Bending the c rib

Yesterday I collected the bending iron and strap from Erkki Ruokonen. He kindly lent them to me for a while so that I don't need to buy my own quite yet.

I started bending the ribs today. Last time I didn't have the bending strap so that was a new thing. I started with the whole piece I had for the c bout. That was a mistake. I should have cut it shorter and narrower straight away. It would have been easier to handle. My second mistake was to start too close  to then end. That is where the grain continues to the lower bout so I wanted to avoid cutting any more than necessary from the ribs so that the continuity is as good as it can be. I should not have been so greedy. I maybe had only 1 cm extra at one end. Another 1 cm would have been better. It is tricky to bend the very ends evenly so the extra length helps there. Despite my mistakes I think I got the rib to fit the mould pretty well in the end. This is a loose fit and once I apply a little pressure the fit is almost perfect. Next I will bend the second c rib and then I can glue them in place. Once the c ribs are on, I can finish trimming the corner blocks with the c ribs so that they nicely feather into the lower and upper bout ribs.