At first we soak ribs into water a few minutes, and we bend them by heated iron.
I'm using heated iron which I bought from Stewart Mcdonard USA. They are really quick suppliers, and really convinient for me. Actuary most of tools which I use are from them. Iron is heated well now. OK, let's start bending ribs!
For bending ribs, this kind of thin alminum plate is pretty convinient. For the first time when I mad bending strap by myself, I made it from alminum drink cans.
Alminum cans are easy to get and easy to cut. But the thing is, it's little bit too thick for using. (And some pats are scrachy, I hurt my finger because of this.^^;)
So I re-made bending strap from thin alminum film, thickness 0.2mm. And I put on small wood pieces on each side of end.
Bending by heatness seems simple but, we have to do it pretty cautiously. Because the shape of corner of Strad model is pretty tight. If we try to bend rib wood strongly to match the shape of corner from the beginning, we always break it unexpectedly. So we have to bend ribs slowly, cafully, and gently. (I made many mistakes in the past at this process, so now I know how easy it breaks.)
And sometimes this kind of wood block is also pretty convinient. This is made from the excess wood which was from making of (1st violin's)Neck. At the neck making process, we always get much excess wood pieces. They are quite useful, and I always don't throw them away. ^^
The mean thickness of left and right side ribs on Strad model is pretty different! This time treble side is about 1.2mm, and bass side is 1.0mm. So the thicker rib was kind of tough to bend.(but it also depends on the character of rib materials. This time rib material was little bit harder than usual.)
Let's glue ribs which are bent! And it's time for small gluing pads which I made previously~
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Ooops, they don't match the shape of corners...why!? Yesterday they completly matched to the corner BLOCK shape though!
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That's because I forgot to calculate thickness of ribs. Even though pads match to block shapes, after adding ribs the shapes change. Auurlala... what should I do...what should I do?? Even while thinking like this, glue gets colder, I had to hurry! And at first I thought that this time I was going to try traditional way of clamping such as Stradivarius did in 300 years ago. It is not clamping by F-clamps but by strings. I tried to tie the gluing pad to wood stick which was sticked on mold. But,,,this idea was completely crap! String was not enough strong to tie such pads and ribs. Trying and failing made me frustlated. Glue is really getting colder...
After all I gave up using traditional method and using pads. I used many many small clamps(they are pretty strong pinches), and finally managed to glue them. Fiouuuus! I don't know how long I was trying this. Maybe 3-4 hours? It doesn't look smart at all ^^;)
Every time I feel this process is the first process which looks like making violin, but this is one of the most difficult process of making violin. I want to modify this process's method so much. Some luthiers in Cremona are using thin mold and clamp ribs and corner blocks by spoul clamps (is it correct spelling?)which are usually used for gluing table and back plates.
This time's point is
* Forgeting calculation of thickness of ribs when I made gluing pads
* Trying to clamp by strings like traditional method(which doesn't provide enaough power for clamping)
* I got modifying idea for next time!
Maybe next time this process would be easier and smarter ^^)
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