The answer!

Firstly, congratulations to "Anonymous" who correctly guessed the mystery picture; a block for the Florentine cutaway for Roland’s guitar! So close Joe!

And here it is being glued in place.

It looks a bit crude at this stage, but trust me, I’m a luthier. More on this once the guitar’s rim has been completed.

Talking of rims, below is the completed rim for Roland’s mandolin. You can see the double thickness solid linings that I like to use and the two end blocks glued in place. Plywood is my prefered material for mandolin tail blocks;  you must use something that will not split when you screw the tailpiece on.

Here are the two dot and diamond rosettes with the sound holes cut-out.

And, as far as the mandolin is concerned, the story so far.

Just in case you were wondering; the new/old plane is performing extremely well- just used it for the final graduations of thickness on guitar’s soundboard.