Fortunately, apart from an awful 20mm action height, it survived. I had aligned the bridge and neck etc so that the strings were centralised. As can be seen from the photo, this wasn't terribly successful. The string tension was sufficient to compress the 'C' shaped body and start to close it up a little. The E string was nearly off the f-board, whilst the G had more than enough space. The body bending is something I will just have to live with, so I allowed it to settle for a week before moving the bridge mounting holes down a few millimetres. I also took the time to remove some body wood from under the bridge to get the action down to about 3mm. Once refitted, the whole experience was more civilised...
This is the point where it could be played (acoustically) if only it fitted on my lap. It really needs a strap, but that will be one of the finishing touches. The other point is that the body alone weighs 3.7kg without any hardware! It feels much heavier than expected. The stainless steel reinforcement won't be seen once finished so I'll can try to convince people that it's filled with concrete...
Curves
Now that the whole will-it-snap possibility was sorted out, it was time to get rid of the blocky look. The maple body needed to be shaped which required the removal of quite a lot of wood. An orbital sander would not cut the mustard here. Some new toys had to be found - enter a DWT Swiss GS06-27LV Straight Grinder and a couple of Foredom Typhoon carbide burrs.
The body and neck were separated once more and the grinder was used to give the body a roundish cross section. Goggles, ear plugs & dust masks were the order of the day. The bridge and neck pocket areas have to remain flat and blocky, so the trick is to try and blend them in.
The rough shaped body is a great improvement over the slab look, but the process creates a huge amount of really fine sawdust. I made a dust castle in its own lunar landscape...
After the grinder had done the bulk of the work, there are several gouges and grooves which usually result from me using power tools. This time they were in the wood and not me, which I take as a good sign. Hand sanding with 60 grit paper is the first stage. It needs to look right at the end of this! I think it's going to be a long job, and I will also need to use some filler in places too. I foresee a lot more sanding ahead. Bored now...
