You can see two of the cracks and the chipped edge in this photo. The crack going down from the f-hole was bad, but the one down the middle joint was worse. Someone, 20 or 30 years ago, filled the original center crack with some kind of grey epoxy, which, of course, dripped all over the inside of the violin. It was like iron, and scraping it off took quite a bit of wood with it. The tape on the lower bout is holding on the chip that came off the side, just below it.
I didn't have to work hard to remove the neck. A little hot knife to break loose the last bit of glue and it popped out. The neck had a large crack through it too (visible in this photo), which ran the whole length of it and through the peghead. I actually wedged it open with several small Xacto blades, cleaned it out (it had been glued shut once before, but it didn't hold), injected glue (I use Titebond II), and clamped it. After refinishing, you could hardly tell there was any crack there at all.