What;’s going on here? (Such a mess, but it always seems to end up that way)
I putting in side sound ports on the latest batch. Before cutting the sound port I glue in a little patch of thin wood/thick veneer, with the grain cross-wise to the side grain to strengthen the area. I like to do this, and to cut and finish the sound port before the kerfed lining is put in because the patch can extend the full width of the side, and it makes cleaning up the veneers that bind the sound port much easier. The patch looks like this:
To cut the hole I use a little pattern jig that clamps onto the side. This has an over-size oval hole against which a template guide for my small router rides. By varying the diameter of the template guide I can cut different sized holes, so one jig works for all instrument sizes.
I bind the edges of the sound port with veneers to match the binding on the instrument. These are pre-bent on a hot pipe, and then glued in place with CA glue and finger pressure behind a piece of teflon grill mat to which the CA does not stick.
The final result looks like:
And here they all are.
