A pair

[B. Howard]

Sorry it's been a while, been really busy here and didn't have time to post anything but I have a few minutes here so..... After filling in any small gaps and such the entire body is sanded, 120 on the open woods and 180 on the soft woods.

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One issue that is addressed at this stage is to create a flat landing for the fretboard extension at the proper angle. My bracing scheme takes care of the basic geometry but the surface always flexes a bit when the braces are glued on and needs trued up. First I check it with my long straight edge too see what I need to do. The end of the straight edge rests on a drill bit of the proper size taped in place at the saddle location.

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With a strong back light I managed to get a pic of what needs flattened out.

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[B. Howard]

Some careful work with my small plane and large sanding blocks and now I have a flat surace at the correct angle for my FB to glue to.

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I am also working on the necks at the same time. First I need to sand my FB's. I stick them to my big piece of plate glass and use my sanding beams to sand the surfaces up to 600 grit.

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I also need to rout off my face plates flush with the headstock, well almost flush...First thing I do is wrap some heavy masking tape around the headstock. this will keep the pilot bearing on my bit from burning or making a groove in the edge of my work.

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[B. Howard]

I trim it back to within 1/8" on the band saw and then run my router around, always minding the grain and making climb cuts as needed. You can see the mark the bearing left in the tape.

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But the Mahogany is barely marred. This does however leave the face plate about .008" proud but that will be easy work for a sharp scraper.

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[Tarhead]

Thanks Brian! You are mighty generous. Really great ideas. Sorry about the hand/finger issue. I have a similar issue d/t a neck injury. When I get down about it I remember what Django Reinhardt did with two good fingers.

[B. Howard]

These two have moved into finish so I have some time to bring you up to date.

The next thing I do is cut the dovetails for my necks. Again all my fixtures are shop made and a bit rough around the edges but completely functional. I use a sliding bevel to capture the neck mating angle on each body and trim the heel of the neck to that angle. I can then mount the body and neck in their respective fixtures. Here is the body.

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And here is the neck.

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This is done with two routers set up with collars. The first is a straight cut bit and is used to waste out the bulk of the material. The second is set up to cut the dovetail.

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[B. Howard]

Again I do not try and do this in one pass with the tool, I take three lifts with the straight cut to do most of the stock removal.

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The neck is done the same. Notice that this leaves a rather ragged surface but that's ok the next bit will clean it all up.

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nice and clean, ready to fit up.

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[B. Howard]

Before I can fit my necks I need to get the heels roughed out so that I am working the cheeks at the proper location where it will meet the body when finished.

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The initial cut was done with another family heirloom, this saw has been in my family for 100 years or so.

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[B. Howard]

OK, some type of glitch with the photo's in the last post. I tried to fix it but no go so we move on.....

The heel was paired back to my line with a chisel and now can be fit to the body by flossing and keeping a close eye on my angles. This is a strip of an old sanding belt with some packing tape on the back to help prevent cross grain scratches on the body.

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Here we have it. My neck is fit true to center and at the proper angle for my bridge. It will need fine tuned after finishing but that should be rather minimal.

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Now I can glue on my fretboards. The first thing I do is lube my truss rods and set them in the channel with some duco at the end blocks. I then run a strip of tape over the rod to keep the glue back from the edges of the channel and limiting the possibility of a froze rod.

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[B. Howard]

Rosewoods are oily woods and can pose problems when gluing. The simplest way I have found to deal with this is to simply clean the oils off directly prior to gluing. Most tree resins, sap and oils are readily dissolved in DA so I just give it a good scrub. Look at all this oil I pulled up off that surface that was freshly planed just a few weeks ago.

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A fine coat of glue is applied and then the tape over the truss rod pulled and the board glued in place.

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Now we can start carving the necks. I start by carving in landings at the 1st and 10th frets with rasps and files. these are matched to the proper template for the neck I am working on.

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[B. Howard]

Here is the neck with both the landings cut in. this will determine the shape of the shaft so getting the landings shaped accurately is a prime concern.

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Now I use my spoke shave to connect the two landings, working in the direction that the grain desires.

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Here it is with the shaft roughed out. This will be refined with a file and sandpaper a little later.

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