Knob and jack cavities done.

I did all the routing today. Planning was the most work. Router bits with bearings are a life saver. I chose to place the volume knob on the upper bout. Once I drilled the 5/16" hole, I made sure to off-set the cavity so it would fit right. (Right pic). I made a plywood jig about 3/4" bigger than the back cavity as a guide for the platic cover that will be used. Most of the guides are 1/4" acrylic/Lexan pieces. I have to make those. The only thing is, when you cut them, they tend to melt and cleaning them up is a chore. They guide the bearings nicely. The front will have the Strat style jack below the bridge.

Back reinforcement sample.

I finished with the back reinforcement and sanded it to see what it will look like. I rubbed some naptha on it with a towel and I was happy with the look. Maybe I"ll go with a clear finish, now that I like it.

Fixing cracks, but that's not the real issue today.

The crack I had on the slot base caused me to take some measures so as not to further encourage splits. I routed and glued in some scrap pieces of neck stock to secure the body. Just like the back of acoustics, where they have back reinforcment strips. I think it is the humidity playing with the wood too. Right now it's close to the low 20's. It's been a bit high before that. This weather got me thinking about certain things...this humidity and winds we're having just east of me. Yesterday, four firemen were killed and one burned in critical condition, close to Palm Springs. Their fire engine was overrun by heavy fire fueled by strong winds. They had no way to escape. And I think about this guitar, and having to deal with cracks and splits in the wood. Somewhere, about 60 miles east of my house, five families wished all they had to worry about were splits in wood. God bless them.

Neck slot and test fit crack

Today I finally finished the neck slot. It was a bit deep, so I took more off the neck back. Just about 1/16." As I was wedging the neck toward the neck side, to test the limit of the neck fit, I heard a crack and found a 3" crack along the back side where the wood is the thinnest. I don't think making the back-slot thicker would've helped much. It's been really dry the last week here so that might've helped with the cracking. No worries! I flexed the crack and forced in Titebond and clamped it. I think I will go with a cross member on the back to reinforce the thinness of the neck slot. This will be good, as I can use the can of Sea Foam green I have. See, it all works out just fine. I am learning a lot from this unusual build. That's the differenc between assembling a guitar and building a guitar. The next step is gluing in the neck.

Neck slot routing bigins.

I started the route for the neck. The black marker line on the guide was where I had to stop routing and reset the guide as the taper ended there. The neck was to have a taper the whole way, but I took too much of the side when I was sanding it, remember? Little did I know that it would have consequences later on. Once I get the shallow cut, edged just right, I will then route all the way with a bearing-guided bit. If there is any gap, I will inlay it with paper-thin colored shims.

Neck taper for body slot.

Finally had the guts to make a cut. "Measure twice, cut once."
I measured more than that. Once you make this cut, it stays cut.
I put the bridge and studs next to the neck and guess-timated about a 4/32" string spacing at the 20th fret. That's what my Taylor has, and it is about as low as you want to go without buzz.
With a bridge space of 9/32" and a total bridge height of 18/32,"
I took 5/32" off the top to measure line for the bottom cut.
Band sawed the bottom cut and sanded the rest just up to the bottom line. 1-1/4" is the width of the piece. Better to be a little low with the bridge and adjust up, than to be too high and having to cut more wood out of the bridge area. This was a brain twister for me to figure out. You can always build up the bridge area with nice inlaid wood, like ebony, or remove some too. Let's see how my calculations worked.

Finally fretted it.

Got to fretting today of the mahogany guitar I unoffcially titled "Abie," for my uncle Abraham, who gave me the piece of mahogany some 25 years ago. The piece of wood that has the numbers, held the frets while I fretted. Because I had prepared the frets for each fret slot, I had to keep them organized. It is so easy to mix things up. There's too much thinking going on to keep those things organized. For non-bound fretboards, that really isn't needed. I used a 25-lb. sack of buck shot under the neck. (About $12. at a gun store). That really absorbes lots of the shock from fretting. I was to use my drill press to press the frets in, but I forgot and resorted to my habit of hammering them in. I used a touch of Titebond on the fret tang tips, to give them a little more grab in the slot. That will be easy to remove with some heat, if I need to remove a fret.

Binding fix and ready to fret.

Today I got THE neck ready to fret, but the day was getting on. Wife doesn't like me in the "shop" when she gets home. She says I have all day to mess with the guitars. She has a point. I touched-up the gap between the neck and headstock binding. I dipped scrap binding in straight acetone and scraped some plastic off with a knife blade and used the "goo" to fill the gap. I saw the idea somewhere on-line and it worked fantastic. I refretted the cheap Epiphone today with big fret wire. That's the guitar I will keep at work.

Change of binding color

I wasn't thinking when I thought of using tortoise shell for the headstock binding. The guitar is going to be green with the soundhole already bound in white. The headstock will be a stained green (to bring out the curly grain of the maple) and bound in white. I can't wait to use the tortoise shell binding. I think I will bind a future neck and head in tortoise shell soon. Tomorrow I go to see Roger Waters do "Dark Side Of the Moon" at the Hollywood Bowl. I might not get to any work for a couple of days. I've been trying for days to find out what glue Gibson used for binding their necks. The binding adhered to the fret ends and what I have doesn't really cut it.

Telecaster neck.

Since I had to wait for the fret wire, I got a bit into the Telecaster project. The scarf joint was excellent. The headstock veneer, well, I forgot that the truss rod slot needs to go before the veneer. That way, you don't have to take into account the veneer that sticks out above the fingerboard line. You dummy! So I just sanded the veneer smooth with the fretboard line, but I lost about 1" of headstock face because the veneer got taken down back to the fretboard line. No biggy, it came out fine. It was hard to make a shape that didn't look too "cheap 60's guitar", but was not too much of a Fender rip-off. Damn it! Will I ever learn? I routed from right-to-left again. I went slower, but had the same wood problem. You have to fight the router too much in that direction, so it can make the wood tough to keep stable on the table. I changed the layout of the truss rod. I was going to have the adjustment at the body, but thought it too hard to drill just off-center to compensate for the adjustment nut being slightly lower than the bottom of the truss rod. Any correction would mean a giant hole at the neck edge. I chose to chisel, by hand, the nut slot at the head. No one uses those anymore. Everything has to be made with a jig and perfect. I think guitar builders can be too neurotic about guitars being perfect. That's why God made truss rod covers! The headstock is going to have tortoise shell binding with an orange pearl truss rod cover. Stand by to stand by.