Sunday, May 6, 2012

Carving the Top for the Octave Mandolin

I made a chipboard template that use to trace a "topographic map" onto the solid spruce top wood. Each concentric line represents about 5/100" in height difference.
 
I have a router mounted on a large piece of plywood that rests on form holding the top or back plate. I can set the depth of the router and cut up to each line I have drawn.

The lowest area is cut first. I then raise the router and cut the next ring for 11 different levels.

After all the rings have been cut, it looks like this.

Then I use thumb plane to carve the top plate and blend together the different levels. Then lots of scraping and sanding to get it to the final outside shape.

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