White glue blues

Today I worked on the top and sides for the first time really. And for the first time I see a bit more clearly what needs to be done. There were repairs done some time ago using white glue, which I need to un-glue and clean up. This job will present some difficulties, because to get those cracks sealed back up nicely, they must be free from all that old glue first. Not easy with white glue. I plan to move slowly and deliberately when I finally tackle this job, which is usually the best approach anyway.

I knew that one of the braces forming the X was broken and re-glued, but today I realized that the piece had been re-glued in the wrong place. This fact made me all the more determined to get it out of there, which I did. If I can successfully clean off all that old glue, I'll be able to put the piece back where it should be. I'll have to graft another piece of spruce onto the end of it to make it long enough. This should not present much of a problem; there is only an inch or so missing.

I was also able to remove the broken bridge plate today with no trouble. The cotton patches on the top and sides need a great deal of soaking to remove, and there will still be glue to clean up. Slowly...slowly...everything must be done very slowly...