My guitar body that is. If you’re disappointed, you have a sick mind. :–) 

But seriously, a lot ha s happened on the Caractacus build over the last day or so, so I will get you caught up.

The task: rout the neck pocket. To do this, I started by marking the center at both the nut and the heel. Hey Stewmac, check out the product placement! : )

Next, I marked the center for the body using a carpenter’s level.

I stretched a thread between the nut center mark and the carpenter’s square. Then I made sure the thread crossed over the heel center mark. It took some tweaking, but I managed to square up the neck’s centerline to the body’s without any problem.

With everything nice and straight, I marked the outline of the neck where it overlapped the body.

I clamped two side boards to the body to act as guides for my router. These boards need to be just inside the neck pocket lines I drew in the previous photo. That way the pocket will be a fraction smaller than it needs to be. It’s always better to make the neck pocket this way so you can sand and file until the neck fits nice and tight. The small block will guide the router to form the back of the pocket.

The bit I used is a 1/2″ diameter, 1″ long pattern bit.

This is the part that terrifies me. If I’m off, even by a tiny amount, the neck will fit loosely, which will mean poor tone and sustain.

After routing, I did a test fit. That sucker was TIGHT!

Got to do some shaping here.

Giving the body a little nip and tuck.

Shaping the back side of the body. I start with a rasp file and move on to a fine tooth file. Then I finish by moving from 120 grit to 220 grit sand paper.

Look ma…
…no glue! Now that’s a tight fit.

Next post will be tomorrow and will feature the pickup pockets and more. Stay tuned!

If you’ve been following the updates on my current build for the Caractacus guitar, you might remember how I cracked the fretboard for my neck while hammering in the fret wire. Unfortunately, this was not a problem that could be fixed. In order to keep the project on track, I had to make a new neck and fretboard.

Well, today I enjoyed the successful completion of fretting the new neck. Photos of the process are included in this post, but first I want to share some of my thoughts and opinions about this mysterious art.

If you’ve studied the practice of fretting, you have no doubt learned about all of the work that goes into installing, dressing, leveling and crowning each fret. It’s a lot of work and I am happy to say that most of it is unnecessary, but only if you’re making a new instrument. If you’re refretting and old guitar or doing repair work, it’s a different story. To explain what I mean, I’ve compiled a list of rules you should follow to make the job easier.

1. Your fretboard MUST be radiused accurately from side to side and nut to heel. If not, the fret wire will deform to any irregularities.
2. Fret wire should have a radius slightly smaller that the fretboard’s radius. In other words, if your fretboard has a radius of 12″ the fret wire should be curved to about 10.” This will help the fret wire to grab the slots better.
3. The best way to install fret wire is with a fret press. You can get good results by hammering in the frets, but you’ll need to be aware of flat spots.
4. Make sure the slots are deep enough to accept the fret wire’s tang. If the tang bottoms out before the wire sits flush to the fretboard, you’ll have uneven frets.
5. Be extra careful when beveling the edges. Don’t let your file slip and gouge the wire or fretboard.
6. After you’ve finished beveling the edges of the fret wire, smooth and polish the frets with pre moistened wet/dry sandpaper (600 grit up to 1500 grit) and finish with #000 and #0000 steel wool.

If you follow my suggestions, you might get lucky and avoid the tedious process of leveling and crowning each fret. After all, you likely picked the wire for it’s specific size. Leveling and crowning will change it to something you or the person you’re building the guitar for might not expect.

The following photos show what I accomplished today.

When I hammer frets, I start at the far edge and work my way across the fretboard. Make sure the tang will go in straight before you start to hammer. Also, don’t be gentle. Hammer hard and make sure the back of the neck has adequate support. Oh, and wear earplugs or else you’ll spend the rest of the day with an annoying ring in your ears.

If you have a drill press, you can adapt it for use as fret press by purchasing a fret caul or make one as I did here.

Here I am using my fingers to check for problems. I switch fingers regularly to keep my sense of touch fresh. If I find a high spot or abrupt curve, I grab the hammer and pound it down.

To bevel the edges of the fret wire, I use a block of Maple with one edge cut at a 35° angle and a metal file attached to the angle with a couple of wood screws and washers.

Here is how the bevel block works. Just slide it back and forth with the file contacting just the edges of the wire.

This is what the beveled edges will look like when finished. If you want the edges smoother, that will happen when you wet sand and steel wool the frets.

Here’s the neck, ready for tuners and final installation into the body’s neck cavity.

Stay tuned!

Today was all fun and games with the fretboard. Mostly fun.

This is how I squared up my fret saw with the fretboard.

First, I line up the front of the block with the fretboard’s centerline. Then, I do the same at the back. Finally I check to make sure the block’s face is on the fret position mark. When everything looks good, I clamp the block into place and saw the slot.

After cutting all of the slots, I proceed with sanding the radius. In this case, I’m going with a 12″ radius. To generate the radius, I use a radius sanding block (seen in the upper left of the photo) and 120 grit paper. First, I attach the board to my workbench with double stick tape. Then, I sand back and forth with long even strokes. Since the nut end is narrower than the heel end, it reaches the required radius faster. To prevent over sanding the nut end, I use squeeze clamps to keep the sanding block away from the finished portion.

Here I’m using a cardboard template with the curve generated from a free download from my site.

I like to check the radius between every couple of fret slots.

As you can see, all of the slots will need to be deepened after sanding in the radius.

After deepening the fret slots, I added a bead of Kwik Seal to the neck’s truss rod slot. This will keep the truss rod from rattling later on when the guitar is played. Then I pressed the truss rod into place. The access nut for the truss rod is at the heel. Not as convenient as it would be at the peghead, but it won’t need to be adjusted very often in Colorado’s dry climate.

To keep glue out of the truss rod slot, I masked it with a strip of 3/4″ masking tape.

After smearing on some Titebond II, I removed the tape.

Finally, I set the fretboard on the neck and clamped it firmly in place. You may notice how the truss rod adjustment nut extends into the area where the neck pickup will reside. This was a mistake. Fortunately, a couple of taps with a hammer pushed it back into place.

After the glue had dried, I noticed a small gap had appeared along the edge. A little hide glue mixed with Maple sawdust will take care of it.

This weekend, I’ll add the frets and finish sanding the neck. Stay tuned!

As a blizzard whips Denver, I am confined indoors where all I can do is work on freelance graphic design projects and my latest guitar build. 

What follows is an update on the progress so far.

I’m sick of winter!

Is there a fretboard under all that epoxy?

Why, yes there is!

Preparing to glue a quilted Maple top onto a pair of Mahogany slabs.

The two slabs ready to be glued together.

After squaring up the contact edges with my table saw, I glued the pair and clamped overnight.

While the glue dried, I printed out the part of my plan showing the body. Then I used a hobby knife to cut out the shape, which served to mark a template made from 1/4″ MDF board.

After sawing out the template with a jigsaw, I went around the edges with a file to make sure the surface was perfect.

The template was then used to mark the body blank. I drew a center line to make sure both were positioned correctly. If you look closely, you can see the tip of the pencil in the center of a washer. This allows me to draw a line about a 1/4″ beyond the guitar’s actual outline. This is the line I will follow with my jigsaw. Cutting outside the actual perimeter allows for blade bending, which often occur with jigsaws. 

To cut the body with a jigsaw, I used a 4″ long, 6 tooth per inch blade. It cut the Mahogany body like a hot knife through butter. No problems with blade bending at all. 

With the template attached with double stick tape, I routed the edge with a 1/2″ diameter, 1″ pattern bit.

This is a close-up of the pattern bit in my router as it follows the edge of the template with a bearing just above the cutting blades. It’s important to know the correct direction to move the router in order to avoid tearout. I routed the edge top to bottom in 4 passes, each one deeper than the previous.

And here is the result. The body is ready for the next step; routing the neck, pickup and control cavities.

Stay tuned!

Here is the progress so far on my current electric guitar build. By the way, this guitar will be called the Caractacus, which was Dick Van Dyke’s character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Caractacus Potts was a tinkerer and that’s what all luthiers are at heart. At least I am!

This is the heel with its rough shape sketched in.

These are the tools I use to rough in the contour. Sometimes I use a belt sander, but I prefer to do the work by hand as I have more control. It’s slower that way, but so what.

I start with the rasp file, which leaves deep scratches. Then I follow with a fine tooth file to smooth the contour.

This is what the rough contour looks like after the fine tooth file and before hitting it with 100 grit sandpaper.

Here I am checking the contour for a smooth transition across the curve. I rely on light and shadow to see if there are any ridges that need to go away. For the contour’s shape, I use the palm of my hand to gauge its accuracy.

Keep checking back for more updates on my progress.

As promised, here are some photos of the work I did this weekend.

Marking the position of the truss rod. Note the access is at the peghead. I changed my mind about this and moved the access to the heel in order to keep the peghead cap clear of a hole.

Routing the slot with a 1/4″ straight-cut bit. Depth was set to 7/16.” The end at the heel widens to 3/8″ to accommodate the wider adjustment nut.

Attaching extra pieces of Maple to form the heel.

Clamp the blocks slowly and carefully to prevent slipping.

After the glue had dried, the basic shape was cut with a jigsaw. I chose to use a jigsaw since most people don’t have access to a bandsaw. And, I wanted to show how a jigsaw tends to cut unexpectedly. The next photo illustrates this.

Cutting the peghead shape.

Looking from the peghead back, you can see how the heel is cut very crooked. This is caused by the jigsaw blade bending while cutting. For this reason, I recommend cutting at least an eighth of an inch outside the perimeter of your neck’s final shape. This is a good idea, even if you’re using a bandsaw. After all, you still have a lot of sanding and shaping to do. If you cut right on the lines, you won’t have any leeway to work with.

This neck will slope down from the body at a 2° angle. One way to do this is to cut the neck pocket flat and cut the bottom of the tenon at the required angle, but in the opposite direction. That way, when the tenon is installed in the pocket, the neck will slope down correctly. You can also cut the neck pocket at the same angle. Same difference.

Here is the inlay pieces dummied up on the fretboard. Next, I have to mark the fret slot positions, rout the design of the inlay, glue in the inlay pieces, install the truss rod,  cut the fret slots, radius the fretboard, glue on the fretboard and carve and sand the neck’s contours. Whew! Sounds like a lot of work, but I love it!!