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Today’s lesson learned came in the form of dots. Really small dots.
If you need 10 side dots, for goodness sake order more than 10! They are fiddly little buggers and you will drop some and you will not find them.
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I’m normally pretty good at that, but they kind of pinged and bounced off a tarp that’s over my bikes. 2mm abalone dots on a dusty garage floor not mixing well!
They are marginally more visible than black pearl, which can totally dissappear
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First I built a neck carving support out of a bit of leftover timber from my bench build. I wrapped a PVC pipe in sandpaper and used that to sand a concave radius into the top to support the fretboard, then covered it in cork. The cutouts are to enable me to get calibers in at the 1st, 6th and 12th frets to check the depth. I drilled a couple of holes at each end to enable clamping and used another offset with a dowel in to create a riser for the headstock support which can be moved to either end in case I want to rotate the neck. (easier then moving the whole jig around).
Then I made a couple of templates. I printed them off the internet, cut them out and drew round them onto MDF before cutting them out on the bandsaw and then using the spindle sander to finish them off. I then put some water thin CA glue to harden the edges and prevent fraying.
You may also notice todays lesson in picture 3... Apparently I drilled my fretboard locating hole too deep Luckily I used a wooden stick to locate it, so now it just looks like a knot or a birthmark! It shall serve as a reminder.
Actually starting to think I might pull this off. Lots still to do and plenty to go wrong, but this almost looks like a thing:
The nut end looks like it's got a similar flat spot that could do with rounding out.
The transitions are always the hardest to perfect and get flowing right.
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I wasn't sure how far to push it. The template had some lines roughly following that triangle that I assumed was supposed to be flat. Going to have a look at a couple of my guitars too to try and see how their transitions are.
These days I always do neck carves in a couple of sessions as there is always something to smooth out
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Starting to think about the fretwork now. A couple of questions if I may.
1. I have a few options on tools. I have a 6" fret levelling file, a 1" x 3" x 18" (I think) aluminium section that I could use as a sanding beam or I could use the 18" radius beam that I did the fretboard with. Any advice on the best approach to try for a beginner?
2. Should I glue the frets in or just hammer them in? (also, is it worth radiusing a piece of wood and practicing putting in a couple of frets, or is it fairly straight forward with little to go wrong?)
3. Deepening fret slots. Should I cut them flat to a set depth, or try to match the radius of the board?
With an unbound neck I would hammer in the frets dry then wick some super glue in the ends to fill the cavity under the slot and the ends of the slot.
Decided to go with the file for the levelling, then used a sanding beam for fallaway. Tried a couple of ways to crown the frets, but I didn't really like the type that does both sides at the same time. Didn't feel as controlled and couldn't see what I was doing. Ended up using a triangular fret crowning file and found that much better.
Certainly a learning curve. Probably ended up taking a little more off than I would have with more experience but they were tall frets anyway and all seems level and smooth so fingers crossed for when it's all strung up! I also think I may have overdone the bevel slightly in places - hopefully not enough to cause a problem.
you’ll probably find yourself making lots of tweaks like that anyway once its strung up and you can play it for a while and see how it feels - I certainly did on my first few builds. Its great to be able
to make these adjustments and finesse the playability - you learn an awful lot about what makes a guitar play well.
The top pic of the full neck is before I did the levelling and fret end dressing. Only the last picture is after the whole process. I wasn't 100% on the best order so I did:
- Frets in
- Beveled the ends, then realised I needed to flatten the little bits of tang that were proud that the bevel wouldn't touch, so did that and ran over the bevel again.
- Leveled the tops
- Crowned
- Dressed the ends.