Fingerboard

Realizing that I couldn't finishing shaping the neck until I finished and attached the fingerboard I started working on it. I cut an over sized blank out of 4/4 rosewood 3" wide and 22" long. On the band saw I split the blank into two 3/8" thick pieces. Using Matt's drum sander I took these down to 1/4". The finished finger board would be 18" long and tapered from 2.25" to 1.75". Remembering the problems I had with the neck when I tapered it to early, I left the blank square with straight sides. I then started marking the fret positions. This turned out to be a very tedious task. As you could imagine the frets had to be very precisely positioned or the guitar would never be able to be tuned accurately. The positions had to be accurate within 1/64". The first problem was to find a ruler that was at least 18" long and marked in 1/64" increments. I checked all of my rulers and 1/32" was the smallest increment of any that I had. I started looking to purchase one and couldn't find one locally. Matt to the rescue again! He had exactly what I needed. My vision is pretty good but I couldn't see well enough to measure and mark that small of an increment. Luckily my wife does a lot of sewing and needle craft and she had a large clamp on magnifying lamp. I couldn't have done this without that!

With the magnifying lamp I was able to see the correct position marks but I had a problem with marking them. No matter how sharp my pencil lead was it was to fat to accurately mark the positions. I resorted to an X-Acto knife with a standard number 11 blade that I could run down the engraved mark on the ruler and slightly score the wood.

Setting up the ruler at a 90 degree angle on the finger board.

Marking the fret positions with an X-Acto knife.

Once I had the fret positions marked I was ready to start cutting the fret slots. I had purchased a fret saw from Stewart MacDonald. The saw came with a plexiglass depth stop. They also sell a miter box that goes with the saw and templates that would make cutting accurately positioned slots much easier but I decided to try make something that would work and save some money. Speaking of saving money, it didn't take long for me to realize that building a guitar was not going to save me money. One of the first questions I get asked is how much will it cost? The answer that I usually give to this question is that by the time this instrument is finished I could easily have purchased a very nice Martin but it's not about saving money it's about the experience! The second guitar will be much cheaper. . . and yes, I am planning another.

My homemade miter box, fret saw and slotted finger board.

Clamping the miter box and saw guides to the work bench.

Clamping left saw guide

Applying candle wax to the saw blade.

Making the cut.

After the slots were cut I marked the length and the taper and cut those using a table saw. The finger board was now ready to mount on the neck. I drilled 1/16" holes in the first fret slot and in the 10th fret slot. I installed the truss rod into the previously cut channel and covered the top of the aluminum with masking tape to keep glue from getting on the rod. I applied a thin coat of wood glue to the top of the neck and quickly pealed the masking tape off. I positioned the finger board on the neck and tapped in two 3/4" brads into the previously drilled holes to keep the finger board from slipping under pressure. I applied pressure by wrapping long rubber strips that I cut from a bicycle inner tube around the neck and finger board. I set the assembly aside to dry over night.

Brad inserted into small hole in slot to keep the finger board from slipping.

Second brad to keep finger board straight.

Applying pressure with rubber band strips.

Finishing tight wrap.

Removing brads after the glue has set.

After the glue set up I finished the shaping and sanding of the neck. At this point I started finishing the finger board by sanding a radius to the top. I purchased a sanding block with a 12" radius from Stewart MacDonald and used it to finish the top of the finger board.

Course 80 grit sandpaper was used to establish the radius.

A simple jig was used to keep the block at 90 degrees. A clamp was used as a quick handle.

finer grit sandpapers were used to finish the radius.

Spring Break 2012

As you have gathered, I really only have time to update my posts during breaks from my day job. As I mentioned in an earlier post I am always amazed at how much time work takes away from the important stuff like building a guitar or updating the blog on building a guitar. Well, it is Spring Break and I have a little time to do just that so, here goes. My last post was over Christmas break and I got the blog caught up and made some progress on the guitar. I completed the binding and purfling on the guitar body. As with every step in this process it was a huge learning adventure. I was not completely satisfied with the end result but decided to continue and try and work through the problems. At this point I decided to go back to the neck and start (continue) working on it. It was the very first part of the guitar I started with and once I had a rough shape I moved on to other parts. To recap, I glued up maple to create a blank for the neck. I rough cut the blank to the basic neck shape. Planed the head to get it smooth and flat, then cut the sides to finish the rough shape. Well, as it turned out, I shouldn't have cut the sides. As I found out later they needed to be square to use as a guide to route out the channel for the truss rod. Luckily I still had the scrap pieces I had trimmed of on the band saw. For once it paid off being cheap and never throwing anything away! I reattached the side pieces temporarily using a brad pinner and a couple of well placed 3/4" brads on each side. This worked well and gave me straight edges again to use as guides to run along the fence on the router table. The truss rod that I decided to use is a Martin style 7/16" wide x 13/32" deep, aluminum U channel assembly. I used a 7/16" straight router bit so I could cut the channel width in one pass. The 13/32" depth was cut in several passes to get a cleaner cut. The fence  was set to cut the channel in the center of the neck. Stops were set for the length of the cut and the depth of the bit was set to approximately 1/8". Several cuts were made extending the depth until the final cut at 13/32" was made. After the channel was cut in the neck I simply pried the sides off and removed the brads. I could now start shaping the neck. I started by cutting templates out of pvc plastic to use as guides for the curve of the under side of the neck. One was cut with the appropriate radius under the 10th fret and one for under the 1st fret.

First and tenth neck radius templates.

The idea here is fairly simple start at both ends of the neck and establish the right radius and then connect the two with a smooth transition.

Clamp neck to work table.

Cutting radius with rasp.

Checking radius with template

Using rasp to cut first fret radius.

Checking first fret radius.

 Shaping the neck takes a lot of hand work with a wood rasp and a spoke shave. Once I was close to the final shape I realized that the finger board needed to be attached before the final shaping.