As I prepared to begin carving the top of this guitar I found myself facing a dilemma, mainly because I don't know whether I'll repeat the exercise. Ideally, for a project such as this one, I'd own a range of gouges and a convex-bottomed plane or two, but I questioned whether their purchase could be justified given that I can't be sure that the cost would be spread across more than one archtop instrument. Nevertheless, in a moment of weakness, and with the prospect of carving a back from a dense hardwood, I gave in to temptation and purchased a small convex-soled plane while resisting the urge to buy other desirable tools. Fortunately, I also own a couple of small gouges, so I'm not entirely floundering.
With the success of this guitar far from guaranteed at this stage, I guess I'll eventually deem it a worthwhile effort and be encouraged to expand my arsenal of carving tools in order to build more of them, or I'll think of it as an interesting diversion but stick with the flat top guitars I'm much more comfortable with.
As it turned out, carving the outer surface of the top plate was relatively straightforward once I'd become familiar with the areas of the top that were happy to cooperate, and those that were a little more recalcitrant. Using flat bottomed planes on the convex surfaces, I was able to quickly remove a lot of material, while my puny gouges and a variety of scrapers dealt with the concave shapes close the perimeter. My recently acquired convex-bottomed plane is certain to prove its worth as I proceed to shape the inner surface of the top.
Among the many relevant tips I picked up from Ken Parker's YouTube videos, his example of first establishing the top's longitudinal arch was an especially useful strategy. Also following his lead, I'm using a low, raking light source that's proving invaluable as I identify lumps and bumps and work towards achieving something approaching symmetry and a smoothly graduated surface.
More to come.
Cheers, Pete.
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