Joining the neck and fretboard

Location pins for the Fretboard. I haven't glued the neck yet, I'm waiting until everything is centred.

I get to use my mini plane to make the fretboard and neck flush.

V Joint, Headstock, Neck & Dovetail to body joint

Preparing V joint for headstock

Glueing and bracing neck to headstock

After planing the headstock it's ready for the ebony faceplate.

Gluing ebony faceplate. I made several tests before starting the final join. Test v joint headstock in the corner. 

Block cut headstock.

Preparing neck heel with three cedar blocks.

Ream the headstock holes.

Dove tail joint cut and ready to be glued.

Binding and purfling channels

Using my new Ashley Ives Chisels to cut binding channel

Back binding glued, taped and clamped with large rubber bands

Test fitting the binding.

Cutting the purfling channel

Test strip on spruce off-cut

Purfling channel complete and I put a layer of shellac on the top to protect the soundboard from glue and tape.

My HiTech hide-glue warmer.

When fitting the back binding I had some gaps with the rubber band method. I decided to try the rope method. It worked a lot better for me.

Scraping the purfling level

Test fit for the ebony binding.

Binding & purfling ready for scraping.

Bracing & Joining the Back

Brace radius for back dome was done using a sandpaper block. Glued with clamps. 

Shaping the dome with 80 grit sanding block

Checking the overhang of braces; marked with a pencil. Cut to length to fit the slots with a chisel

Made my own label.

Glued back with home made spool clamps.

preparing the lining

Gluing lining to ribs

Gluing ribs to the top. If there was one thing I would do differently next time is to glue the end blocks to the ribs before gluing the top. It was very difficult and I did get some creep with the neck block.  

Planning ribs to height.

I love the aesthetics of a heap of pegs clamping together the lining and ribs.