Getting the inside out

So, I'm now carving the inside of Jonathan’s mandocello soundboard. You need some kind of “cradle” to hold the soundboard steady. Building jigs for one-off instruments can be time-consuming and therefore expensive for the client, so I came up with a very easy way of making a great jig to support it.

Using some thin sheets of polystyrene and a sheet of non-slip matting I made up this cradle. 

Polystyrene is reasonable strong in compression so it supports the force of me pressing down whilst using a plane, yet it's soft enough not to damage the outer surface. 

Holes are drilled to a certain depth and these give you a target to aim for your during the initial rough shaping.

And, here’s the rosette for Alex’s twin-point- it’s a dot and diamond design but this time using abalone- the variety of colours make for a very pretty rosette!