Wood for the Archtop belly

UPS delivered my wood for the Archtop belly yesterday. Curly Redwood. It felt very light. I mean it felt really light. I measured it, and weighed it. My senses were right, the wood is .36 SG. That's pretty light by any measure. Cool.



I trimmed the width off to 8 1/2" and then took the piece left over, and turned it into 2 braces. The cut was out of square some. I was hoping for that. It measured 1 5/8" thick, and I wanted to have about an inch in the middle to work with. So the first step was to cut it parallel to the grain. Then I planed the surface, and cut again, aiming for 9 mm width. The one is 9, the other is 8-10. Oh well. I noticed that the even one is a fourth higher in tap tone than the other. I'll put it on the treble side.



The wood is very lustrous when planed, and the quartered ends are very silky. It should look good when done.



I carefully marked out the splitting cut, even marking a 3mm kerf on every surface. I found a foolproof, (I think) way to cut thick pieces of wood out. I used to clamp them, and saw down from the end, but now I just do that to get the saw orientation right, and then I put it in the vise, flat on the bench, and saw it that way. I cut some on one side of the bench, and then go on the other side and work on that side of the line. I forgot to take a picture of that.



Let's say you go 1" on one side, then you go on the other side and saw until it is even and then go 1" more on that side. It works good. Maybe 15 minutes to cut out a 23 X 8 1/2" piece. I used my 11" ryoba saw that has 3 teeth every 2cm on the rip side. The cut wood, and chips smell like the Paperwhites that are flowering on the dining room table. Somewhat similar to Port Orford Cedar.



I found that one side taps about a third or so higher than the other. They are cut very evenly. 1" in the middle, and 1/2" on the edge; so it isn't a size thing. I might as well make the high side the treble side. So I guess that they will be glued up just like I have them pictured here. I'll make a cutout, and see where it might look the best vertically. It's about 3" long, so there is some choice there.