Shape the sides to fit a domed back in five minutes.

[Stefan Kelly]

My lower back was sore crouching down to plane the ribs in the traditional way whilst getting a back to fit so I thought of this alternative method, Ive not found mention of it elsewhere so I thought Id share it. Take a guitar, attach a strip of card around a rib with double sided tape, make a mark at the narrowest point of the waist, trace around onto the card were the rib meets the top & were the rib meets the back, peel the card away & lay it out flat so that you have a template of the side. Extend the length of the template by drawing a continuation of the lines so you have some spare. Trace around this to make a master template in timber then use it to mark & cut out the sides (cut & plane both ribs at once to maintain symmetry). If the outline of the new guitar is subtly different it will still work providing you have some spare length on the ribs to work with (needed if the outline is larger). When gluing the kerfing to the side have at least 1mm protruding so you can plane the angle needed to accommodate the dome without having to reduce the sides. Providing your back braces are consistently domed the back will fit like lego.

http://www.stefankellyguitars.com

[Stefan Kelly]

To anyone passing through, I posted this thread on other forums & as there is very little new under the sun, unsurprisingly builders have come out with their different methods of shaping sides & making templates of them. One builder, JasonM over at foro flamenco used Cad to print out a template, an interesting method & I’m informed that Bodanovich includes a template in his book as does Romanillos (I should have spotted that one) but they don’t explain how they made them. Here’s a link to an ingenious way of acquiring a template if using a dish.

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/view ... ilit=+side

If anyone has any different methods of making templates or of shaping the sides to fit the back you could post them in this thread so others can learn.

[Barry Daniels]

There are lots of discussions on this topic in the archives (library) here.