This day got me well on my way to another Kasha Baritone. The day began with the first of three applications of French Polish on #109, the mahogany/Englemann Spruce tenor. and then I turned my attention to a new Baritone. I had selected and glued together the bearclaw spruce top, and rough cut the sides, and back yesterday.
Today I thinned the sides to .o75, trimmed them to proper shape and marked out the waist line. They were ready to bend. They are resting on the folded Hana Lima Ai plan.
Next, I thinned down the very thick Bubinga for the back, a time consuming project at the thickness sander. and then joined the pieces in my simple but effective joining press.
The next project was the delicate task of cutting the groove for the Rosette purfling and the sound hole with the router. Note that I applied a coat of shellac before installing the rosette so that the superglue would not stain the spruce.

Now the back and the top are ready to be thinned down to final thickness. They will both be sanded to .o80. In order to bend the rosette purfling I had heated up the bending iron and so at 4:30 I decided to bend the sides.
By 5:15 they were nicely bent and drying in the press. I hand bent them over the hot pipe the old fashioned way taking about 15 minutes for each side. I am finding that I get better bends and don't break wood doing it by hand. I used the bending machine form just to check the shape that I was working towards.
Then it was time to head upstairs for a celebratory martini. A very productive day.