The case is finished!

Well, except for decorative molding.  The final step was to mark the hitchpin rails and glue them into place.  The manual describes a rather silly (to me, at least) way of marking these rails by placing the blueprint over the pieces and then "feeling" them into proper position.  My word, not theirs.  I simply cut out the rails from the blueprint, thus creating a template to lay neatly and cleanly over the wood.  If Zuckermann were smart, they would include separate templates for this purpose.  It would cost them less than 10 cents.  I marked the rails with a pointed tool, 

and then I taped the cutouts back into the blueprint.  Actually, before I began the project, I went to our city hall and had them run a copy of the blueprint on one of their big machines designed to do just that.  Eventually, I hope to have enough money to have it professionally framed or mounted because it would make a cool piece of wall art.

Following the manual's directions, I took my #57 drill bit, a skinny little hair of a bit, and drilled through three of the holes in the bass hitchpin rail and six of the holes in the longer hitchpin rail.  I made up some padded 3/4" nails with the provided cardboard squares, two per nail, applied glue to the bass rail put it into place and used the padded nails to clamp the rail down.  I did the same with the long rail.  The manual didn't point out that one should not center the nails on the pads because the holes on the long rail are not centered. The cardboard will actually push the rail away from the spine, even if it hangs over as little as 1/64", so that little tidbit, as obvious as it may seem, is worth a mention. The holes in the long rail are so close to the spine, it's a real challenge to drive the nails in, even using a nail set to get your hammer above the rim of the case. Nevertheless, I gave it my best. Here is the result.

When the glue is dry, I'll cut off the cardboard, remove the nails and move to the next task which will be fitting the soundboard.