Well, things are moving along slowly and difficultly, but still moving. Unfortunately a bunch of my pictures are in limbo due to getting a new SD card to replace my old tiny one, only to find that my reader is as ancient as that old tiny card and can't handle SDHC... some geek I am  But since I haven't gotten around to getting a new one, I'll just post what I have.
As mentioned in the previous post, I pulled the neck off and glued a shim on, to correct a ledge cutting error:
Attachment: HeadblockShim.jpg
Negative side effect is that the braces no longer bottom out in their notches. It still feels nice and stiff though, so hopefully that won't affect the stability much if at all, since they do still have overlapping footprints on the soundboard.
Attachment: HeadblockShim2.jpg
Then it finally cooled off enough to get the furnace going to get the humidity down, so I did the final side bending. I didn't do a very good job of hurrying though, and between all the fiddly work of trimming the brace ends, trimming the sides to length, cutting their ends to match the tail inlay, and getting them glued to the tail block (a lot harder than it should have been), another day or two had passed and it warmed back up outside.
That left me in a predicament, because if I let the sides sit around in wildly fluctuating humidity until it decided to go back down, they'd likely need touched up again, and being already glued to the tail block would make that difficult. That left only one option... bake cookies. Or rather, turn the oven on and set the guitar on top of it to heat the moisture out of it. But no reason to waste that heat when it can be used for baking at the same time 
So, let it sit for a couple hours at 30-35% humidity, and then lots of dentellone gluing. Hopefully I was fast enough at getting a few in each section before it could re-moisturize, to give a reasonably similar result to assembling in actual 35% RH.
Then trimmed the top overhang, tapered the sides from head to tail block, glued the fractures and splits in the sides, more oven cycling to glue side braces, and onto linings.
Here I have photos again. The linings are lutz spruce, from when I was splitting braces and a couple came out too thin for that purpose. I like thin linings on the back when I'm not doing any purfling, because I can make them quick and easy by pressing a chisel into the wood to make a kerf, rather than sawing. They look cool, too
Attachment: GluingLinings.jpg
I glue them a little proud so I can plane then down to the rim, and leave the surfaces angled a little bit to support the dome of the back. I discovered a small error at this point... I forgot to check that the heel surface matches the taper of the sides. It didn't, so I had to plane some off of it, which reduced its height, which meant the rim needed to be tapered a little bit more, which resulted in accidentally tilting it laterally like a Manzer wedge... fortunately in the right direction for that, so I decided to just go with it. Subtle, but should make it a bit more comfy.
Oh, and notice that I did end up adding the fan braces after all. I wish I would have skipped that additional bit of thinning I did just before bracing, but this should work too. Certainly better than wasting this beautiful top, and having to do all that inlay routing again.
Then carved the side braces:
Attachment: SideBraceCarving.jpg
Just a general rounding over so they're not ugly rectangles. Then I noticed one of them was separated from the side, except for where it was supported by the linings. I had a couple others come unglued before doing linings, too. I wonder if it's this spalted wood, or if I just didn't get them clamped fast enough. The other two reglued fine, and I worked some glue under this one and clamped it up, and it stuck down fine as well, so I lean toward slow clamping. It is an awkward setup, and sometimes takes a minute to get the cauls and brace to stay put while operating cam clamps one-handed. Plus this batch of hide glue is on the thick side, which makes it less forgiving.
Attachment: SideBraceGlue.jpg
I also cut out the back today, which was difficult due to the chippy spalted wood. I ended up going with the router method, cutting almost all the way through and then slicing the last bit with a knife so it doesn't splinter like a saw would. It'll be a while before I can make any more progress there, though. Up to 60% RH right now, and not cooling down until Friday. I'm definitely not bracing a flatsawn maple back in that, oven heated or not.
Attachment: BackCutOut.jpg
But there's plenty to do in the meantime. I bent some headstock bindings while I was doing the sides, so I can cut the channels and glue those on. Also need to do the headstock logo inlay, and possibly a tiny sun and moon in the white, gold and koa colors like the rosette, in place of the tiny star and moon in abalone that I usually put in the corners. I can also finish up the tail inlay, which will need a small sun and moon as well, one on each side of the curve:
Attachment: TailInlayPieces.jpg
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![[xx(]](./images/smilies/smiley11.gif "Dead")
But then I had to do it again for the white one...![[:Y:]](./images/smilies/smiley20.gif "Thumbs Up")
