Original concept

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I roughed up my original thoughts on the computer.

 

Blocks of wood

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Here is the single block of mahogony, the maple for the neck with the ebony already glued on (face down) and various neck jigs. The headstock and heel were drilled with an 8mm bit (only about 15mm deep at heel).

 

Rough neck

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Draw round a pattern and bandsaw close to the line taking care to leave the line on. Using the pattern a 5/8 inch top bearing cutter was used in the router shape the neck having secured the wood with pins and double sided tape.

 

Truss rod slot

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The channel for the truss rod was routed using a special jig to leave more wood in the centre than the ends. Tightning the rod will then push out the centre of the neck to work against the tension of the strings.
The headstock was then thicknessed to 14mm using the 5/8 inch cutter in the router.
Next a hole was drilled from the front of the headstock to meet the trussrod channel using an 8mm auger to the depth of the trussrod nut followed by a 5mm bit.
The fall away from the fretboard to the face of the headstock was radiused with a holecutter.
The trussrod was inserted into plastic drinking straws, installed into the slot and a fillet of mahogony shaped and glued in.

 

Radiusing the fretboard

A 12 inch radius block was used to radius the ebony fingerboard. Various grades of sandpaper from 40g were used. This can be a long and dusty process.
The fretslots are then marked using a mitre saw and fretslot pattern.
The traumatic and violent rough carving of the neck is next. Aiming for 21mm at the nut and 24mm at the heel various rasps are used to hack away the maple.

Frets and inlays

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The position dots were planned, marked and holes for them drilled (6mm and 2mm). The abalone dots were then glued in with superglue gel.

The fingerboard was then cleaned up and the fret slots cut deeper. After a final sand, culminating in 240g wirewool the fingerboard is oiled, the fretslots cleaned out and given a slight v shape with a needle file.

An appropriate gauge of fretwire was chosen and the 22 lengths cut and curved slightly. These were then hammered into place and pressed. Finally a blob of superglue applied to edges.

 

Fret dressing

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The ebody fingerboard has been masked to avoid damage during fret dressing. A file is run along the side of the frets to give the edges an angle. Each fret is then profiled individually, originally to a v section, then rounded off and finished with a fret file.

 

Rough body

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The body taking shape. A bandsaw was used to roughly cut it out then an MDF jig made to accurately route the the final shape. The edges have been radiused with a router. The neck pocket and pickup routes have been completed (as well as the control cavity on the rear). Here the body is being sculpted for comfort with a rasp.

 

Close to completion

[img_assist|nid=127|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=73|height=100]The neck and body together at last.

 

 

The finished guitar

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Restrospective head amendment

As an afterthought, in order both to tidy-up the design (eliminate the string trees) and assist in string replacement we fitted locking Spertzal tuners.

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