Day 95: Gluing Up the Bentside

Once I got the jointed bentside boards sanded and scraped down, I was ready to begin the process of laminating them to create the bentside - this is the curved part of the harpsichord case. Some builders bend using heat and a large pipe, some use a big steam box, and others laminate. In my case, I laminated using good, old-fashioned Titebond I Extended wood glue, which provided me some much-needed extra setup time. It will be interesting to see if cupping occurs - this is when the end result begins to curl. I'm hoping for the best.

This has been a long time coming; over a year-and-a-half, to be exact.

I covered the top of the form with waxed paper because glue will not stick to the paper and I didn't really want to glue the bentside permanently to the form. I also covered the top board with waxed paper in preparation for the glue-up. I have no idea why I did this, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

What you can't see here are the two tarps on the floor at each end of the boards to capture run-off. I'm glad I put them there because a bit of glue did squeeze out onto them. What you can see is that I covered the assembly table with a plastic tarp, as well. Good decision.

My clamping system is composed of a simple block/bolt/wingnut setup that made it pretty easy to put the brace bars in place, even by my lonesome. The form is detailed in Mr. Miller's eBook Most Excellent (thank you, Ernie!). A word to the wise: Make dang skippy sure your boards are lined up dead center on the form or you will have trouble getting the last few bolts past the boards on the ends. I'm not saying this happened, I'm saying it definitely might have (probably) happened. Okay, I actually had to chip a little of one of the boards out with a chisel on the last couple of bolts, but this is okay because I'll be trimming them to width later.

Now, I take a hurry up and wait approach. I'm going to let the glue set for 48 hours. When I've rushed things on other projects, I've always been sorry. I want no regrets on this one, so I wait.

Until next time...