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Snapped at heel. Fairly clean break. Was thinking of drilling small hole through fingerboard to create guide holes, add a dowel, and glue and clamp. Thoughts?

make sure you have the correct projection angle at the bridge. before gluing I would use white or fish glue for a long open time. Also making 4 1/16 in facets along the dowel will help. For added strength use a hdwd dowel maple and angle it 5 or 10 degrees . If you pin it through fb you will have to tint it black or, if from from the heel use shellac and fp to tint the maple dowel the same colour as the heel, that will hopefully match the maple neck ???

I found another way to do it. Essentially drilled a deep hole with a very small bit into fractured side of heel. Added some angle. Stuck bit into hole and used to mark fingerboard side of fracture. Drilled dowel, inserted, glued both sides and clamped.

I think finish cracks are unrepairable.

You’d think the makers of these instruments would add dowels to protect against this very obvious failure mode.

There is a loose dowel I the body rattling around. What is that?

It’s the sound post!!!
It probably fell over and needs to be reset, it should go to someone that knows about stringed instruments for that.

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Guess I need a sound post setting tool. Thoughts?

The tool is easy to improvise. Knowing exactly where to place the post is a bit more challenging.

You can use a piece of string to set the soundpost. For violins I took a set of babcock forceps and bent the ends at an angle.

For traditional violin setup there is a general area to start, but it takes an experienced and skilled hand to adjust the perfect spot for a soundpost. It's more than art, closer to voodoo.

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I'm not messing with it. I fixed neck, gonna repair finish. Let owner figure that part out. I don't have strings to apply pressure anyways. It would likely fall out of place again. From what I can tell, u want it below bridge.