Body Inlay

Before I can glue the top to the body I have to do the inlay at the tail block. Since I  want to try to create a violin style body (where the top and back will have a slight overhang, without bindings) I cannot do this when they are already glued to the body.
I first made a template of the inlay on mm grid paper and transferred that to tracing paper. I cut that out and used it to draw the outline of the inlay on the body:

When the outline was drawn I made  a cut of about 2 mm along the vertical lines of the middle section of the cross:

After that I gently removed the wood in between the cuts with a chisel:

The horizontal lines of the short sections of the cross cannot be cut with a saw. I used a Stanley knife to do this job and after that also removed the wood in between with a chisel:

For the actual inlay I used Rosewood. The pieces where cut roughly and sanded to their best fit. After that they where glued in and clamped:

The end result is pretty nice:

Off course it has to be sanded back since it is sticking out now but that I will save for later.

Neck and body work

It is time again for a little update. I continued my work on the neck. Next job here: create a channel for the truss rod with a router. Before I picked up the router I assured that the side of the neck was straight by sanding it on a sanding block since it should guide the router:

When finished the neck was fastened to a bench with two clamps. The router was set to mill in the middle of the block. You cannot mill the full depth at once so I had to do it in stages of about 2 mm.

The end result with the truss rod and the Jacaranda fret board:

And with the Truss rod inserted:

Now the neck is ready to be glued to the headstock. This is a tricky job since such a big gluing area tends to slide when you clamp it. One way to get around that is clamping both part to the bench during the procedure. Another way is to us two little nails to prevent both parts of slipping away. I used the last method:

While the neck was drying I did some more work on the body to prepare it for the top. Since the cross bracing is shaped to an arch the sides and the neck and tail block also need to have a slope to give as much gluing surface to the top. With a flexible wooden slat I checked the curve from every angle towards the highest point of the arch. Anywhere I discovered space between the slat and the body I needed to file the slope a bit steeper. As you can see the neck block needed quite some shaping:

Next time probably the top will be glued to the body.

Cross shaping and neck preparation.

The cross bracing which I glued in still needs to be formed into an arch to support the top. With a hand plane the first rough arch is shaped, starting at the sides taking of thicker layers and then slowly work inwards taking of less and less:

At the cross point I used a chisel:

When the rough shape is there, sanding paper on wooden blocks is used to sand the arch to its final shape:

The end result shows a nice arch:

Next up: the neck. This will be made out off a solid maple block. The head of the neck will be placed in an angle of 13 degrees against the neck. With this template I drew the angle on the block:

Then the process is:
Cut the block:

Then bring the small piece upside down to the other side of the block and glue it back on it. This will form the 13 degree angled head stock:

I will take care of gluing it together later on.