assorted fixes

A few tasks that needed to be done before the finishing steps.

I carved a wedge (using the original long strip that I sawed from the frame), to fill the gap between the case side and the frame 2x4, on the spine side.  This area will take large amounts of strain and torque, being the attachment point for the wrestplank, so I wanted to make sure the repair was strong.  Ugly, but strong!

Clamping the wedge repair also gave me the opportunity to draw-in the bottom edge of the case lumber, which was warped outwards on this end.  Still not perfect, but overall it's improved.

And here, I was mixing up the Titebond-sawdust filler paste, for gluing the wrestplank down.  Looks like coke!  After it was mixed, it looked even worse, turning into a goopy pudding with a rather disgusting consistency, which nevertheless seems to have done the job required (which was to fill narrow gaps around the ends of the wrestplank, up to 1mm or so).

And there's the wrestplank, finally glued into place.  I used long sheetrock screws (now sealed with glue in their countersunk holes) to self-clamp it down.  I think all conditions were as right as I could get them for good gluing.  We'll see, when I put it under tension!

Here's the "two-pronged fork" I made, to help me locate the positions of the bridge blocks for drilling.

Here's the even-uglier-than-the-other-one repair I made, to fill in another gap between the frame and the case on the spineside, this one at the tail end.  I jammed a bunch of plywood pieces in there, drizzled in copious glue, let it dry, and then sawed off the jagged ends.  I hope that this forms a reasonably rigid composite structure; unlike the other repair, this one does not have to take a lot of force, and the instrument probably would have worked with no repair at all: but this makes me feel better, and now you can't see the ground through a crack next to the soundboard...

Here, and also in the previous photo a bit, you can see the crossbars I added to the bottom.  These will eventually interface with the instrument stand in some way, when I get around to building that.  For now, the stand is two columns of stacked Home Depot buckets!

One of the last chances to see inside; after applying finish, I will glue the soundboard into place.

The imminent closing of the soundbox is another reason I had to rapidly make a decision about reinforcing the bridge blocks with screws.  Once the soundboard is glued on, there'll be no going back, no reasonable way to change my mind if I hadn't already put the screws in.

So, I decided to go with the screws.  Having already marked the locations of the blocks with my two-pronged fork, I then had to make a guide for the hand-drill, just a hole drilled in a block on the drill press so it'd be straight.  By adjusting the position of the drill bit in the chuck, I could set the depth of the holes just a little longer than my screws, so that the holes wouldn't pierce through the tops of the bridge blocks.  (At one time I did consider letting this happen, probably not detrimental, but, nah.)

My little Ryobi hand drill surprised me: it was able to do all the holes (well, 45 out of 49, 4 having been done the day before) on a single charge.  And this was slow going, hard work, drilling into oak.  Too fast, and the wood would start to burn.  I was sure I'd have to recharge multiple times to get through all of the holes.  I was just hoping to get as many as ten holes per charge.  But it just kept going and going...

I dripped a dab of Titebond II onto each hole, let it sit for a while to hopefully start working its way into the hole and not just sitting on top (but I'm not sure to what extent this happened); and then I drove in the screw, through the glob of glue.  Hopefully this caused at least some glue to end up down in the hole, helping to seal the screw into place and helping to prevent splitting, just like the glue "sizing" on the outside faces of the blocks.

Next up, in terms of things which must be done before I transport the thing to the finishing location.  I need to tape-mask the regions inside the soundbox which need to stay free of finish, for gluing down the soundboard.  And I need to trim the lid piece.  You can see that I'm using it here, to give a surface from which to work on the soundboard.  The lid is as yet just a rough-cut piece of plywood.  It will eventually have a rim of 1x2s to make it more rigid, since it is the same 3/16" plywood as the soundboard, i.e., very flexible.  I need to trim it to just about final size, and also to cut the second, smaller rectangular lid piece, hinged to the larger one, which covers the front end of the instrument including the wrestplank area.

During the finishing operations, I will spraypaint the top surface of the lid pieces flat black, and the inner surface flat white.  This will serve as a primer to prepare the surface for artistic painting.  Perhaps even before building the rim of the lid and the hinges and all, I will then be able to pass the lid plywood pieces to an artist friend (I hope!) to decorate.  As an artist myself, I understand the pressure of these sorts of commitments to help someone else with their project; fortunately, I won't be too impatient to get the lid pieces back, because I'll be busy for "some unknown length of time" building the keyboard and action.