Modifications

I made some modifications to the mold. Like I said the layers of chipboard are only 8 mm thick and one of them already cracked a bit. I decided to glue two layers together and the third one was strengthened with a layer of 4 mm MDF. That did the trick.

The bottom layer is still one layer but since it is solid it has more integrity from it's self.
In the top layer I added nut inserts all around the mold. Into these nuts I can screw bolts with pieces of wood which will act like clamps later on when the top and back will be glued on to the body.

And completely taken apart:

When the ribs (sides of the body) will be bend I will need another mold which will clamp the ribs for a period to let them settle in to there bend form. This mold was made out of two layers of 12 mm MDF glued together. The profile of half of the body is then cut out.

 To conclude this post a picture of the zebrano set which I will use for the top, back and sides:

New Start

It has been a while since I posted here. I just started a new project, a Stick Dulcimer. This a small bodied instrument with a diatonic scale. Below is a picture of the body:

I already got wood for the top, back and sides. They will be all made out of Zebrano. Probably the fretboard will be zebrano too. Still have to get wood for the neck though. I wend for a ukulele set which has plenty enough wood for this small instrument.
For this project I will use plans I purchased from Michael J. King. Work started already on the mold. The plans use 12 mm MDF layers (3 of them). I have some 8 mm chipboard left over from some past flooring project. I will use those in a couple of layers.

When cut to size with a jigsaw 4 holes where drilled all the way through. In these holes 4 dowels will keep the mold together. After that I traced out body and cut it out in 3 layers.

The 8 mm layers are a bit thin and I am afraid they will break pretty soon. I am thinking of gluing two together. This means the body will be slightly higher as the are in the plans but that is alright.