Before we could relaminate the back pieces back together we wanted to make a mold of the original back profile. That way we wouldn't need to use the braces to pull the wood back into shape. Using the braces to do this the way you do on a new guitar could very well reopen all of the stress cracks that we worked so hard to pull back together.

I am fortunate enough to be located in Philadelphia which is only about 70 miles or so from Bethlehem PA. That allowed me to make several trips to the Martin factory and take some profile measurements on the 1834 Martin that they have in their museum.

This gave us the correct profile to use for the back, and we then began to carve the mold that you will see in the following photos.