If anything could keep me up at night worrying about making a fiddle, it’s the possibility that there is something I’ve already screwed up and just don’t know it yet. Yesterday, I got a bit more fuel for that sort of worry.
As I was working on making the purfling platform, I noticed that the plate would rock a bit when I put pressure on the edge. I thought back about getting the wood for the top ready and realized that I’d never planed it flat.
That could have been the mistake that ruined the plate. As I had now established the thickness of the edge, if I had to remove much wood off the bottom to flatten it, it could have ended up making the edges too thin. Fortunately, I was very generous with the edge thickness, and it was not too thin once I’d leveled the bottom. One bit of sloppy woodwork saves another!
Once that was done, I spent some time working with purfling on scrap wood. Here’s my first purfled wood
Exciting, I know. Now to start practicing corners (which is the real trick).
I had to check the now flattened plate on the rib garland
