Gluing in the Upper and Lower Bouts

So now that the C bouts are glued in and all of the ribs are bent, the next thing to do is prep the blocks to take the ribs.

First off, you need to trim down the overhang of the c bouts to a few millimeters proud of the blocks. Then with the template on, and an incannel gouge handy, lightly cut the outline of the template into the block so you know where to gouge to. Also, picture the curve of the corners extending through the C Bout overhand, and cut that in as well. So what you're doing is mitering the C bout to about a 45 degree angle so that you'll have a nice lap-joint against the upper and lower bout ribs.

Here's a picture of the block carved with the miter cut into it:





Now that the blocks are ready, you need to have some clamping cauls handy to contour the blocks, and the ribs will have to be touched up so that they are a nice fit against the blocks, assuming that they moved and/or didn't get a perfect bend from the bending mold in the first place.

Just to note, it's better off to not have the clamping cauls any longer than the blocks of the violin it's self. If the clamping cauls overlap the violin blocks by too much, it's distributing clamping pressure in places that do not need it, and probably not going to clamp the blocks as well as you'd want.


Here's a picture with a bar clamp on each block, and the clamping cauls over each block. Notice, my clamping cauls are overlapping, which I learned the hard way makes things more difficult.



Since the process is the same for the upper bout as it is the lower bout, here's the pictures of that as well.

Photo of the upper bout mitered corners and carved block:



Here's a photo of all of the ribs now in place. Again a bar clamp for each block: