Prepping the rims for the top

[Super72bb]

Greetings all,

I have purchased an HD 28 Martin kit from BCG and have started the build. I have the neck and tail blocks in and the kerfed linings complete. I am about to true up the rims for the back and top. I have read a great deal on the subject of neck geometry and watched A number of tutorial videos. I am afraid that I am falling victim to information overload on what possibly could be a pretty straightforward process. I am certain that setting up the neck geometry has been covered in detail on forum already. Is there anyone that may be able to direct me to some step by step I nformation on the subject? I am finding a few variations in technique and I don't want to mix processes on this critical step.

Thanks in advance.

Curti

[tippie53]

here we have a selection of videos on you tube just for kit building
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... itars+kits
Keep it simple. We are here to help and I back each kit . Take your time and look at what your doing. It is hard in that you don't know what you don't know till you know it so we are here to help
feel free to ask all the questions you need and post pictures when you need.

I want you to look at these 2 videos it may help get you to understand the big picture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXfyVb3L3G0
this one for showing how to work the neck joint
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNcbA1P95KE

[Diane Kauffmds]

I did the same thing when I built my first guitar. You definitely end up information overloaded. John's videos are the best. I still reference his videos, just to make sure I'm doing it right.

[Super72bb]

Thanks John,

I have watched the videos in detail, a few times now. From what I have been reading and can pull from the video is that we are looking for approximately a 1.5 degree rise of the top from the neck block to the bridge. My gut feel is to simply us a 28 ft radius and leave it at that. On the contrary, I have read that the top will be radiused with the bracing anyway. Therefore the rim should be prepped flat. The bracing radius should set the right angle for a nice straight fretboard.

On the othe hand I have watched your prepping the rims video and if I have it right... you start with the 28ft dish and when you have the rim true all around, I think you switch to the flat dish to flatten from the top of the sound hole to the bridge.

I do have a 28' radius dish. Can you suggest the best combination of actions and let me know how to check that we have the final profile for the top?

Thanks,

Curtis

[Super72bb]

Could use some advice on this. I trued the back rim up with a 15' radius, it turned out well. I have a nice surface on all the kerfing as well as both blocks.

I used John Halls method for the top rim preparation. First I flattened the top rim with a straight / flat disk and then marked the rim with chalk and hit it with a 28' radius dish. As you can see in the photo, the chalk was removed from the neck block to approximately where the top side of the sound hole is. The lower half from the tail block to the bridge also ended up with a slight arc to it. Is this going to give a nice angle for the neck set? When I push down on the neck block with the top side down on a flat surface, the tail block is about a 1/4 off the bench. In fact a 1/4" bit fits nicely under the tail block when I do.

Thanks in advance.

Curtis.

[tippie53]

perfect you are right where you want to be. When you go to do your initial set up you can true that fret plane perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXfyVb3L3G0

[Super72bb]

Fantastic, thanks John. I guess this means it's time for Bracing the top and back.

[Diane Kauffmds]

Good job! I think you're doing better than I did on my first build.