Well I'm back to work. At work and in the basement. I thought I would have more time to work on violins going back to my old job, but we're working weekends there too. Either you're laid off, or working overtime. I did get the purfling grooves cut, except for the corners, on the birch violin. And I cut out another set of ribs for the slab Sugar Maple one that I never made ribs for. The mold for that one is the same as the Birch one, I based it on the Viotti poster I have, the PG mold. The newest one is based on the Titan, the P mold. Not to say that my molds are the same as Mr. Tony's, but just that they are different, and "supposed" to be like the P and PG molds.
I bought a replacement blade for my Japanese Ryoba saw. Made a big difference. I cut a 2mm thick piece that was wide enough for 3 ribs in about half an hour. And it was fairly flat. After cutting them to the width it took about another half an hour to get them planed and scraped to 1.2mm or so thick. An hour to get a set of ribs ready to bend. I don't think that is too bad. These ones I made sure I cut them inline with the medular rays. Some people on line say that it may make the ribs stiffer. I'd like something that makes them as easy to bend as a wet noodle, but I haven't seen anything about that.
I have thought about getting one of those electric heaters for the bending iron. The heat gun just doesn't get as hot as I would like. I drilled two holes in the base of my bending iron and bolted it to the table. That helps it a lot. I don't have to worry about flying backwards if the clamps let loose! So I need to bend and glue some ribs up, and finish up the purfling on all the plates so I can start doing some tuning. That should be fun. On the photo you can see that I put some thinned glue all around the edge before cutting the groove. Never did that before. It helps prevent chunks from coming out of the groove when you clean it out. Seems to work.
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