Planing the back side

Planing the back side took longer than I thought it would, probably 4-6 hours. Of course I've never done it before, so I was taking my time. I would think there should be a better way, but using a plane is what the O'brien DVD suggests, so I followed that. Now that I've done it and am getting more comfortable with a plane, I think I could lower the iron a bit.

I'm still not DONE planing, but as you can see the sides are down to the blocks on either end. So now I can use the 15' dish to guide me as I plane, showing me where material has to be removed. I left it high around the waist area on purpose. It shouldn't take long now to plane it down so the entire surface almost touches the dish when placed with the back side down on it. Then I can start sanding.

As a side note, I had to take the assembly out of the form to sand the form down a bit... it was too thick at the top. While it was out, I gazed at it for a while. It actually kinda looks like a guitar; the side profile I mean. It has that "thicker at the bottom, thinner at the top" look. It's pretty cool, I'm excited.