Attaching The Neck and Assembling the Body

The body is now fully assembled, ready for frets, bridge and hardware. Then I'll string it up and see if it makes music.

The maple binding was bent and mitered ate the corners of the fingerboard. The black and white stripes need to match exactly.

I trimmed the neck heel with ebony/ maple/ ebony to contrast with the body binding.

The "guts."

I use a tapered dovetail neck-to-body joint. The excess neck heel will be trimmed off flush with the body block.

Design

I think I will use a "two-point" design for the Irish Fest mandolin. I think it will be a hybrid of the two pictured. I will use an oval sound-hole like the one on the left, but a 15-fret-to-body neck like the one on the right. The peg-head shape will be different from these as well.

Sketches

I started doing some sketches of inlay patterns. Since Kansas City is known as the "City Of Fountains," I would like to create a design that suggests a fountain, in a Celtic Knot type design. I created a template Adobe Illustrator that I will use when I start cutting the pearl for the inlays. I also experimented with the placement above and below my signature logo.
I also want to do something unique around the oval sound-hole using abalone inlays in an interwoven design.