The truss rod slot cut, and capped at the headstock. I've been using thin-wall, square steel tubes for all my mandolins for a good many years, with great success. Lightweight, solid and non-adjustable, they hold the neck dead straight forever.

The headstock shape, and fretboard tapers are drawn

I use a pinned mortise and tenon joint for the mandolins; one side of the neck is done on the table saw, as above, while the other side is done on the bandsaw. Each saw tilts opposite one another, so I get both cuts done safely and accurately.

After the joint end is done, the rest of the neck gets rough bandsawn

This one is Sam's

Back at the ranch..., the top is carved and ready for tone bars or, in thi8s case, X bracing. Oh yeah, by the way, I decided to do a oval soundhole and X bracing, so this mandolin will be a A-52 and not an A-5 

As seen opposite, I tape one end of the rough shaped brace, and now slide a piece of cloth backed sandpaper under it, and will pull it until the brace almost fits, then tape the other end, and repeat.

Once the brace fits nicely, I'll go up in grit sized to 320

Sweet! A "tight" X brace spread like this one acts more like tone bars and less like the old style oval mandolins with the single transverse brace. A wider spread would be closer to the traditional tone, but I'm going for some Bluegrass "bark" in this one.

The lap joint...

The top is placed in a snadbag, rubbed around until cradled perfectly.

Much cleaning up to do...

Because we can never have too many shots of the ever artistic go bar deck!

The top and sides are joined together using the same sandbag, and some shorter go bars.

Nice? Messy at this point, but nice!