disappointing that I have to do it at all. Observe my progress below.

I should have taken a close-up of the final product so you could see the little gaps. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. Given the fact that I'm on a roll and will be capping the pieces, I'm going to go ahead and bend and laminate the other belly side today. Besides, we're snowed in - what better way to spend one's Snow Day, right?

Until next time...