Wow, a picture of the shop floor, how exciting is that! I have been shaping/carving the necks of this latest batch. I mostly use Alaskan yellow cedar for necks as it is light, stiff, domestic, and not endangered. (Not actually a cedar, really in the cypress family). It has a very distinctive cedar-like smell when cut (some say it smells like raw potatoes, but I disagree), so the whole workshop is perfumed with a very distinctive woodsy cedar-like scent as one works.
Carving necks I get out a wide variety of tools: rasps, files, spoke-shave,chisels, micro-plane, sandpaper.
Work away a bit and you get (basic, lots of finish sanding to come):
