Posted by Chet Bishop on Wednesday, April 10, 2013
I'm quite sure it is virtually identical to how other makers do it, with one possible exception: I set the neck while the corpus is still on the mold, with only the front plate installed.
I lay out the center of the neck block, and perform the remaining layout from that centerline. The heel is to be 30mm wide, and the front of the neck where it joins the corpus is 42mm wide. So I mark 15mm to each side of the centerline at the heel, and 21mm to each side at the front plate. Double-check everything. It is a real pain trying to put wood back.
I check my measurements, and mark the location on each side of the neck where the front plate should sit when all is complete-- 280mm from the top of the fingerboard, and 20mm down from the top of the neck at the front.
So, with all of that in mind, I measure from the 280mm mark to the end of the neck, to see aproximately how deep the neck mortise must be at the front, then use a Japanese pull-saw to slice along my layout lines to nearly that depth. I stay inside all my layout lines, as I want to leave a little room for adjustment.
The blue lines you can see in the above photo remain from my initial layout when I bent the ribs. I wanted to make sure they were long enough. (It was close!)
Notice that the heel is overhanging the back of the block by nearly 5 mm. That is fine-- I will remove that excess wood when I flatten the back of the garland, and the back plate will be the last major component installed.
That clamping block in the photo above was just a scrap of wood-- I cut it to the correct angle, then hollowed out a curved opening to fit the cello neck-heel. I glued a pad of 1/8" cork into the cup, and it works very well.
And that is pretty much all I got done today. Cooked a roast... fed the cat, brought in the newspaper...that's about it. Pretty tired.
Later tonight, if I still feel like it, I will remove the mold, and begin the final cleanup of the interior of the corpus. On the home stretch, now... well, almost! :-)
3 comments on “Cello neck set”
Chet Bishop Says:
Thursday, April 11, 2013 @7:23:05 AM
I did remove the mold last night, but it was pretty late, so I made no attempt to complete the job of cleaning up the inside (trimming the blocks, final scraping, etc.) We'll see how I feel tonight.
Larry Rutledge Says:
Friday, April 12, 2013 @7:24:54 PM
Amazing workmanship! Did the roast come out as well?:)
Chet Bishop Says:
Friday, April 12, 2013 @9:13:02 PM
Well...yeah, it tastes fine, but it is realllly done! :-) I got focused on the cello, and forgot about the roast. The kitchen is too far from my work area so I couldn't hear the timer beeping. I took it out an hour late. But...all is well... it tastes fine.
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