Re: guitar plate press
Nice work. I actually don't need anything that fancy. Most if the people doing the work in laminate archtop plates (including Benedetto on some of his models) are using a positive and negative MDF mold set (or similar material). And with my meager output of only a couple instruments a year even cheap MDF would last a lifetime. And with the MDF I can easily change the mold to experiment with different parameters such as arching height.
If you cut it to small you can always nail another piece on the end, but if you cut it to big... then what the hell you gonna do?
Steven