Carving the inside of the Archtop

I thought that I would show you the next step of carving the archtop. With the outside profile more or less there, the inside is carved out.

The first step is to drill a series of holes to give me a rough guide to depth whilst carving. I’ve set up this post on the pillar drill, the outside profile of the top sits on it. The drill is set so that it stops 8mm away from the post.

I can now drill holes all over the inside of the top and they will stop 8mm from the outer surface, this gives me my rough guide.




The next step is to sharpen up the gouge and plane and get carving!

This is going on whilst the baritone is being sprayed and it’s looking really good! I’m also preparing the wood for the mandocello, doing some design work for the cittern and sourcing some exotic materials for the left-handed cutaway steel-string. Any one got any Snakewood!