A Halloween horror show

The lute body is now out of the mould and I have attached the neck blank (with a screw through the neck block and a coupe of alignment dowels). In the upper photo, lit from the outside, the view isn't great but it's not a complete disaster. I have fitted a rather 'rustic' patch where one of the ribs was too thin and some of the spacers are not as clean as they should be where my glue and ebony dust mixture has squeezed through some of the gaps.

However, real horror show can be seen in the lower photo. This was lit from behind and taken with the flash off. The horrible wavy grain is clearly visible, and the bright streaks show gaps in some of the joins between the ribs. I have reinforced these from the inside with some Araldite, and once the shape of the belly has been scribed I will add some paper strips to provide further support.

I was going to crack on with this immediately, but I learnt from my lute book that shape of the belly has to be taken while the body is still in the mould.  Once it's out of the mould, the body 'relaxes' and ends up longer and thinner!

Consequently, I have now started on the belly.