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well, i got some work done since this morning. i made and attached the dowel, finished cleaning, leveling, and fashioning sound holes in the gourd, and i managed to put it all together. i mussed up the break angle on the neck somewhat, so had to surgically graft on a shim to one of the dowel holes in the gourd. the piece of gourd shell that i grafted on is very nicely matched, but even so, it will end up covered. one of the more challenging aspects of building a gourd banjo is getting all the geometry right with respect to setting the neck. its much harder than the same process on a banjo with a hoop-shaped pot, as the gourd is completely irregular. thus, you have to calculate everything based on three separate axes, which can be quite difficult, especially for someone as impatient as myself. in any event, here's the product of todays work: