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Diane, Thanks so much for your advice and your encouragement.

Would you recommend doing the scribe sanding now, followed by the elevation work, or vice versa?

David

If you're happy with the neck position, and all there is left is to make it conform to the shoulders, then scribe sand. Remember, it won't take much. Recheck your neck position often.

From what I saw of the joint, you won't have to do it but once or twice. That joint looked like it was laying on the shoulders nicely to me.

If it doesn't lay down quickly, make sure there's no material under the area that lays on the neck, holding it up. It may not be immediately apparent. Sometimes a slight slant happens as you work the joint, and the material gets slightly higher, toward the dovetail, holding the joint up a tad. You have to angle it so that there's a valley. I'll draw a photo to illustrate.

I know this is a funky drawing, but it illustrates what I mean about material holding that joint up. Check carefully. If you see something that can be holding the neck up a bit, like the left illustration, chisel or sand it out so it's like the picture on the right. The pictures are exaggerated, but you get the point.

Thanks, Diane. I will check that out.

I finally had some time to work on setting this neck. Work sure can get in the way of my guitar building...

I believe I have the angle, centering, and elevation where I need them to be. I am wondering if I need to do more scribe sanding to get the heel cheeks more flush with the body. Also, I can just barely slide a piece of paper under the very end of the heel and wonder if I need to do something about that.

Better for JH to respond, but for me, it looks like there is a bit of separation at the top and bottom with good contact between. First thing I would do is ascertain whether the sides at the cheek contact are perfectly flat -- if not the scribe sanding has to put a slight curve in the cheek-to-side contact (hard to do). The next is to chalk the cheek and scribe sand, checking constantly, to determine where the wood is coming off. If all is well, continue until the joint is tight along the full length of the cheek.

I see what Dan is seeing the cheeks are slightly curved so there is small gap at both the heel and fretboard side. If I use a sanding stick to adjust the cheeks I always get that result. I always thought the natural sanding motion combined with the friction of the sand paper naturally want to make a curve. When pushing forward the friction or the sandpaper forces you to move you weight forward rounding off the leading edge visa versa the other way.

Dan describes the fix and Diane describes that you need to watch out for the heel hanging up near the tenon as you flatten the heel.

It you use chalk to see where you are touching and you have a real sharp chisel, You can carefully take a shaving removing only chalked wood. Otherwise only sand off the chalk and then refit with chalk taking only a little off at a time.

If your dovetail is already tight, when you flatten the heel you will have loosened the joint and may need to shim once more.

Your joint is looking much better David. I would definitely chalk the top of the guitar, put the neck on, then you'll see what's happening in the joint, on top. Like John told you, take off just the chalk, by sanding or a sharp chisel. That should close up that joint.

Thanks to all for your ongoing help. I laid aside the less intimidating sanding block and used the chisel and got much better results. Also, chalking the joint was a great help.

After working on the heel, the neck elevation dropped slightly below the body. I need to shim the tenon, but because it is such a small amount, I was wondering if it would work to brush on a few coats of glue (fish glue?) to slightly build up the tenon. Would that be advisable or should I stick with gluing in thin mahogany?