Dovetailing

I've spent the last week or so making the three corner joints and cutting the sliding dovetails for the braces.

Each of the three corner joints has five pins, and each is at some funky angle, such as 131 degrees, 59 degrees, and in the worst case, about 90 degrees but in the curve of the bentside. I've finished the two that are straight (that join to the tail), and am saving the curve for last. I've been doing the cutting with a Japanese back saw and Marples chisles. Each set of pins and tails takes about five hours.

The sliding dovetails were much easier and more fun. I did them all on a milling machine with digital X, Y tracking. I cut the matching tails in fir beams that span the width of the case on a router table. The beams were somewhat of a pain to cut, as they too are at such angles as 53 and 56 degrees.

Once I finish cutting all of the beams (they get tails in both ends, and a curve cut out of the middle), I'll do the final fitting of the tail corner dovetails, and glue it all together. Then comes the stringing (thin poplar that the soundboard rests on), the smaller crosspieces, the wrestplank and the bottom, and then I'm near done with the skeleton.