Reinforcing back joints

Today I fitted cross-grain spruce reinforcements over the two back joins of a three piece back.  These are light weight and sanded to a smooth curve before fitting.

Here they are glued and clamped in the go-bar jig.  The spruce comes from soundboard off-cuts and is never long enough to cover the whole join. So each join is reinforce by two strips, one from the heel to the 4th brace, and the other a much shorter strip from the 4th brace to the tail. The join will be cut away to receive the brace, so even were that area visible through the sound hole, there would be no join to see.