I had a request for more pics and further explanation of how we made our nose ribs. Hopefully the following will fill in the blanks.
We made our jigs out of 3/4" mdf which is very easy to work with. The above jigs were made to cut out the inside of the nose ribs with a router. At this point the 1/4" birch is still cut in rectangles to fit between the stops on the jigs.
Then the outside shape was rough cut with a scroll saw. A bandsaw would have worked just as well.
The outside edge was trimmed with a laminate trimmer and bottom bearing flush bit.
Some of our nose ribs were a D-shape and most were open ended like the letter C. For the c-shaped ribs, we put a thin stop at the end of the jig. For the D-shape we made a plug that fit in the hole and attached that to the jig. A clamp was used when necessary to hold the ply to the jig.
![20070807_073724_nose_ribs_1.JPG](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/675/675235052c4cb107a72ad7598dc75b68.jpg)
We made our jigs out of 3/4" mdf which is very easy to work with. The above jigs were made to cut out the inside of the nose ribs with a router. At this point the 1/4" birch is still cut in rectangles to fit between the stops on the jigs.
![20070807_074025_nose_ribs_2.JPG](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/35f/35fab766f3eef05bccb143761b5f430a.jpg)
Then the outside shape was rough cut with a scroll saw. A bandsaw would have worked just as well.
![20070807_074121_nose_ribs_3.JPG](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/5fe/5fef69c548f9f057d24526497494a87e.jpg)
The outside edge was trimmed with a laminate trimmer and bottom bearing flush bit.
![20070807_074234_nose_ribs_4.JPG](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/5b3/5b37b66d8a4affb39c608de9dfcf37cd.jpg)
Some of our nose ribs were a D-shape and most were open ended like the letter C. For the c-shaped ribs, we put a thin stop at the end of the jig. For the D-shape we made a plug that fit in the hole and attached that to the jig. A clamp was used when necessary to hold the ply to the jig.