I'm missing pics of carving the outside of the top plate on the Gemini carver. At this point the outer top surface has been carved. Preparatory to carving the inside surface we used the Wagner Saf-T-Planer to mill the outer edge of the top plate to 0.250". This area ends up less than this thickness once we get into final steps of thicknessing as it's the area of the re-curve.

Frank wasn't too happy with how wide I machined the land. This is getting into the area where the recurve is carved. Making this too wide starts affecting the shape of the top.

This is Andy Elliott from North Carolina who took the class with me. Only 2 people per archtop class when I took it in October 2007.

That glove I'm wearing belongs to Andy. It's left from his construction days. It was a lifesaver, too. I eventually found that the finger planes worked best when held by the thumb and forefinger only. If you do that, the plane is allowed to follow the contour, rocking between these 2 fingers. As a side benefit, the plane does a really good job making blisters. Some sort of protection is mandatory for these 2 fingers and that's what the glove provided. When this pic was taken, I still had a 3rd finger hooked under the plane iron, but that wasn't a good way to use the plane: it has to be free to follow the contour.

At this point I've got the rough carving leveled to the outer edge and I did a little sanding.

Now it's time to carve the inside of the top. So, back to the Gemini. Had I been following Benedetto's book I would have used the top surface contour templates he provides since his technique doesn't use a carving duplicator.

Btw, it's hard to imagine the amount of wood Frank has stored. All of it aged and stable. He has a stash of the stiffest wood imaginable.

Andy is starting the initial passes on the inside of the spruce top. You can see the master that's right in front of him and the duplicate is under the router head.

At the time I took this class (10/2007), a Gemini carving duplicator large enough to accomodate an 18" archtop was about $3,800. A Gemini the size you see here (Frank's will handle a cello-sized carving of about 28") is about $8,000 lus options.

I did locate a carver from a guy in Albuquerque, NM listed on e-Bay for under $2,000 (new) but I haven't seen one yet.

This is a closeup of the top inside surface after rough carving plus some planing and sanding. Notice the areas marked in pencil as 'stay clear' where the neck and tail blocks go. These areas are kept flat to match the top and back surface of the sides (rim) which are parallel. These flat areas are glue surfaces and need to be flat since white glue (Titebond Original) doesn't fill gaps.

The carving as it comes from the Gemini is pretty rough. It takes a lot of planing then sanding to get it right.

He doesn't normally do it as part of the class, but we asked Frank for maple backs and sides. He had pressed backs. These plates are not laminated, but rather 1/4" flat stock that has heat-formed to the rough shape of the back. They still require carving with the finger planes, but you don't need to use a carving duplicator like the Gemini.

Unfortunately, the place that provided them to Frnak (they're in Germany) didn't do a good job of jointing and gluing the 2 book-matched halves. Frank had to take them apart, joint the mating edges, then re-glue the 2 halves.

... back to planing the plates. This is the inside of the top again.

At this point I was still struggling to learn how to use the finger plane properly. I was holding with thumb and forefinger properly, but I still had another finger stuck in the back of the plane to stabilize it. I started getting much better results with less effort when I used only the thumb and forefinger!

And yes, the plane iron needs to be sharp!

I think it was about now that the maple started to break. I had to repair the cracks and then finish the bend with a small stainless slat layed over the cracked area.

You'd think I'd be good at this. My mother used to tell the story that my first words were uttered in the basement of our Reno home. I was mimicing my father and had put a clothes hanger in the vice he'd just used. She swore she heard me saying quite clearly "Bend, damn it, bend!" So I've been bending things for a very long time! :)

Both halves of the rim are in the mold. The gaps at the cutaway got better when I trimmed the extension that runs vertically toward the top. A few more persuaders (clamps) got it the rest of the way.

In hindsight, not much was accomplished with all the clamps. Unlike a flat top guitar, the archtop has no sound hole through which you can retrieve a caul & jack screw. Forcing things with clamps only allows gluing either the top or the back plate. Then, without clamps to keep it in shape, the rim will partially spring back to wherever it wants to go, pulling the rim out of parallel. When the opposite carved plate is glued on, and with the rim no longer parallel, things don't fit right.

So the lesson here is to get the sides bent properly in the first place. The European maple is not easy to bend and is expensive. You don't throw away your mistakes: you fix them!

On the bench is the shop-made thickness gauge that Frank made. I'm using it to map the thickness over the entire carved surface: I'd take a reading, then write the measurement on the surface. With the thickness marked I could then see where I needed to do more planing.

Frank's measurements had us at about 0.23" along the centerline tapering to 0.17" as we approached the area of the recurve. Carving of the recurve happened later after the plates were assembled to the rim. The recurve took the thickness down to about 0.13".

The recurve isn't a measured adjustment but rather was done by feel as we pressed against the top and watched the deflection. The wood Frank gave is was so stiff (which is desireable) that we had to get very thin to allow any flexing at all.

The end block and neck blocks are glued in place here and now I'm fitting the kerfed lining. We spaced the lining to allow room for side braces (you can just make out the gaps in the lining). Some of the side braces are laying on the table. The curved block (next to the vise) is lined with PSA sandpaper and is used to shape the side braces.

Note: Frank said he was going to drop the use of side braces in the future as he felt they were unnecessary. Seems to me they would keep the rim from developing splits, but... ???

More missed photos. The kerfed lining and the side braces are in place.

Here, Frank is helping me get clamps on quickly to set the back plate.