After
thicknessing the top to to 1/8", I feathered down the edges using random orbital sander and 125 grit paper. This worked nicely and the edges are about 7/64". The next thing was to cut out the channels for the rosette and cut out the
soundhole. We used the stew-mac precision router base, and the stew-mac rosette jig to cut the channels. It worked very well cutting very good channels with little tear-out. After installing the rosette
purfling, we first scraped the wood and abalone down, and then finished with sanding it down. There are a few problems, but overall, a very good rosette for the first try.
Next it was time to rough cut the braces, radius them, and then glue them to the top using the go-bar clamping system. We also used a 30' diameter radius dish to achieve the radius on the top. This was not rocket science. The hard part was the final shaping and scalloping of the braces using only a chisel. It was
extremely fun, but a little time consuming.
Next we thicknessed the back to 3/32" and feathered slightly towards the edges. THen using a 15' radius dish, we clamped the braces to the back side of the back side!
