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I cleaned up the Cello ribs today. The liners are glued in, but need to be tapered. I worked on getting the area of the bottom block where the original and replacement ribs joined together. I always think the join will be good, and it never is. I knew this one was going to be off, because when I was fitting it, it was too long. The plane when a little deep on the end, so I evened it out.

Yep, it has a mm gap. Way worse than normal. Usually you can just easily tell that it is there.

But the grain lines up like it was a one piece rib.I didn't even LOOK at the grain when I lined it up. Besides, it didn't have room to play around with the tapered ribs. So I cleaned out the glue from the gap, and glued in two, .5mm black purflings before lunch (dinner time) and I just went down, and planed and scrapped the extra mm or so off the black purfling. It looks great. It isn't the right way though, violin makers make perfect joins.

I never get them perfect. But the old masters didn't either.

They usually used on piece ribs on the upper and lower. No joins at all!

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Why be normal?

Sometimes it works out like that!