Day 179: Making Some Delicious Ribs

Once the bridges were glued down and the rose hole cut, I could turn my attention to the back side of the soundboard; it requires five pieces:

1 - Cutoff bar
3 - Ribs of various sizes
1 - 4' hitchpin rail

The cutoff bar and ribs provide stabilization of the soundboard. Because I have a bit of a past in the guitar lutherie world, I just couldn't bring myself to make this bracing out of poplar and, following Owen Daly's recommendation, I procured a nice piece of CVG (close vertical grain) fir from Crosscut Hardwoods (paid $1 per pound) and cut all of the pieces with the quarter-sawn grain running down the sides.

As you probably know, I divested myself of my electric jointer a few months ago, choosing to rely instead on using a shooting board and the Veritas jointer plane to straigten board edges. In this case, I chose to create an index (flat) side using the table saw.

I do this by screwing a straight board to the plank I want to straighten and running an edge on the table saw. Of course, I posted about this on the Facebook project page and in the Woodworking Tips group where I received nearly no end of grief, especially with regard to my comment, which said, "We don't need no stinkin' jointer!" My favorite comment was the mansplainer who told me how ignorant I am for completely disregarding jointers and "everything they can do." Oh, boy.

Regardless of the interesting interactions, I was able to create the short edges and ran the board through the planer to complete its flattening. I'm not averse to using electric tools, I just don't have room for too many of them in my miniscule workspace. Someday, I'll have a larger shop and can tool back up accordingly. The results were great, so I charged forward.

I chose to cut the cutoff bar and ribs to dimension and then spokeshave them down by hand. Why did I do this? Mostly for safety reasons and because I just love doing handwork whenever possible/necessary.

No, the beer is not optional.

The bars are angled from top to bottom, just like the bracing on a guitar top and back. Now, I need to angle a few of the ends and get them glued to the soundboard. Once they're down, I'll get the ends scooped out (more to come on this) to create curved bevels.

On a tangential note, the days are beginning to heat up, which is actually a good thing for gluing when using animal protein glues that remain soluble longer at higher temperatures. This is the opposite of plastic glues such as Titebond, which like cooler temps in order to set up properly. So, while I usually take maintenance breaks during July and August, this year, I'll be gluing the bracing to the soundboard and getting the box closed up in the heat of Summer.

Until next time...