Brian Timmons's Bench

[Matthew_Graesch]

54 minutes ago, Brian in Texas said:

@Will Turner @Jim Bress @Davide Sora @Matthew_GraeschThank you for weighing in.

Last night I leveled the ribs with a small plane and my flat sanding board. I noticed after the fact that some of my ribs are not a dead 90 degrees to the mold and are kind of all over the place. I'm not sure if this means I need to have a complete do-over of the ribs or not. I have no idea how that happened, but it seems pretty bad to me. 

Brian,

I am not sure what the experts would do, but in the same situation you have there, I have had really good luck with warming up my bending iron, and using it to smooth the entire completed rib structure.  Assuming the ribs are uniform thickness, if you get them warm again, they will adopt a smooth curve and you can correct any waves and non-perpendicular spots while they are warm before they cool again.  It works really well, but I have not heard of others doing it this way.  So long as you are careful not to heat the glued portion at the blocks, I see no reason not to.

 

[Brian in Texas]

8 minutes ago, Matthew_Graesch said:

Brian,

I am not sure what the experts would do, but in the same situation you have there, I have had really good luck with warming up my bending iron, and using it to smooth the entire completed rib structure.  Assuming the ribs are uniform thickness, if you get them warm again, they will adopt a smooth curve and you can correct any waves and non-perpendicular spots while they are warm before they cool again.  It works really well, but I have not heard of others doing it this way.  So long as you are careful not to heat the glued portion at the blocks, I see no reason not to.

 

Might not be a bad idea. I'll see what my teacher, Ivan says when I see him tonight. I texted him the pictures earlier as well. As it is, he said not to lose any sleep over it.

[Jim Bress]

I also add my linings prior to flattening the rib heights. It makes everything a bit more stable, I guess. It's the only way I've ever done it.

[Matthew_Graesch]

12 minutes ago, Jim Bress said:

I also add my linings prior to flattening the rib heights. It makes everything a bit more stable, I guess. It's the only way I've ever done it.

Same here.  It makes the whole assembly so much more stable.  I have cracked a rib before when trying to flatten it prior to adding linings.

[Brian in Texas]

14 minutes ago, Jim Bress said:

I also add my linings prior to flattening the rib heights. It makes everything a bit more stable, I guess. It's the only way I've ever done it.

Oh, of course. That makes more sense than the way I did it here. Learning curves and all that.

[Will Turner]

I know that there are a number that view these videos as too much pomp and circumstance, but apparently this Luthier works for the curve or non-90' ribs with an interesting clamping setup.

So, perhaps you'll find that Kevin Lee Luthier approves of your asymmetrical ribs result.     However, I tend to find making videos that validate my own efforts and so had used this one to feel better about my own slightly warped rib garlands.   Made me feel I'd accomplished something by accident that others do by design.

[Brian in Texas]

Something must've twisted during the glue-up, that's as much as I can tell. Just one more thing to be more careful about.

[Matthew_Graesch]

On 10/22/2025 at 3:02 PM, Brian in Texas said:

Something must've twisted during the glue-up, that's as much as I can tell. Just one more thing to be more careful about.

I have had ribs twist when I wasn't super careful to have them uniform thickness from one side to the other (like more than 0.1mm) because they will spring back a little asymmetrically once they cool if the thickness isn't uniform or they aren't a near perfect rectangle in cross section.

 

[Brian in Texas]

2 minutes ago, Matthew_Graesch said:

I have had ribs twist when I wasn't super careful to have them uniform thickness from one side to the other (like more than 0.1mm) because they will spring back a little asymmetrically once they cool if the thickness isn't uniform or they aren't a near perfect rectangle in cross section.

 

They'd better be flat. I cheated and ran the ribs though a drum sander to get them to thickness. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. 

[Sean Couch]

Hehe. Your secret is safe with me. I didn’t use a drum sander on #2, but I did make a little “rib flattener” made out of some Perma-grit, square aluminum tubing and a couple of shims to set a gap of 1.15mm. The show side of the ribs have a scraped finish and the inside surface is sanded.

I just plane the ribs until they are a bit under 2mm thick, scrap one side, lay the scraped side down on the table, and go at the back side with the sanding block. Quick and easy and no fiddling with a graduation punch or taking thickness measurements. I also added some shims to it to use it as a 2mm liner flattener.

[Will Turner]

8 hours ago, Brian in Texas said:

They'd better be flat. I cheated and ran the ribs though a drum sander to get them to thickness. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. 

If I had a drum sander, I probably would do that method.   The planes and scrapers are a pain, seems to take days (not really but it does take some time).

I recall a video where someone did that along with a fence to hold the rib at about 1.4mm and would then scrape it down the remainder.

[MikeC]

I cheated and used a sanding block with spacers on the first one.  Second one I only used a plane with a toothed blade, finished the outside with card scraper.  I leave the toothed plane marks on the inside so if anyone ever opens it at least they will know it was hand made, not CNC'd in a factory.  Of course, as imperfect as its, it would never be mistaken for CNC anyway.    

[Matthew_Graesch]

On 10/23/2025 at 4:32 PM, Brian in Texas said:

They'd better be flat. I cheated and ran the ribs though a drum sander to get them to thickness. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. 

I always rough mine using a belt sander down to 1.3mm or so and then finish from there with hand tools, but I have definitely seen situations with both belt and drum sanders where the platten and the sand paper weren't PERFECTLY parallel to each other.  If you have a commercially-made horizontal drum sander....I am both jealous, and less concerned.

[Brian in Texas]

1 hour ago, Matthew_Graesch said:

If you have a commercially-made horizontal drum sander....I am both jealous, and less concerned.

It's a cheapie, six inch drum sander meant for model making. It belongs to my teacher who let me use it. Very slow for working down ribs, but it works. It leaves a slightly rippled surface that I did a final flattening on with a block plane and scraper.

I wish I had a professional drum sander, it would sure make life a lot easier. Alas, I have not yet learned how to fart money. I'm trying to save up for new cello strings as it is.

[Brian in Texas]

Yesterday I traced the outline of the ribs onto the willow back for the viola and pinned it in place. Next I'll need to rough cut the outline on my band saw and square the edges up. After that will but cutting the shelf all the way around the edges. My teacher Ivan has a time saving method he likes to employ for this step. It involves a rotary cutter mounted on his drill press, followed by a small Forstner bit that bottoms out to establish the inner edge of the shelf. The Forstner bit is custom ground to remove the little pin in the center, leaving a flat bottomed cut. From there I will begin hand carving the long arch using my gouges.

[Bodacious Cowboy]

On 10/22/2025 at 2:20 PM, Brian in Texas said:

@Will Turner @Jim Bress @Davide Sora @Matthew_GraeschThank you for weighing in.

Last night I leveled the ribs with a small plane and my flat sanding board. I noticed after the fact that some of my ribs are not a dead 90 degrees to the mold and are kind of all over the place. I'm not sure if this means I need to have a complete do-over of the ribs or not. I have no idea how that happened, but it seems pretty bad to me. 

This is a natural consequence of using a non-full-thickness mold, unless you are very careful with bending, fitting and gluing of ribs. With a bit of practice you can learn to "tune" your technique to achieve the degree of wonkiness you desire. A certain degree of asymmetry can make things look more interesting. For perfect perpendicularity you need to get the ribs fitting very well to the form (I can see some quite large gaps in your photo), and glued up so that the rib is straight (ie rib edge parallel to the end block and equal "overlap" with each corner block....).

I don't think it's anything to do with your flattening process.

[Davide Sora]

3 hours ago, Brian in Texas said:

Yesterday I traced the outline of the ribs onto the willow back for the viola and pinned it in place. Next I'll need to rough cut the outline on my band saw and square the edges up. After that will but cutting the shelf all the way around the edges. My teacher Ivan has a time saving method he likes to employ for this step. It involves a rotary cutter mounted on his drill press, followed by a small Forstner bit that bottoms out to establish the inner edge of the shelf. The Forstner bit is custom ground to remove the little pin in the center, leaving a flat bottomed cut. From there I will begin hand carving the long arch using my gouges.

I think drilling all those holes takes much longer than simply roughing out with a gouge, especially with spruce. Machining is often associated with time savings, but that's not always the case.

[Brian in Texas]

1 hour ago, Bodacious Cowboy said:

This is a natural consequence of using a non-full-thickness mold, unless you are very careful with bending, fitting and gluing of ribs. With a bit of practice you can learn to "tune" your technique to achieve the degree of wonkiness you desire. A certain degree of asymmetry can make things look more interesting. For perfect perpendicularity you need to get the ribs fitting very well to the form (I can see some quite large gaps in your photo), and glued up so that the rib is straight (ie rib edge parallel to the end block and equal "overlap" with each corner block....).

I don't think it's anything to do with your flattening process.

If one is using a full thickness mold, what do you do when it's time to fit linings? Push it out to one side?

[Brian in Texas]

1 hour ago, Davide Sora said:

I think drilling all those holes takes much longer than simply roughing out with a gouge, especially with spruce. Machining is often associated with time savings, but that's not always the case.

I'll make note of how long it takes. I guess that as a newbie to all this, I want to make sure that my platform is level. I had a lot of trouble on my first violin getting everything nice and flat all the way around. There were so many bumps and dips that drove me crazy.

[Bodacious Cowboy]

2 hours ago, Brian in Texas said:

If one is using a full thickness mold, what do you do when it's time to fit linings? Push it out to one side?

Don't know, never used one. 

[Bodacious Cowboy]

2 hours ago, Brian in Texas said:

I'll make note of how long it takes. I guess that as a newbie to all this, I want to make sure that my platform is level. I had a lot of trouble on my first violin getting everything nice and flat all the way around. There were so many bumps and dips that drove me crazy.

Just rough arch and take the edges down to desired thickness plus about 1mm, then use your slotting saw to cut final thickness. Then gouge round the plate above the saw cut until thin enough to snap off, revealing your flat platform. No need for all that tedious drilling.

[Brian in Texas]

26 minutes ago, Bodacious Cowboy said:

Just rough arch and take the edges down to desired thickness plus about 1mm, then use your slotting saw to cut final thickness. Then gouge round the plate above the saw cut until thin enough to snap off, revealing your flat platform. No need for all that tedious drilling.

Makes sense.

[Brian in Texas]

Last night saw a decent amount of progress for a weeknight. Not as much shop time as I would like, but alas.

• Changed my band saw blade from a 1/2" resawing blade to a 3/16" blade that can cut curves well
• Cut the outline of the back
• Used rasps to bring the outline closer to the pencil outline along the upper and lower bouts
• Didn't screw up by cutting off the button!

The willow that will make the back of this viola is fairly plain, although it has little spots of birds-eye figuring here and there. But I chose this wood for how it sounds, not for how it looks.

Next time I'll need to clean up the c-bouts, which I didn't want to rush through last night. It still needs more work finish sanding the edges. It’s sticking out from the line here and there. But this is just fresh off the rasp.

[Will Turner]

Looks great, looking forward to seeing the progress on this one, especially with the local instruction.

[Vincent C]

Looking good, Brian!