Bottoms up

The case bottom is now on the instrument. It comes in two pieces, front and back. The first step is to mask off the case, because glue will be dripping everywhere:



Once the bottom back is glued on, I used almost every clamp in the shop to hold it in place while it dried. In the picture below you can see the trunnels (definition) which hold the bottom to the case crosspieces. They're sticking out in this picture, but I planed them down later.



Next to go on was the bottom front, with considerably fewer clamps (and more trunnels holding it to the lower bellyrail):



After the glue dried, I had to make the thing fit. It was too big on all sides when I glued it on, so I planed down the sides, spine-side (the easy side) first:




The bentside was more difficult, but in the end it was all planed flat.