Using a shootingboard to true up the sides of the 2 back plates prior to joining them. I´m doing this on the kitchen floor in our old apartment. Luckily i have a proper workshop now.
I joined the plates and planed them down the the correct thickness - about 2,5 mm. This was hell, therefore i didn´t care to take any pictures. I had a cheap Stanley plane that I didn´t know how to sharpen properly and my woodworking skills was in general very bad.. I spend hours and hours scraping down the rosewood, since the handplane tore out the grain everywhere.
Finally i got the back down in the desired thickness (almost) and the result was the thumb. A cabinet scraper can get very hot apparently! Well, you live and learn.. Nex time I will be using a toothed blade for my new and better Record plane. This will minimize the tearout. I´ve read that it should be possible to cut groves in the blade with a grinding wheel in the dremel, so that will be the solution i will be going for, since I already have a replacement blade. My sharpening skills have also approved alot since this time, so im pretty sure that next time will be a piece of cake. Hopefully.
Ready to route the channel for the decorative centertstrip.
Remember to check that the routerbit is tightned and secured completely - otherwise this might happen. God dammit!! I filled the gap with rosewood and tightbond and you almost can´t see it.
Gluing the centerstrip.
The result.
Laying out the braces and the center reinforcement strip.
Glueing braces.
Braces glued. The braces were radiuses with a 15´ radius to dome the back. Here i´m shaping the braces on our balcony in the sun.
