Fretboard Radiusing

Usually, fretboard radiusing is done using a shaped radiusing block, a lot of sandpaper, and a lot of effort.  It can easily take an hour or more to work on an unshaped fretboard blank.

A couple of months ago, I bought a router bit which had been designed specifically for fretboard radiusing:

The bit actually came from a workshop in Vietnam!  After 90 mins of using it in the router table, I had 10 nicely radiused fretboards ...

Now I just need to make 10 necks to glue the fretboards to!

The truss rod slot

For me, building guitars is a great learning process, challenging, frustrating and satisfying in almost equal measure.

Yesterday was particularly satisfying ... there's something inexplicably pleasing about cutting a nice neat channel in a piece of wood.

Three necks, ready for truss rod insertions. From the left, that's mahogany, maple and a walnut/maple/walnut laminate.
See a perfect fit ...

Just need to get some silicone sealant to run inside the channel to stop any vibration/rattle, though I don't think that there's actually enough room in the slot for the truss rod to vibrate!
Almost seems a shame to cover that truss rod slot with a fretboard, but I think it might help playability if I do add the fretboard.

A new neck

A few weeks ago, I built a "quick Tele". It was quick partly because I used a pre-built (Warmoth) neck that I'd bought second hand. It's a great little neck. Or rather, a great *huge* neck. It was a monster, and became uncomfortable to play pretty quickly.


Notice the lack of any shaping between the heel and the head of the neck.

Warmoth necks are not cheap, and this was a particularly not-cheap Warmoth neck. A nice (and large) chunk of birdseye maple with a rosewood board. But, being not-cheap didn't make it any more comfortable, so I decided to attack it with the rasps ...


I'm always just a little "conscious" that there's a truss rod channel somewhere in there, and if I cut through to it, then the neck is ruined.
But I took 3.5mm off the thickness, reducing it from 25mm to 21.5mm along the length of the neck. and carving the transition between neck and headstock to give it some more feel.
The fret-rocker came in useful for making sure that the back of the neck was straight, and that my rasping didn't leave any bumps or dents in the profile. Got that right, and then out with the sandpaper, followed by some more sandpaper, and finishing off with some more sandpaper.
It actually needs quite a bit more time of sanding, oiling and sanding and oiling (etc), but it's starting to look - and feel - a whole lot better ...
I'm qQuite pleased with that for a morning's work

Necks

Right ... think I'll make me some neck blanks ...



Reading left to right, that's 3x sycamore, 4x sapele/mahogany, 2x walnut, 1x maple. That's a thick piece of maple too.

The plan is to make up some laminated 3 piece neck blanks ... sycamore-walnut-sycamore, sapele-maple-sapele ... that sort of thing. If I get really adventurous, I may try adding some veneer layers between the main pieces of wood too ... but I'll concentrate on getting the basic blanks right first.

Should yield me 40-odd blanks with some careful cutting, thicknessing and planing.

Will also yield me enough wood shavings to keep the wood fire going for a few nights.

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 ...