Over the past month or so since my last blog, I have gotten a lot of work done on this guitar. A lot. Needless to say, I’m a little behind on keeping up with the build log. So, I’m having to write these next couple from memory and will try to catch you up with the process before the whole thing is done!
My last blog left off with the fretboard inlay and binding. Now that those steps are complete, it’s time to actually attach the fretboard to the neck.
Truss Rod Route
Before they came together, I needed to get the truss rod in there. So, my next step was to route the truss rod route.
I had previously made this router sled that has dual purposes. One is to radius fretboards and the other is to make truss rod and stiffening rod routes. I could probably use it for other things as well, but for now it works great for these processes.
When I’m routing a fretboard radius, I have a special base that I attach to the bottom of my router that has a semi-circle on the bottom to create the radius. For the rod routes, I attach this flat base that has a guide on each end to keep it running perfectly down the center of the sled.
The sled has a centerline marked down the middle and the neck does as well. Lining up the two lines can get a little tricky at the headstock end, especially since the angle actually hangs over the edge.
My solution to this is to set a laser level (the kind you would use to hang decor on the wall) on the centerline of the sled. When I set the neck down, the laser will show over the top of the neck and I can line up the centerline of the neck with the laser.
The neck is double-stick taped down to keep it in place. I use a ¼” spiral router bit for the truss rod route, then I widen the nut end with a ⅜” bit. These sizes work perfectly for the truss rods that I use, but probably don’t fit all types of truss rods, so obviously measure if you’re doing your own.
The Glue-up
After verifying the fit of the truss rod, I added three evenly spaced dots of silicone caulk into the route to prevent rattles. I then placed the truss rod in, taped over the truss rod with painters tape, spread glue, and then pulled the tape. This helps keep glue from squeezing into the route.
The fretboard is lined up with some really thin pins that go through the nut slot and 24th fret. Once I got some clamps on, I pulled the pins out. The pins were of course pre-drilled before adding any glue so that I could make sure that I had the fretboard aligned correctly.
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Dot Inlays
After the neck came out of clamps, I cleaned up the sides a bit, then added the side dots.
You might have noticed that the fretboard doesn’t have any inlays on the front where they would normally be. For this build we decided that we didn’t want anything on the face aside from that 12th fret inlay.
We are adding some dots on the side though. They’re 3/32” white mother of pearl. I start at the first fret just because I think it looks more balanced going from 1 to 24.
To drill for these, I used a nice brad point bit, which doesn’t allow any wandering and makes a sharp cut.
Fine Sanding the Fretboard
Before putting the frets in, I sanded the fretboard up to 800 grit. It is so much easier to sand when the frets aren’t in the way and 800 gets it pretty polished looking.
Pressing the Frets
Since I added ebony binding to the fretboard, I filed the ends of the fret tangs from the bottom of the frets. I just like this clean look of wood binding without fret tangs showing. It’s a couple extra steps, but I love the results.
For this process, I use the fret tang filer from LMII. It can take a while to do both sides of 24 frets, but at least it’s just one build this time!
Also, if I haven’t mentioned it earlier, the guitar is getting gold evo frets.
I normally pound in the frets with a plastic tipped hammer, but this time I tried out a fret caul on the drill press. It worked really well and made the process go by quicker. I’ll definitely stick with this going forward.
Shaping the Fret Ends
Next up was filing the ends of the frets. Fret ends are pretty sharp when they’re rough cut and they need to be filed down perfectly flush with the wood. I also file down the mother of pearl dots at the same time to get those flush and clean up the super glue.
Once that is achieved, I angle the file and put a bevel on the fret ends.
Then I take this little file from StewMac that is smooth and rounded on the bottom and I use the sides of the file to round each fret end. Again, this is a process. 48 fret ends and this is really only roughing them out. I’ll sand and polish them later. One by one.
Even though the bottom of this file is supposed to be made to not mark up the fretboard, it still can a bit, so I lay down some painters tape to protect the wood.
Shaping the Back of the Neck
Now that the frets and side dots are all in place, it was time to carve the neck. This guitar got an asymmetric neck shape.
I have been using the facet method of neck shaping.
I used to do the majority of it with my Shinto rasp, but last time I tried doing the bigger facets with my angle grinder and it saved a lot of time and work, so I went with that method again. I basically got it close to the line, then switched over to the Shinto to get all the way to the line.
For the smaller facets, I just used the Shinto rasp because they were very small cuts and didn’t take long at all.
I roughed in the headstock and heel ends with razor files, then I did a little clean up work with a scraper and 80 grit sandpaper.
I didn’t take any more pictures of the neck at this point, but I will definitely show off the neck more in the next post.
Stay tuned.
Next post: Attaching the neck to the body
