Tommy
Are you saying preform the sides, back and top using the vacuum bags before gluing to the sustain block? If so I miss understood you. I thought you meant using the bags to clamp the top and bottom plates to the block/side assembly when final gluing, hence my concern that the sides could distort!
I was going to follow Martin Kochs method of first shaping the sustain block, gluing sides to it and then gluing the back and top down to the sides/block so that the block shapes the plates.
Keith