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We've all been there and can feel your pain. Lol! It looks really good. You did a good job. It gets so much easier from here on out.

Diane Kauffmds wrote: It gets so much easier from here on out.

Well, somewhat easier. Sometimes.

Thanks again to all of you for your encouragement and advice.

Next issue: with all the work I did on the neck heel/cheeks, the 14th fret now rests about 1/16" to 3/32" inside the neck to body joint. I have the fretboard held in place with two small brads, so it is easy to move, if needed. The problem is that I've already trimmed the end of the fretboard and moving it back will reveal the entire inner ring of the rosette, which I didn't want to do.

What do you advise for fretboard placement? Leave it where it is, or move it back to line up the 14th fret? What are pros and cons? Thanks!

If your picture shows the current state, I don't see a visual problem; the 14th lines up nicely with the herringbone and the end of FB looks good. Presumably your bridgeplate is wide enough to handle the 1/16" adjustment. From a player's perspective, the alignment is a de minimis issue.

Looks good as long as the bridge is on the bridge plate when properly placed. My guess is that it is.

If it doesn't cause any problems, I think I will leave the fretboard where it is. The 14th fret does line up exactly with the herringbone purfling and I like where the fretboard ends at the rosette. Leaving it there also avoids pushing the nut further onto the slant of the headstock.

I am attaching the drawing I am working from, which shows that I should have plenty of room for the adjustment to bridge placement. (I did build according to the drawing, right...?)

David,
I think you have a good plan of action and a nice-looking guitar, too.

-d.

I'd leave it alone. It looks perfectly okay where it is. There ought to be more than enough tolerance in the placement of the bridge to absorb a shift of 1/16".

The only thing I can think of that might conceivably be a problem is the shift of the 15th fret. In case you don't know about this trickery yet, if/when the time comes for a neck reset, one pulls the 15th fret and drills a small hole in the fret slot that (in theory) goes down into the cavity behind the end of the neck dovetail. One then inserts a hollow needle and injects steam to loosen the glue. That cavity isn't very wide, and depending on how the dovetail was cut a shift of 1/16" might be enough to no longer have it below the 15th fret. Even that eventuality is not likely to be a problem; one can just angle the drill slightly when drilling down through the fretboard and intersect the cavity.

So just leave it as-is.

I've reset so many necks I've lost count. I reset the neck on a Martin that had an amateur repair. It was so bad, that I had a hard time determining if it was a long or short scale. The 14th fret was well below the shoulders of the guitar, so much so, that I had to make a shim that was more than 1/4" tall, to pull the neck back up.

Even with a mistake that severe, I had no problem finding the joint to insert the needle, to pull the neck. In this case, I aimed a bit upward, instead of aiming a tiny bit down. I drill 2 holes in the fret slot when I do a reset.
You'll be fine. Your plan is fine. You've done great David.

MaineGeezer made a good point about the 15th fret alignment. I know about steaming the neck joint through the 15th fret slot for a reset, but it never would have occurred to me to think about that now. I checked and, sure enough, the 15th fret overhangs the neck block just slightly. So a went ahead and drilled two small holes in the neck block 3/4" inside each edge of the fretboard and slanted them into the mortise. So if I have to do a neck reset I already have holes going into the joint. (And I have a picture of it in my notes, because how would I remember that, otherwise?)

So now I've glued the truss rod in, filled the slot with Titebond, leveled it, and glued the fretboard to the neck. Finally making some progress.