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The patch came out pretty well. A bit of dark dye will make it less obvious.

I stripped the finish on the back.

My latest thought, subject to change without notice, is to leave the patch as-is and not put an inlay over it.

I also repaired the cracked back brace and glued it on. That was nice, as it was already shaped to the correct form and curvature.

Nice pictures I am sure you are having a great time getting this old girl back up to pretty again.

Latest thought is to replace the neck block in the body with a bigger one. If you look at download/file.php?id=8639&t=1 you'll note that the current block is fairly small and may be part of the reason the top split beside the fingerboard, seen here download/file.php?id=8573&t=1

I should be able to add about an inch to the thickness of the block with no problem, and hopefully when I take out the old block I'll be able to close up the crack in the top before gluing in the new larger block.

You did a good job on the patch. A larger neck block certainly seems logical. I've seen a lot of cracks to both sides of the fretboard in old guitars. Another solution would be to glue a thin layer of bracing wood on the new top, much like a classical guitar soundhole brace/reinforcement. I did this when I replaced the top on the Silvertone project guitar. I was going to do it on the classical guitar, but there is a nice 3" wide extension to the neck block, that extends almost to the top transverse brace. It the fretboard and surrounding top is supported nicely.

I finally went with a mortise and tenon style joint held by bolts (and maybe glue). It's a nice fit and seems very solid. The bolts screw into threaded inserts embedded in the neck. I hope my understanding of the required geometry is correct!

Oh -- the hole down through the top is so I could put a bolt through, for convenience in holding the body while I worked on it. The hole will get covered by the fingerboard and be invisible.

these cracks along the fretboard are often from the different shrinkage rate of the fretboard and top. I seldom see them on Gibsons but gibson only uses a small spot of glue on the extension

Your mano is coming along nicely

I decided to try a couple of 1/8" x 3/8" carbon fiber strips for neck reinforcement. This morning I cut the channels. The strips are a nice snug fit and extend into the headstock area to reinforce the neck-to-headstock transition. The ends will get covered by the head cap.

But what should I glue them in with? I had planned on using epoxy, but I'm concerned that the fit is too snug for epoxy to work well. What about water-thin CA glue? It would wick into the joints (one hopes) and work pretty well ....would it?

Any thoughts?

Today I put ivoroid binding on the fingerboard and colored the patch on the back using potassium dichromate. I guess it's not really a dye. It reacts with the wood chemically to darken it. Except for the grain difference, the patch now "disappears" pretty well.

It looks great Steve.

It's been a while.... I resurrected this project a few days ago when I got the idea of programming the CNC router a friend of mine loaned me a while ago to cut the pockets for the fingerboard inlays. I have proved to my satisfaction that my eyesight isn't good enough to do the cutouts freehand. After an untold number of test cuts and program tweaks I was able to get decent results for the two simple inlay shapes I used. Unless I can figure out a faster way to generate the CNC program for an arbitrary inlay shape, it will never be particularly practical. I do it only because the results of my hand-cut inlaying is so egregiously bad.

I'm also installing the frets, which occasioned the construction of a fret bender. It is crude beyond belief, but it worked. At some point I may take the time to make a decent one.

So! Once I get the frets in I'll install the neck, glue on the fingerboard, put the back on, apply a finish, add tuners, tailpiece, nut, bridge, strings...and hope it sounds like something. It would also be nice if I learned to play it at least a little.