1st Build-OM from scratch and my workbench

[Talladam]

Time for an update.

I measured three times and cut the taper on the fretboard. Did the rough cut on the bandsaw and handplaned down to about 1/32 bigger than my with on each side. Had a look at my abalone position dots and realized I didn't have the correct drill bit. Luckily there is a Lee Valley in Calgary, but it is 40 mins away so that kills an afternoon just to go down there. I bought a really nice 5mm brad point. As a bonus with some Christmas cash I got a 400 grit Atoma diamond plate and a 1000 grit Sigma water stone. Finally I have an reasonably complete sharpening system. I can raise a burr way faster now with the new stone, and my stones are actually flat. I think I adjusted my drill press 30 times before I got the depth set just right for the dots. They went in no problem though and look great. I drilled holes but didn't glue in the two twelfth fret dots thinking that I still need to radius the board and I didn't want to sand through half my dots. As I sand the radius in I plan to make sure I don't totally lose the position of my dots, and I will just make them a little deeper and install them after.

I decided to glue the fretboard on and shape the neck before radiusing the board. I'm thinking that I will try to get the board as straight as possible during the radiusing, so it might be best to do that after the neck is mostly in final shape. I decided to just glue the board where it was supposed to go and not worry about the 14th fret not lining up perfectly with the body (see my previous post). After a little thought I decided to use toothpicks as locator pins for the board while gluing. I drilled one tiny hole through the first fret slot and another within one of the empty 12 fret dot holes while the board was clamped in the perfect place. Then I took the board off and made the hole a bit bigger from the back side so it would fit the toothpick. Worked awesome, but some glue seeped up into the first fret slot so I will get to clean that out. I made a fretboard gluing caul out of a piece of scrap 3/4" maple after making it as straight as possible. I scraped the tiniest hollow in the middle of the caul so it would for sure hold the sides tight. I used titebond for the board glueup and didn't notice that the neck bowed at all.

Upon checking the fit of the neck with the board on, I find that #1: there is actually a little gap at the heel end of the fretboard extension, #2: somehow the fretboard hits the top before the dovetail gets totally tight, and #3: the neck angle still seems pretty dead on. I'm going to leave all this until some other steps are done, but I think I will eventually glue little shims on the sides of the dovetail, and maybe try to make a tiny little rosewood wedge to fill the gap. Seems like an easy(ish) fix, but so far I have really struggled with the neck joint.

I cut up a piece of construction lumber and made a piece to clamp my neck to for shaping. I decided to get out the practice neck to figure out the neck shaping. I followed Cumpiano's method except mostly found my rasps more useful (one of them is the fancy chisel toothed one from Lee Valley) than the chisels. The practice heel turned out so nice that I wished I hadn't bothered with the practice neck. The real neck went smooth too though, probably even better. I printed out some martin D28A neck profiles and figured out some facets for the neck shaft. Here is where I am happy I did the practice neck. The neck should be close to the final thickness before the facets work the way they're supposed to, which I learned in the process of carving the practice neck. I think I am happy with the way the neck shaping went. At the moment it still is a bit thick; my current acoustic has a little small c shaped neck and the martin shape is a pretty deep V. It feels great in my big hands, but I wonder if I'll get tired of it when I play it a bit. For now I'm leaving it.

I glued on the headstock veneer (rosewood) and shaped the curve where the headstock meets the neck shaft. I should have done this before shaping the neck shaft because now I have a weird lumpy transition that will be tricky to get looking even. I also glued on the heel cap which is from a piece of mammoth ivory that I picked up in the Yukon a couple years ago. Looks really nice, but I guess I won't be taking this thing across any borders.

Next step is to smooth the transition between the neck and headstock, and then radius the fretboard. I was going to use a handplane and then a radius block, but I am thinking of chickening out and just using the block.

[Talladam]

A few more pics

[MaineGeezer]

Looking good. No need to apologize for the shims and filler wedge. I don't know how one could manage withuut them. I suppose it's possible to make the dovetail exactly correct, but I've never ben able to. Getting aal aspects of the neck joint to converge is a challenge. It is easy to end up chasing your tail.

[tippie53]

nice and neat
your doing well

[ruby@magpage.com]

Looks great - appears as though you solved the wedge problem under the fretboard extension - how did you do that?

Ed

[Talladam]

Hi Ed,

It’s not fixed yet, the picture just doesn’t show it and it’s fairly small.

[Talladam]

I finished the rough shaping of the neck. I successfully smoothed the transition between the neck and headstock. It still needs a final bit of work, but I'm going to leave it for now. The neck feels a little chunky still, but I'm not sure exactly where I will leave it. I feel like I need the board to be radiused before I can really imagine what it would be like to play. A couple weekends ago I got to play a 1939 D18 that I think had about the same profile as the one I have been working towards. I only was able to play for 5 mins or so, but I think I liked the shape.

I made a weird piece to support the neck while I radiused the fretboard. I read somewhere where someone radiused a board with no support under the fretboard where it extends over the body and ended up with a ski jump where the board was unsupported. This piece is a little ugly, but does the job. I attached the neck with tape and superglue. I have a 15' radius block (the 8" one that Diane warned me was more of a pain to use) from Stewmac. I put a layer of tape down and then used spray adhesive to attach 80 grit paper. I clamped down a level to run the block against to keep eveything even. Just the sandpaper seemed to be doing a controllable job of radiusing the board, so I didn't bother with a handplane. What's another 30 minutes when you've been working on a guitar for 3 or 4 years? I was worried that the sanding would be less even than a plane, but I kept checking with a straightedge and it seemed fine. The part closest to the body sanded slower, but that makes sense since I was sanding more wood at that end. I got the board totally radiused, but one of my dots was just below the surface of the rosewood. Too small a difference to see, but enough to feel. I was amazed at how long it took to get down that tiny amount. Maybe about 15 mins to remove something like 1/64 of wood. Maybe the sandpaper was dull.

Next task is to drill the 12th position dot holes a bit deeper and install them. Then I will sand them down level and use a leveling beam to make the board as straight as I can lengthwise. Also, the 80 grit left some serious scratches that need smoothed.

I would like to ease the fretboard edges so that I can really get the feel of the neck as it compares to the guitars I own,but I'm guessing this is best done after the frets are installed? The little round edge would limit how far I could get the fret towards the edge of the board.

[Talladam]

I need to level the fretboard. Right now, my fretboard is cylindrical. Should I level the board following the string paths (which would create an ever so slightly compound radius) or continue to try to maintain a cylinder? I'm wondering if I should be sanding in line with the shape of the fretboard, or in parallel with the centerline of the neck?

[carld05]

After radiising to 20", I sand in line with the string paths when leveling. Maybe others do it differently.

[Diane Kauffmds]

Sand whichever way you want your radius. I level the board twice, once after radiusing before cutting to shape. I level it one more time after shaping it, just before fretting, just to ensure it's truly flat.

I sand along the grainline to level it after radiusing. After it's in its final shape, I level, for the most, part along the string path. I make sure I maintain my initial radius both times.

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