Friday, October 31, 2008

Fretboard glued, neck shaped

The last few days have seen a flurry of activity on the neck of my guitar. I took the leap Wednesday night and glued the fretboard onto the neck.

The problem is that, even though it was pinned in two spots, the nut end shifted just a bit. If you look at the below picture, you can see the center line on the fretboard is not lined up with the center of the truss rod slot.

My best measurements suggest it is off by 20-30 mils. I spoke with a friend of mine who is a luthier, he said it wasn't really that big of a deal, the neck can be shaved appropriately and the it won't affect anything.
So I then began to sculpt the neck... since it is oversized with respect to the fretboard. I used a large chisel right next to the fretboard to pare the neck down next to the fretboard. Then I used a scraper to shape the two together... this worked well.
Next, I began to shape the back of the neck. There was a lot of extra material that came with the precarved neck... especially where the headstock meets the neck. I used a large chisel to carefully remove the bulk of the material and then sand it to a smooth finish.


The rough carving is almost done. Getting it exactly symmetric is almost impossible. Probably should take a bit more off the back left side, and the front left side. I can see why Martin choose a square shape... this curvy Taylor-like shape is more difficult to perfect.

Next I will install the frets. After that, I can begin the fine sanding, pore filling and application of the oil finish.

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