I'm just concerned about breaking the bones when I mangle the fabric to do the eyelets. Often I try to do eyelets before assembling or even boning the stays, but with an outer fabric that is applied to the outside of the stays, I don't see any way around putting the eyelets in after the boning. Is breakage not really a concern?

Thanks for the tips on getting a broken bone out. I've boned one back and one front and only broken one bone off, but I'm not anything like half-finished so who knows what it yet to happen. And there are a lot of short bones on the front and back but lots of long ones on the sides. I've bent several too.