While the benside is curing I go to work marking out the cuts to be made in the cheek and spine - the right and left sides of the harpsichord. These cut are critical to the true alignment of the case, and must be dead-accurate - the cheek has to be a precise mirror image of the spine. I use a router to cut the dovetail slots and wrestplank mortices. I have a love-hate relationship with my routers - they are noisy, extremely dangerous, have a life of their own, but they are also very efficient and good at what they do. So there you are.
 

Once the dovetails are cut and the mortices routed, I trim up everything with a very sharp chisel, making the corners square and trimming off bits of wood fibre left behind by the router's carbide bit. Then it is time to dry-fit everything, to see that it goes together as planned. Because the nameboard, belly rail, lower belly rail and wrestplank all fit in either sliding dovetails or mortices, I can assemble this end of the instrument without benefit of glue, so I can check its alignment and mark out all the other joints of the case walls.

Throughout this process - the milling, planning, cutting and joining, I have accounted for the characteristics of the wood. Since wood moves with changes in humidity and tension, I have to plan ahead, anticipating how the instrument will deform when it is strung up and out in the real world.
 

Once I am satisfied that everything is in order, I go ahead and glue the tail to the spine. This is a convenience, in that once I have completed the next step, eveything will be in place to fit the bentside. So having attached the tail to the spin, I go ahead and glue together the cheek, nameboard, wrestplank, and belly rails to the spine. The dovetails, including the keyed dovetail holding the belly rail in place, hang the case together while I apply pressure with clamps. Not too much pressure, because I don't want to starve the joint of adhesive.

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