Starting my Martin Dreadnought Christmas present build...

[Darryl Young]

Is it a bolt-on neck or mortise and tenon?

[justrfb]

Hello John and Darryl.
Thanks for the answers and comments. I watched your neck setting videos with my son Willie and I think we are ready... I am getting chalk on the way home from work. Will be working on it this evening. As a matter of fact, we were recently on the Martin tour and I watched a woman (in amazement) set up a neck joint in two adjustments! In the time it took us to mosey on by her station (3-4 minutes) she had it done. Using a chisel too... Bang the neck on (1 hit), put the jig on, look, bang the neck off, swipe, swipe, chisel here, flip swipe, chisel there, re-insert neck, bang, jig on, look, bang, neck off, chisel swipe there, bang, neck on, jig on, look... done.
Darryl, I think it is both actually. it looks and acts like a dove tail (the way I am going with it) but the neck does have a heli-coil type insert and there is an indent on the neck block to drill a hole. Wish me luck and thanks again.

Sincerely,
Rich

[justrfb]

Hello All,
Here is a "tool" I made to press frets into the finger board with the use of my drill press. I got the idea from a tool on Stew Mac. I did a few frets on a practice fingerboard and it seems to work very well. What is your opinion, thought or experience... I am pressing "perfect" frets into a "perfect" "Richlite" finger board. The few I did seem "perfect"... Could I possibly end up with a "perfect" finger board with no need to level it? That would be nice huh?... Some how I don't think so though. The three I did seem to not need leveling, and it is just a practice board. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Rich

[Ben-Had]

No matter how good they look I always seem to need to level them. Nice tool btw.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Very good Rich. Make use of what you have, throw in some ingenuinty, and man can do anything.
Perfect? Well I hope so, but you probably should still plan to level as the fret wire itself is not perfectly the same.

Kevin

[justrfb]

Thanks Kevin and Tim.
You guys are correct... I moved onto the "real" fingerboard and put in maybe the first eight or so frets (starting at the guitar body end) and already, I can detect a high fret with the straight edge, "rocker" test. O-well, that is the difference between an idea and empirical data. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Rich

[justrfb]

Hello All.
Here are the pictures I promised (a day late, sorry...) in my "Binding" thread. Curly Maple binding I wet, slowly bent to form with tape, let dry overnight and glued in place the next day. Onto the top next. Thanks for all the help and interest.

Sincerely,
Rich

[johnnparchem]

It is looking great!

[justrfb]

Hello All.
Here are some shots of the finishing process... I am going straight Tru-Oil. A coat or two of the slurry method. Then just a few coats of Tru-Oil. I knock it down every coat or two with 0000 steel wool. I plan on going several to many more coats. I know it is not even close to what you guys do but I am pretty happy with it so far. Thanks for the help and support as usual and I will keep you posted.

Sincerely,
Rich

[johnnparchem]

Your guitar is really looking good. I would be very happy with it.