Around 30 inches in.

The handle.

Here's the rig I created for braiding the overlay. I had an old thick piece of wood that I actually got for the purpose of being an electric guitar body (that's what it was made for), but I never got around to it. So I drilled a hole in the end, screwed the hook in, and c-clamped it to a box.

Here are the overlay strands stretched, cut to size, and paired...

...and here they are greased and ready to go:

Comparison of the thinnest end pre and post stretched, cut down to size and paired.

And...the final overlay strands cut out. (Note, there are only 11...the far right one is twice as long).

First strand for the overlay cut out...well...technically first two. I cut my strands out for the overlay one at a time (rather than having them all connected like in the bellies), but one strand is double length and goes past the end so as to have an easy way to hang from the hook whilst plaiting. So this strand is 26' in length. It is thicker (throughout) than the final strand will be because it will need to be stretched and paired still. I won't blog every strand as I complete them.