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I've spent this weekend getting a headstart for them beginning on Monday!
First step was rough cutting my neck blanks, and then pattern routing them to shape - you can see the screw holes pre truss rod route that I use to attach the template. I used to do double sided tape but you cant beat the security and speed of screws, especially if they get entirely removed by the truss rod route.
Then on Saturday morning I took the chance to do my truss rod routes, I use a jig that holds my Festool track rail that allows me to run the router in the same way every time. The jig also holds this exact neck size the same way each time and clamps with a wedge
In the afternoon I planed and glued together my five 2 piece body blanks, I then rough cut them and had them ready to plane today (Sunday)
Sunday morning I cleaned up the blanks and put on my two roundover profiles, next step is to blend the transitions and finish sand the bodies before routing the cavities
Got the body cavities routed, sanded up and fitted the necks to the bodies. They are now wed together and have matching serials.
They are bolt on, but I get the fit nice enough that they hold thier position quite nicely
Got the bodies all drilled for bridges, jacks, strap buttons and ground cables
Then final sanded and then sprayed with a couple of coats of primer.
The primer I build coat on coat and then in the morning I'll flatten off each body with goldflex and apply the colour coats
Will let them sit for a day, then flat off and add the clear coats
Another good day today,
First order of business was getting the fretboards radiused, I cut the fret slots with my jig and template routed to rough size over the weekend.
I use radius blocks from StewMac - my most commonly used 12" being the alumnium version which is wonderful to use. It's safe to say that radiusing boards from flat is incredibly time consuming on tiring if you were to just use the sandpaper on the block - my choice is to rough radius it with my cabinet scraper. I've found the use of my normal low angle and standard angle planes I suffer from tearout with this Bolivian rosewood as the grain tends to run out onto the surface, so the most efficient way to deal with this is by using a scraper or in this case a cabinet scraper/scraper plane which attacks the surface as a much higher angle. The way these cut are by rolling a burr with a burnisher onto the blade rather than your typical bevelled edge.
Shavings off the scraper:
So once roughing in the radius with the scraper, I finalise the shape with the sanding block:
It's then a case of mating the fretboard to the neck blank, for alignment I use toothpicks that will be hidden in the fret slots. Some people use pins/brad nails but I would much rather it be a timber piece that I can saw through once I need to re-establish the fret slots
And then after carefully applying the glue I apply a few clamps
This time of year is great for glue ups if you want to work fast, means I can take the glue up out of clamps more quickly than in winter and get on with work, although I wont put any stress on a joint until the following day. I clean up the sides of the fretboard and flush it with a mixture of sanding blocks and scrapers. The last job of the day is to carefully mark out the nut slot width, saw to depth and restablish all fret slots.
I use a 1/8" japanese chisel I picked up some years ago as part of a job lot of old tools
You can see the cut down cocktail stick there, that does end up hidden under the fret but when it comes to a refret I think someone will see that thought was taken when making it,
Doing 4 of these in a day is solid work! Tomorrow comes inlays and frets being pressed in, I much prefer to press frets with an uncarved neck so I do that last.
First thing first was to get the markers laid out, I've tried all kind of ways doing this. Templates.. calipers etc but the way to get the best result every time (for me anyway) is to the the crosses, first do the two ends and then strike a centreline, then you can do diagonals on the other fret markers and everything lines up a treat.
The depth is then carefully set on the pillar drill and we go ahead and drill the lot. With wood thats liable to tear out to get the cleanest cut I make sure to set it at a fast speed and plunge at a slightly slower rate. Once that's done I go ahead and glue them in, I use the Starbond black superglue for this, it's really great especially with the whip tips from StewMac.
Once set, I then flush them up with the appropriate radius blocks
Now we transition back to my home workshop/set up bench for pressing in the frets away from the dusty chaos of my industrial unit. First step I have to bend the frets a hair more than they are supplied at for the 7.25" board, once that is done each fret is trimmed to length
It's then a case of easing the fret slots with a couple of strokes from a triangular/saw file, this makes the frets easier to pull out at refret time.
Then we move onto pressing the frets in. I first apply a small amount of glue with a cocktail stick to the fret tang, this is normal Titebond 1 and the idea is not so much to bond the fret and the board - but to take up any gaps in between the tangs to (supposedly) give you a more resonant join. They are then pressed in at my arbour press and the glue squeeze out is cleaned with a damp rag
Once that's done (it takes a fair ol while!) we have a stack of 4 necks. Some of you eagled eyed viewers will spot we are missing no5. Four of these are customers guitars and the fifth is actually a freebie going out to a certain person at some point - I basically had a fretboard I wasnt happy with for no5, so I'm prioritising the paying customers and will come back to no5 next week.
So now its a case of getting a cup of tea to give the glue a chance to sit for a little, then I trim all the ends flush with the board, use a file to get them roughly flat with it and then quickly just take the rough edges off to save shredding my hands before I do the real crown/dress/polish at the very end.
And there we have it, four necks ready to go back to the workshop to be carved, headstocks thicknessed and all the rest!
Also good stuff as always. Once again sorry for the extra work ha.
.... look at that ... the fret slots are just the right depth for the fret tangs!
Great precision work Elliot.
And thanks for taking the time to share the photos here. Looking good.