As promised, this will be the story about a perfect walnut billet and how it nearly got destroyed by an unskilled craftsman
I finally found and ordered a piece of walnut, that was the perfect length (90cm) and width (18cm) to cut out two pieces and join them into one body. But.. as the piece was 5.2 cm thick, I had the crazy idea to resaw it. I was aiming for a board of around 2.3 to 2.5cm thick for this build, as the final thickness of the top will be 1cm, so this would add to 3.5cm, which proved to be perfect in the prototype. So I carefully took out a tiny twist using my jack plane and winding sticks and dimensioned the wood blank. The plained grain showed up to be a very calm and nice pattern:
The board chipped at one corner, which I figured is not a problem at all, since it was to be cut of probably. Next I marked 2.5cm from the flat face around the board adding a couple of mils extra to account for removing the saw marks and started resawing the board. I took on with one of the japanese saws. Quickly it proved, that the two boards clench around the blade and the further I was the more wedges I had to use to give the blade some space. Ok, "wood will release tension when cut" I told myself and moved on. Somewhere in 1/3rd of the board I switched to my regular handsaw and noticed, that even I am through the board from one side, I actually am not through the board when I flip it. That meant, my saw must have gone awry and I have probably two cuts parallel to each other.
It actually looked pretty clean from the outside, but proved - it was not. I tried to plane it out a little, but the other cut went deep inside, being just a few millimeters away from the other one, but I would loose probably 5 millimeters trying to plane it out clean and would end up with a board just 20mm thick - not good enough. Remember the 65% walnut rule? right.
I decided to glue up the blade channel and try to make it work with the board anyway. You can see how it looked with the glue and clamps:
It's about fixing mistakes, right? So If I could flatten it enough and glue on the top, so that the mistakes would disappear, I should still be fine. So I spend the next few days figuring out how to cut and join the right edge, so the mistakes go inside the body. Remember the chipped piece of the board? And another factor, that it grabbed the saw while cutting - yes it cupped additionally.
In the end I found an edge that would work, joined the board, planed it as flat as I think is necessary from the top and the back, accounting for all the cutouts and there it is, from the back, and the front:
The two error areas are in the control cavity, so this one might disappear and in the upper waist, which is a exposed point, but I think, I can patch it still. The surface is flat besides and the top will have a neat joint, you can see how it meats the template
As you can see the upper error area will still need some attention, but I can definitely move on with it. I've learned a lot in this round
On the weekend I will be probably able to cut the wood for the neck and meanwhile, I will admire all the other builds around. Cheers!
