You're welcome to leave comments for any of the posts (click on the little pencil icon at the end of a post), or contact me directly at tonysguitarblog@googlemail.com

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Day 2 is about the neck ...

This is where the day began - the fretboard slotted and glued to the neck, but no other work finished on it ... yet ...
A couple of hours later, and the marker dots have been glued in to the fretboard, the fretboard has been levelled (for the first of many times) and radiused. As you can see - 22 frets (and it's a 25" scale length). At this stage, the neck hasn't been shaped at all - it's still just a solid block.
But it won't be a solid block for too much longer. Here it's been marked to show where the initial shaping will aim for.
Last year, attacking my neck with a rasp was a fairly scary experience. This year it was less scary, but still seems to be inconsistent that a thing of such sensitivity (ie the back of the neck) is created from such brute force attack as ripping the wood to shreds with the rasp!

The photo angle doesn't show it too well, but after about an hour (quick!) the neck is starting to take shape ...
The cap is now glued together (getting that glue joint took a while too!), and just placed on the body to check for size, orientation and broad fit ...
And after dry clamping it full to check for any gaps between the body and the cap, the glue is applied (liberally) and the clamps re-applied - tightly.

By the time we start work in the morning, the cap and the body will be joined and ready for some attention with the bandsaw and a router ...

No comments: