Day 93: Preparing the Bentside Lamination Boards

Because I own neither a steam box of sufficient size nor a bending tool that will allow me to bend 1/2" thick boards, I've had to work on preparing a poplar plank for lamination of the bentside of the instrument. The thickness of the boards for the lamination must be 3/16" because I will be putting two of them together and then adding to 1/16" quarter sawn red oak veneers on the inside and outside, taking the total thickness to 1/2". I initially wanted to resaw a 12" (remember, here in the U.S. our measurements do not include finish planing, so this piece is actually 11 3/4") x 6' piece of poplar, but I found it too unwieldy cutting it by my lonesome, so I took one of the Master Builder's suggestions and cut the board in half lengthwise before resawing.

Ripping a 3/4" board in half with a 1mm thick band saw blade leaves more wood than one would think. In the end, I had to plane all of the boards down, making multiple passes on the planer to get them just right.

Shaving off 1/32" at a time is pretty time consuming, but this was my only designated project task for the weekend, so I patiently worked through it and now have four 3/16" thick boards that I will joint back together in pairs, returning them to their near-original width before laminating them lengthwise to complete the bentside.

The jointing will take the better part of this week with two days for glue-up and drying of each pair for a total of four days. I'm hosting a BBQ this weekend to celebrate my daughter Jordan's graduation from college (Yay, Jordan!), so I may ask her and/or one of her siblings to help out with the lamination glue-up. This means I will have the bentside, and possibly a good portion of the case, completed easily within the next two weeks. Surreal, indeed.

Until next time...