I thinned the front down considerably today. The bouts were just under 5 mm which is lot for a 1/2 cello. Now they are a little over 3 mm. I hope that's good enough now. If needed I will re-open the cello once I have heard the first notes from it.

I got the label from Laura today! Of course I had to see how it looks inside the cello straight away. I'll let you have a sneak peek too. But shhhh... Don't tell anyone.

I still need to finish a few things on the front before I can glue it all together. Mainly finalise the ff-holes and make sure the sound post can be inserted through them. But I think later this week the corpus will be closed.

I got some feedback that the front (and back) were too thick. I left them thick on purpose to begin with in the hope to get some one to have a look and advice me. That advice turned out to be much more difficult to get that I had though. Hence I already glued to back to the ribs and the bass bar on the front. I really want to get the corpus closed soon so I thought it was time to revisit the front and finish it. I reduced the thickness along the edges today. Tomorrow I will likely finish the ff-holes. That's it then probably for now. I think I won't know what to do better before the cello is all fitted up (in white, without varnish) and somebody can hear it. That doesn't seem so far any more! 

Started on shaping the root of the neck so that it can be fitted on the body. For that I provisionally glued the fingerboard on the neck. I then first used my big plane thinking that it will be better in creating a flat surface but in the end the small block plane was better. The root of the neck is now ready for fitting!

I started to prepare the neck for attaching it to the corpus. I first thought I would leave the sides still parallel to the centre line and only remove the part that attached to the body. After having removed the excess there, I changed my mind and removed all the extra width roughly. There is a few millimetres to remove by plane from the sides still.

I hadn't quite finished the fluting of the scroll. I had left the very end for later. Now is the time to bring it forward before proceeding further on the neck. I didn't do too much progress today but at least I got started. I think it won't too long. I want to get this done before gluing the fingerboard on the neck or refining the shape of the neck further.

I am done with the fingerboard, for now. I did the hollowing out on the back side. Mostly with gouges. I started going length wise and when I was pretty close it was easier to across the grain. I was surprised  how easy it was to work with ebony. Of course the gouges need to be sharp. After the gouge I used a scraper to get a smooth finish. That again was a pleasure. One doesn't notice the grain of the ebony at all and one gets these nice shavings. Wonderful! Next I need to work on the neck again and then it is time to fit the neck on the body. After I have glued the label inside and the top on the sides. Exciting!