The necks have been given their carbon fiber rods and trimmed. Now with a stronger reinforcement of the neck foot.

After the carbon fiber rod in the neck and general repair of all bottoms, it is time to make bottom brces and glue them in place.

Braces are selected and cut from the stock of already formed brace blanks. They are rectangular and quartz sawn spruce braces, about 8 x 15 mm, in varying lengths. I work with one bottom at a time and first give the brace a 20 ″ radius using a jig bought by LMI. First I give the bottom of the brace blank a rough shape with the help of a plane, then I sand it to the right shape in the jig. A novelty in this batch is that I use a scraper to even out the rough surface from the 80 sandpaper in the jig, a finer surface makes the hot hide glue adhere better.

Because the braces at the bottom are straight and simple, they are easy to triangulate in my practical planer jig. The two posts in the jig have exactly the slope needed to be able to plan the sides of the brace blank to a perfect triangle.

I'm a bit OCD with the placement of the bottom braces, it should be straight and nice! Actually, it probably does not matter, or is even better, if it's a little charmingly crooked… With a marked centerline in the bottom, I use an angle hook to get the braces straight.

I do not need my go-bar to glue the bottom as the braces are straight and simple. Instead, I use my old method with an abutment with the same 20 ″ radius as the underside of the bar. The third brace is thin and wide to make the bottom more flexible and glued to a stick with a negative 20 ″ radius. The other braces are glued with my special aluminum brackets that fit the triangular braces.

During gluing, the entire bottom is heated with a heat gun set to 300 degrees and a heat lamp (the red light). Partly to contract the wood at the bottom to the maximum to reduce the risk of drying cracks, partly to give the hot hide glue longer opening time. The wooden clamps are perfect for the purpose. I use a thin cloth dipped in water, a spatula and a coarse brush to quickly remove the excess glue.

I have enough cauls and clamps for two bottoms. An advantage with this method is that the bottom during gluing becomes a package that is easy to move out of the way of the next. When the second bottom is completely glued, I can then loosen all the clamps on the first as the hot hide glue hardens quickly. After about half an hour, a joint that is not put under tension and glued with hot skin glue will hold together. One of MANY benefits of hot hide glue.

Here all the bottoms in the batch are glued and the protruding braces are cut along with the edge of the bottom.