I left the side clamped in the template over night to let it dry. I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Side is Clamped in the Template

I unclamped it to see what the results are like. It looks like it is shaped fairly well, but there are a lot of scars on it from the bending.

It Does Not Look Too Bad from a Distance

Below is a photo of the lower bout, on the right in the picture above.

The Side is Scorched Everywhere

Those marks would be on the inside of the instrument, so they would not be visible if I used this side. Even so.... That looks pretty bad.

Here is a bad mark in the waist area.

The Scraper Would Not Remove This Burn

Scorch marks everywhere.

Lots More Scorching

I did manage to bend the side without breaking it, but I have to do better than this for the actual instrument. Keeping in mind that this is the first time I have ever tried to bend an instrument side, it isn't too bad.

I think that it would go better if the wood were a bit thinner, so I started thinning down the next practice board. I butted the end of the board up against a stop to plane it.

I Had to Clamp it As Well

I had to clamp down the end of the board because it is so thin that it kept springing out of the stop. The planing was difficult on that thin wood, so I got out the cabinet scraper to see how that goes.

The Cabinet Scraper Works Well

The cabinet scraper works OK, but you can see in the photo that the end of the piece was hanging off the side of the bench top, so I tried just clamping it and running it in a diagonal across the bench.

This Worked OK, but the Board Kept Springing

I tried using the block plane because it has a shorter sole than the jack plane, so I could clamp the board in the middle.

The Block Plane Seems to Work

I finally ran out of time and patience. So I put it aside for the day. I will take this problem on again tomorrow.