I have not had much that was new and exciting going on in the shop for a while, just making more rims, putting together another stock model banjo (#28 under the Banjos link) and working on a custom neck.  I made a little progress on the walnut guitar early in the month but that has gotten moved to the back burner again.  This week I put a fairly traditional 3 layer ebony/maple/ebony backstrap on the peghead area of the custom neck I am working on.  This was a new thing to me.  I used to put a veneer on the back of pegheads but I never ran it up the neck and never did three layers before.  I glued all three layers at once.  I put glue on each layer and on the neck, plastic over the veneer, 1/4″ cork over the plastic and then a shaped caul that matched the curve of the peghead/neck transition as closely as possible.  I didn’t get any major glue bubbles, which was a nice surprise.  I think the cork helped spread the clamping pressure evenly.  The neck is a V profile so the backstrap portion is narrower than usual.  It still needs final sanding and straightening.  I’m finally learning to do inlay and will write about that soon.