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.

Freboard profiled and located

I marked the width of the fretboard at the nut (1.75") and the 14" fret (2.25") with respect to the center line, and then drew a straight line all the way to the end. Then I cut just outside this line with the band saw. To smooth the edge, I first tried my plane:

This kinda worked, but I did get some tear-out. Given that it is ebony, I think the cutting angle needed to be steeper than 45º. But I don't have another iron to setup for this. So I sanded a bit, but ultimately used a scraper... this worked well.
Next, I put the fretboard on the neck and located it precisely. Then I drilled two holes with a 1 gauge (0.040") drill bit through the fretboard and through about 1/4" into the neck. These locating holes will be used for further neck work and gluing. It actually works well to then use 0.8mm (0.032") drill bits as temporary nails:

The neck is slightly over-sized... about 0.025" per side, it is also a bit too thick. I will have to file it down and shape it appropriately before sanding it to the proper finish.

Starting to take shape

Hey, it kinda looks like a guitar. I fit the neck up for the first time since before the bindings were on to check the angle. It isn't perfect, but it is close. I should be able to tweak it a bit by leveling the top of the top where it meets the neck (it is slightly curved right now), and possibly by additional sanding in the neck tenon area. In the end though, I would rather the neck angle be a little much (as opposed to shallow) and then just file down the frets near the body a bit more than the main ones that are used.
I sure like the look of the maple bindings next to the herringbone purfling:)

Drilling Dots

I have put aside the body for a while to begin work on the neck. First thing is to drill the dots on the top of the fretboard:

I used a 1/4" Forstner bit, worked out great with this small drill press.

Nothing is glued in yet, probably just use CA glue.

The exact order varies from person to person, but I think this is how I will do it:
1) Drill/glue top dots.
2) Cut/profile ends
3) Install truss rod into neck.
4) Glue fretboard on neck.
5) Cut excess off sides.
6) Sand/shape sides of fretboard to neck. Check dimensions: 1.75" at nut, 2.25" at 14th fret.
7) Install side dots.
8) Install frets.
9) Attach to body.

Veritas Block Plane

I got a new toy last week, paid for with my lawn-mowing money. The Veritas Standard Block Plane, sold exclusively from Lee Valley. This thing is a Cadillac compared to my Stanley Low Angle Block Plane. It is considerably wider, the sole measuring 2" wide... compared to 1-3/8" wide for the Stanley and Lie Nielsen. When I first got my Stanley it took me hours to get the sole flat... of course I didn't know what I was doing, but it had to have been out of flat by about 5 mils. The Veritas was very close to dead flat right out of the box. I marked up the sole with a magic marker and then took a few strokes on a granite table with sand paper... 99% of the marker was gone. If I got it in just the right light I could barely see a slight hollowing out in the middle, about 2" diameter. So about 5 minutes on 220 grit and it was gone... finished it off with 400 grit and called it good. Point being it had to have been within a few tenths of a mil of dead flat to begin with.

But beyond the sole, this thing is truely a wonderful design. The blade adjustment mechanism is so fine. It even has a set screw on each side of the blade at the mouth for fine lateral adjustment. I decided to go look at the Lie Nielsen just for kicks to compare. They are very similar, but the Veritas does seem to be a higher quality case/machining job. The blade mechanism is similar, but it doesn't have the set screws at the mouth. I haven't used the Lie so it may work just as well, but my impression is the the Veritas will be better.

Scraping the bindings

Scraping is a new skill for me. I had some scrapers made for me by a friend of different thickness SS. The trick is that I really don't know how to sharpen them very well. Some of them were sharp just from the shearing process... some weren't. Eventually I'll need to figure out how to sharpen them.
For now, I managed to figure out how to use them to scrape the bindings. It took me a while... and had to put a lot of elbow grease in on it. But it turned out well.




The box is built. Now I can begin the tedious process of sanding, pore filling, sanding, and finishing, sanding, finishing... and lots of other steps in between.

Top binding

This weekend, I glued on the front binding. It went pretty well.