Allen wrote:Now I'm scratching my head, and wondering where most of my hair has gone....oh yah, I was scratching me head and thinking about how you are going to carve those plates with all those different elevations around the perimeter to contend with. I'm going to stay tuned for that one.
Well Allen,
Me lay the plate flat on the ribs.
Scribe a parallel line onto the edge of the ban sawed plate blank.
Then go at it with chisels. Simple eh!
Once the perimeter seats on to the rims edge, me then sculpt the top and the scoop out the back, just like any other arch top instrument.
Thats how me usually do it.
However this time the blank plate was not thick enough so after scribing the "close to a parallel line" on the edge blank I carved the backs outer profile, then the inner profile and then planed down to the line on the edge of the blank. The plate still did not fit but enough of a profile has been established on the plate to permit its flexing on to the ribs. See bottom pic series..
In this pic you see the carved out back and the lip (inside the oval) that has to be lowered to accommodate the changing rise of the ribs.
The top pic shows the outer carved profile of the back plate. The second in the series shows the finished carved plate...Notice it is rather bowl shaped. In the third pic you see that even though the plates perimeter is now bowl shaped, you can see where the plate needs to be flexed when gluing it to the rim. The final pic shows me very own to hands flexing the plate into place.
So now its make the internal top plates parallel braces, F holes and the closing up of the box.
Blessings
duh Padma