Acoustic Guitar Build

Neck Carving and Frets

Rough cutting the neck

I lined up the fingerboard and the neck blank and put a couple of locating pins in under the 1st & 10th frets so that I could accurately locate the fingerboard in the future. I could then trim the neck blank a bit closer

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I messed with the neck joint some more now that the neck was nearer it’s final shape. For some reason, I wasn’t getting the results I was expecting – the more I sanded, the bigger the gap got… It took far longer than it should for me to realise that the tenon was bottoming out on the body (Doh!). With a couple of mm trimmed off the tenon, normal service was resumed and stopped with the neck angle a couple of mm off the top (without the fingerboard). This is at the low end, but I think it’s easier to raise it after the fingerboard is glued on than to lower it. Final angle can wait until the fretted fingerboard is installed & the bridge is available.

Frets

The frets were fitted before glueing the fingerboard to the neck. The fret wire was ‘FW03’ from David Dyke.

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It has slightly thicker than ‘normal’ tang and proved a good, tight fit for the CNC cut 0.6mm slots.

The fret tangs were cut off to clear the end of the blind slots with a modified sheet metal nibbler:

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The frets were hammered into the slots – I have a small, soft faced mallet that I’ve used previously for fretwork, but it lacks ‘heft’ and tends to kink the frets. A bit of leather glued to a body hammer worked much better this time (practice shots):

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There was only the smallest amount of back-bow on the fingerboard after it was fretted – not enough to cause me any concern whatsoever. (The 1st & 10th fret have been left out as this is where the locating pins are. They will be fitted after glueing)

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(The fret ends haven’t been addressed yet)

Fitting the fingerboard

I glued the fingerboard to the neck, then trimmed the neck flush, using the fingerboard to guide the cutter on the router table.

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Carving the neck

Once the glue had set, I could set about carving the rest of the neck to shape.

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Still very much a work in progress. As with my previous attempts, I found that if l put it to one side for a few days and then to pick it up with fresh hands, I discovered a few more bits that need some work.