Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew Tucker
it is interesting to me to speculate whether the doubling was added from the get go as a design feature. 2mm crossgrain doubling is a lot of work and careful joining of the edge seams. Perhaps the spruce was built onto the mould as a support first, and the thin veneer ribs bent onto that? That would make sense to me if the idea was to use a very thin veneer from the outset.
Otherwise if the doubling is not the full width of the rib, that would imply that the doubling was added after the thin ribs were bent and fixed into a mould, possibly as an afterthought.
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I would not call it doubling. They are laminated ribs. 1 mm burled maple is much too thin and fragile to be structural. This kind of construction was standard with guitars in those days. I doubt they made a complicated form to laminate the two. It could have been done with hammer technique flat and then bent to shape either dry or with a little coaxing from a hot pipe. 1mm venner with cross spruce would conform to the guitar shape pretty easily without any heat I would think. The skill necessary to get the burled veneer to 1mm was very high. A lot of the European shops had that skill level, especially the lute makers (Luthiers).
Sometime along the line that back strip was placed due to shrinkage dont you think?