Okay, I skipped a few major steps here, but I promise to go back and document how we got to this point with the SFSF mandolin <lol>

This is Sam's J-5 having the tone bars glued in place. I use my go-bar deck, and the top is supported on a padded sandbag, which takes the shape of the carved top, and provides 100% support.

Again, many steps were skipped to get to this point, mostly because I didn't have to camera with me one evening.

Here's Sam's, beginning to really take shape.

The dark spots on the ribs is light scorching from the bending process; I had zero room for error with Sam's, because I barely had enough of the myrtle, and in fact, after bending all the pieces, only had a leftover that was a mere 1-1/2" long! So I had to heat up high in order to not risk a break; but the marks aren't deep, and will sand/scrape right out.

I scribble my name and date on all the tops.

I cut the soundholes with a simple knife; starting about 1/16" inside the lines...

..I'll then carefully refine until I reach the line itself.

Bingo!

All done; I do leave a bit of room to clean it up further right before finishing, so it will be a tad more refined than this when all is said and done.

Here she be; the bass-side soundhole appears larger; that may be because of the camera angle, or I may have messed up <lol> I'll check..

The neck begins with a large billet of maple. I'll true two side on the jointer...

..and lay out the neck's rough shape using a template.

Rough bandsawn and ready for the truss rod slot!. Note that I orient my mandolin necks "on the flat" instead of "on the quarter". This shows the figure better to then player, and provides a stronger glue surface for the fretboard. Besides, Lloyd Loar built his necks this way also!