I spent some time cleaning up the body in preparation for joining the new top.

I cleaned the glue out of the dovetail mortise in the neck block. This was actually the first job I did. I used a heat gun to warm the glue, then an Xacto razor chisel to get under the glue to separate it from the underlying wood. In areas where it didn't matter, such as the shallow channel in the middle of the neck block, I just left the glue as it didn't hurt anything.

I also used the heat gun to soften the glue holding the remnants of the old top to the kerfed lining and top of the neck block. It was definitely a lot easier and faster to do this job with a heat gun rather than cold chiseling.

I removed all the old glue from the neck. I could have removed it from the sides of the dovetail, but the glue was filling a shallow groove, so I decided to just leave it in place rather than having to re-fill it again later on.

I still need to remove the glue remnants from the underside of the fret board extension.

Now that all the glue is removed I tested the fit of the neck to the body. Not bad.

It's fit is a little sloppy, but all in all it should work just fine. I'll fine-tune the fit as I go.

Wow! This guitar seems to be coming apart pretty cleanly. Definitely makes the retopping go easier. It's still a lot of work, but at least there's not more work on top of it. Pun intended.

I was able to joint the top in preparation for joining. I also rough cut all the brace stock.

I'm planning to join the tops for all four guitars at the same time so that I can take them down to the sanders and have them all thickness sanded together.

While each top is drying I'll be cutting out the braces.

Yep. It's just a molly, or more properly a rivet or jack nut.

https://www.mcmaster.com/#anchor-nuts/=16001lz

They come in a number of sizes, but I believe that Ovation uses the 6/32 thread size.

I worked the Joshua Bell concert tonight in Los Alamos. Here's a photo of him with his $5 million Stradivarius violin. He was nice enough to accommodate my request for a photo after his rehearsal.

He looked at me a little weird when I told him my bro rebuilt guitars and would love a photo of him with his Strad (Shhh! Don't tell Joshua I really just wanted a photo of his Strad).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell

Daren

Got the top rough cut. (first cutaway re-top) Sound hole is cut. All braces are made and being glued down. I'll pull the top off the gobar deck this afternoon, then work on the 1612 top.