Official Luthiers Forum!

For tops (arch) etc. what do u use? Is the an electronic tool?

Only really for closed boxes I believe.
All here - https://theartoflutherie.com/calipers/

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

^^^ Good article! ^^^

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

For ordinary flat tops I use a dial indicator in a shop made wooden frame deep enough to reach the centre of the top.

Dave

I made this one for violins, and it worked for my arch top. The .01mm readings is overkill, but it was $30 or something on sale. Why not? I like the dial, because you can watch trends by how fast it moves, and see places that are going the wrong direction very easily. Far easier than a digital.

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Why be normal?

I carve the outside arch first, so the inside surface is flat, and this allows me to use my regular 'cello thickness gauge to measure the height as I'm carving. If the plate has already been hollowed out just put it on a sheet of glass and subtract that thickness. I actually rough the arches first using a Wagner planer in the drill press to define contours, (a little high) to remove most of the waste, and then carve down to those. I've seen some clever setups using things like laser levels, and even Roncci ruled transparencies to project lines onto the surface to produce moire patterns that show the contours, but for every day shop use a thickness gauge is fine.