my own Soundboard

[John Delacour]

At 8:06 PM -0500 1/18/02, Greg Newell wrote:
>John,
>     What are "the deals" in your sentence " He planes (with a shooting
>plane of course) the edges of the deals very slightly convex so that 
>when they are glued up, the board takes on a crown along the length 
>and the finished
>article is more dome-like than bridge-like."
>     Are these the ribs spoken of in our American english :-)? If so it
>very much has been mentioned in the topic of rib crowning boards and I
>would dearly love to hear how your friend does it!

Sorry, I've just looked up "deal" in Webster's and it seems its 
"Brit." usage only. in talking of fir and pine etc. it signifies a 
length or plank.  We talk of a deal table in the kitchen, meaning a 
table of pine made up of lengths of pine butted together like a 
soundboard.

I might be able to get down to see him some time this summer and 
persuade him to give me a demo.

As to the crown in the other direction, I'll quote from Wolfenden, 
writing in 1916:

   "Modern practice all over the world, aims to put the board itself 
into a state of compression, to that it is constantly acting to 
assist the bars [belly bars = American: ribs] to do their duty.
   The writer's own formula is: Arch the bars to about the usual 
curvature [60 ft radius], keep the board warm at say 100° to 120° F. 
for a few hours to shrink it.
   Place it on a frame or board hollowed out a trace deeper than the 
curve of the bars, and while the board is hot, glue the bars down.
   When the pressure is released, the rounding will be greater than 
the original curvature of the bars, and the board in a considerable 
state of compresssion, which it will retain and which will increase a 
little.
   The backs of the bars which by this process become a little hollow 
in the length, are afterwards planed straight.
   The whole structure thus becomes a highly elastic spring"

For gluing the belly bars, I'd forget about clamps and pneumatic 
arrangements.  Good old go-bars are fast and efficient and you can 
easily construct a gluing press that can be quickly dismantled when 
you're not using it.  Some of the German makers have invested 
millions in fancy machinery for special tasks but there are cheap and 
efficient traditional ways of doing almost everything.  All the 
finishing work on the bars is done with a hand plane and good 
pre-1914 chisels.

I'll write an article one day on sharpening knives, chisels and plane 
irons so that you can shave with then and tell you a story of how I 
was too clever by half when demonstrating these skills to an 
apprentice!

JD