Thanks Arumako for your comments. I am watching your progress on your Nardan No. 65 MIJ archtop and I look forward to seeing this lovely archtop sing again.
I am now working on the dovetail joint. I have chipped and scrapped all of the old hyde glue out of the joint and have begun the trial-and-error process of fitting the neck to the body. Once the joint was cleaned, and after the first slip-fit check, I noticed that the original factory fit was not very good. Because the fit is so loose, I had to glue a set of thin maple shims to the neck dovetail, in order to make up for age shrinkage or just a poor fit from the factory, nevertheless, the neck reset process is underway.
Also, shout-out and thanks to Steve DeRosa for his suggestion on the Kiesel Guitars truss rod cover plate. I placed an order this morning for a new TC1W style, white, 3-ply, plastic, Carvin style cover plate.