More on the Top... Learning from My Mistake

With the cross brace installed it was time to shape and fit the two bass bars. The bars came on a single piece of wood with the scallop shape diagramed out. Sorry - I failed to take pictures of this... but this is what they look like when clamped in place. One thing that is hard to tell from the photos is that I saved the curved scallop cuts and was able to use them as cauls when clamping.

Bridge plate, check; cross bracing, check; bass bars, check,. Without going in to a great deal of description the side braces, shoulder brace, another brace I don't know the name of and the sound hole reinforcements are all installed in a similar fashion:

The last step in installing the bracing was to round over all the braces. I don't beleive there is any reason sound wise to do this (probably wrong on that) but it is definitely a craftmanship consideration.

and I'm in for about 30 hours at this point.