Inside job

Well, at last progress has been made. Probably the fact that my workroom is finished--the bench finally set up--is the reason that I can now get some work done in there. Last night I decided that the top cracks were closed as well as I'll ever be able to close them, so it was time to work on the braces.

The first thing to do was to glue down the tone-bar brace which I had loosened up in order to give those top cracks some wiggle room. I glued this down and let it sit for several hours. Hide glue dries quickly, and the batch I was working with seemed about as perfect as it could be. The brace was soon tight to the top. I may still need to cleat the cracks, but the brace itself acts as a cleat, holding the crack in place too. I will need to clean off some of that excess glue. I hope the crack doesn't re-open when it feels that moisture.

Earlier, I had grafted a piece of spruce onto the end of the broken X-brace. I suspect most real luthiers would probably have replaced the whole thing, but I wanted to re-use what I could from the original parts.

Gluing this piece back in place was a two part glue job. The X was the fulcrum of the broken piece. First, I glued the brace downwards from the X to the bottom bout. After that was dry, I glued and clamped the brace upwards from the X to the top bout.

This morning, after I unclamped the whole thing, the top plate was nice and flat, while the braces I glued on last night were tight to the wood.  Holding the neck block, I gave the top a tap, and for the first time, it made a nice musical, sonorous tone.

Previously a tap had produced a depressing cardboard thud. There's hope for this old dog.