the nice clerk at Jo Ann Fabrics couldn't believe it when I asked her to cut me 4.5 inches of linen from that huge bolt. I had to explain I was using it for instrument repair.
My friend Jon Dale, Jupiter Ukuleles, reminded me that linen patches glued inside a cracked instrument were an old luthiers trick. Linen is very strong. It is an ancient idea worth considering for SOAGBs injury.
But i wanted to do a little test. I broke a scrap of maple, put hide glue in the crack, and then glued this patch of linen over it. We will see what it looks like in the morning.
In the meantime I got the braces glued to the back of Randy's long neck concert
And a start on the tone bar installation on his soundboard.
 177 and 178 now have bindings and end pieces installed and nicely smoothed down. Now the heel caps are being installed. |  The caps are glued over pieces of black white black fabric to mimic that decoration on the binding. |
And here is another shot of the big Re saw effort of yesterday. Whew, that was a deep cut.
this was much easier, only seven inches and resulted in those eight wonderful pieces.