Welcome back to this section of the blog. It's time to continue a project step by step. Check out the previous entry here. Since we worked on the thickness of back and top, it's time to start placing the reinforcements on the latter.
Bars
Before gluing anything, we need to have the right thickness for the bars. That's easy enough to make with the help of a plane and sandpaper. We just need to keep an eye on the amount of shavings we'll remove to avoid having very thin reinforcements.
Once we have an average of 7mm in thickness, we can use the back to measure where we'll cut these strips of wood. Two sets of bars will come out of these. We'll save the second set for the sound board.
Once we measure that the bars are the right size, we can move ahead with the gluing on the back.
Glue up
Always a tricky part. The big issue with using glue is the spread of the same. I've seen some luthiers using some masking tape to prevent the spread of glue from staining the nearby area. So, I decided to try this trick.
It wasn't as smooth as I've seen in videos, but I reckon that's a thing of practice. It does help a lot to prevent all those tricky glue spreads that get difficult to wipe away once you have clamps on place. The annoying part is removing the tape afterwards as glue sticking to it make the adhesive stronger.
Tape has another advantage. It holds the bar in place so we can place the clamps easier and be done with the gluing of the bars.
Another reinforcement
It was a work session of trying new things. The other different process taken here was with the back strip. This is the reinforcement of the joinery between the pieces that make the back. I have done this one first almost on every build but this one. I've seen some luthiers place the bars and then use a strip of wood to make this piece.
The idea is that you have the distances between bars and the bottom bar and the end block area. So, it is a thing of working the reinforcement and giving it the shape we want. Then, measuring each portion and cutting them with a saw. Finally, we glue this reinforcement in place one piece at a time making sure it keeps the right alignment.
And like so, we have the reinforcements placed on the back for this Venezuelan Cuatro. Next time, we'll go ahead with the shaping of the bars and start the works of the rosette for the sound board.
Thanks for reading!
Fotos/Photos 📷: taken by me (Redmi Note 8)
Portada/Thumbnail 🖼️: by me, created with Canva.
Edición/Editing 🎬: by me, made with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
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