Plans and sides

The plans for this project form Michael J. King came in (that is the printed version). I worked from PDFs which I printed and glued together. But now I have it all on one big A0 sheet:

After making the molds it is now time to really start working on the instrument it self. The first task is to cut out the sides. The rough sizes are: 420x30. The thickness had to be brought down to about 1.5 mm (was 3 mm). 

The first side went smoothly but on the second one the plane caught to deep in the wood and snapped the side in two. On the replacing one I took a little bit more care and finally ended up with two sides that could be bend.

There are several ways to bend sides of an instrument. In the guitar making course I used a bending iron to do the job. Since I do not have one at home I have to go for a plan B. There are multiple examples on the internet on how to build a bending iron your self (much cheaper then buying one) but since this is such a small light instrument there is an other way to do it which is boiling the wood. This sounds a bit strange but this is how it goes: You need a jar with a wide enough opening to put the sides in it, a piece of aluminium foil, clamps and the mold I made for this purpose.

Boil water in a pan, kettle or cooker. Put the wood into the jar, poor the boiling water in and seal off the top with the foil so no steam can escape preventing the water to cool off to quickly.

Let it soak for about 10-15 minutes (some wood works after 10 minutes, in my case I had to go up to 15 minutes). Pull one of the sides out and place it in the mold. Then clamp it up in both directions (vertical and horizontal).

Leave it this way for a couple of days to fully dry the wood. After it is dry it will retain the form of the mold. I hoped to clamp both sides in the mold at the same time but that did not work. I will do it one at a time. Also I noticed that the second side is not as thin as it should be (it is still 2mm instead of 1.5mm) so I have to sand or plane down that one to the proper thickness before bending it. Other wise I am afraid to snap it.