First build: order of steps - finnish vs set up?

[jgillan3]

Hi yall. First of all I want to thank everyone so much for your input and help w all my posts. What a great community of people!

So....my neck angle is set, nut slot is cut, nut is shaped and ready to glue. What do i do next????

The stewmac instructions (building a OOO btw) say to finnish the guitar first. Then glue the neck, set the bridge, do the set up, etc.
However, I've seen and read in other places to glue the neck, set the bridge, mask them off and then finnish after.
It seems that finnishing the box would be esier w/o the bridge on.

thanks again to all you builders

Jim

[tippie53]

I do not set the necks until I have the finishing complete. At some point the neck may need to be reset so by finishing first you will have finish damage upon a reset. How you set the bridge area is critical as that will determine the intonation.
I rout my finish after the guitar is done and I know that some mask under the bridge. Both systems work just be sure to give yourself a little fudge room if you mask off before you set the neck.