I woke up early today on my day off and set out on a nice bicycle ride to the neighborhood hardware/woodworking store to buy a couple of rasps and it was CLOSED! So I rode about 10 miles to the edge of town to one of the big box stores and got what I needed: a 3/8" round file, a block rasp "pocket plane", and a contour gauge.
The wife and baby were still snoozing when I got home, so I got to work. I lent my Bosch Colt to a buddy last week to use on a cabinet installation he was doing and he returned it. While talking, he mentioned that he "had a couple of tools" that I could maybe get some use out of. He came back 30 minutes later with a Stanley spokeshave and a Shinto hacksaw-blade rasp.
Needless to say, those two things saved the day and turned a boring task with rasp, files, and scraper blade into something pretty fun. It was the first time I had ever used a spokeshave!
To further distance myself from the StewMac model, I did away with the diamond volute and have a somewhat 'skewed' C shape, with the apex a little toward the bass strings to fit my hand. This thing is as straight as an arrow (21mm at the 1st fret and 23mm at the 9th) and feels like it was made for my hand.
On to final sanding later tonight and tomorrow and perhaps finishing within the next couple of days!!!
