Today was my second guitar making class at Woodcraft. I didn’t really know what we would be working on today but it turned out it was neck and fretboard glueup.
The first step was to route out the pocket on the top of the guitar top where the neck flange attaches to the top. This allowed us to test fit and fine tune the top shape of the guitar neck (making it flush with the top of the guitar). If necessary, this would have also been where we adjust the fit of the neck, it’s attach angel, and it’s centered/alignment. My fellow classmate had to make an adjustment here but my guitar parts fit quite well.
Next was shaping the top of the fretboard. The top of the fret board has a slight radius to it so we used a properly radius sanding block to get it shaped correctly. The bottom of the fretboard also had to be flattened. Flattening the bottom of the fretboard was easily the most unpleasant sanding I’ve done in quite a while. The fretboard is thin enough that holding it was difficult. I managed to sand off three small spots on various fingers. Ouch!
Once this work was done, we needed to de-oil the fretboard so that glue would work. The fretboard is a rosewood which is a very oily wood. This took a lot longer than I thought. Also the acetone was not good on my newly created injuries (see the sanding discussion). Double Ouch!
Lastly, I had to fit the truss rod and make it flush under the fretboard. This was quick work.
Now it was to the glue up. We test fitted everything one last time so that we could make small adjustments to the fretboard alignment giving us a good position with relation to the sound hole.
Here are the end results:
Here are a couple of quick shots of the shop classroom at Woodcraft in Seattle (nice set up):
Next week we are working on binding and purfling. I’m looking forward to it.
In the mean time, Eli (our teacher) gave us some thin wood samples in case we want to give the headstock a different look. I’m going to give this a go. Not only will I be giving this a laminant treatment but also I need to shape the headstock (it’s very rectangular right now). Eli also suggested that we try shaping our bridge a bit so I may try this too.
