The next step in fabrication of the Upright Bass for the Beat Poem scene with Leon was to layout the patterns that will be used to bend the wood. The sides of the bass will be made from 1/4″ thick, 1 ” wide poplar. The poplar boards will need to be bent into shape and then glued to the front and the back boards for the bass.
The wood is a little thicker than desired, and I may need to rip down boards to 1/8″. The initial tests I did with bending the 1/4″ wood today was successful, so it may work out. I will know better after some additional work tomorrow.
I used a piece of the 1/4″ poplar to layout the offset for the wood bending patterns.
Laying out the bending patterns
Once the width of the wood was recorded on the paper I connected the dots to get the shape of the curves for the wood that will be the sides of the bass.
Connecting the dots
One side of the bass was laid out in this manner. The sides will each be made up from three curves. The top, the middle, and the lower sections each require their own pattern.
Layout
The basic shapes of the patterns for bending were then transferred to separate paper patterns that could be used for cutting a 2×4 board to function as the pattern.
Patterns for Bending
I also designed the tail piece and the bridge.
Tailpiece
Bridge
At work cutting out the 2×4″ patterns.
Cutting the pieces
The front board with the sound ports cut out.
Front
The back board of the bass.
Back
The tail piece and bridge laid out on the front face of the bass.
Front Layout
The next step is to sand the boards for bending the patterns. Then on to bending and clamping the boards into place.