I'm getting ahead of myself

Hello, hello, hello, I'm getting ahead of myself with this latest post because, quite frankly, if I don't speed up, I'll be finished the guitar before I'm halfway through the blog story and since it will take me forever to build the guitar, it will take two forevers to finish this blog...  So, let's fast forward a bit shall we.  (I must confess I'm a little short on pictures too, and who wants to read a boring blog without cool pictures to go along with it?!? I know I wouldn't!)

After I cut the neck out with the band saw and routed the dovetail with the router table I made, I proceeded to carve the neck with a dremel tool to get the rough rounded shape.  After that, I used a series of draw and carving knives to take it down further.  Then I used progressively finer gritted sand papers to smooth everything out.  When all is finished I'll use a cabinet scraper and 400 grit sand paper to put the final finish on the neck.  Other than routing the truss rod channel I have not yet touched the rest of the neck, including the fingerboard or the headstock.  Those will come later because, as I've said before, I'm very ADD and wanted to skip the hard stuff and move on to something more fun.

Which segues nicely into my next picture - joining the soundboard. 

Before I could get to this point I first went to Cayce Industries (they have a huge belt thickness sander) to bring the individual plates down to close the proper thickness.  Once that was done, I had to build a shooting jig (no I don't have a picture, but I can get one) to joint the plates.  This is extremely important as it is what lines up the two plates for joining.  If the common edge is not jointed properly, there will be gaps in the soundboard seam.  It took me a while, but I finally got the knack of shooting, and I finally make a joint good enough to join.  (This step also makes really pretty spruce curls that you can use in your book quality staged photos;-)  Before you glue, make sure you practice your steps so you have it down.  I put a slim piece of newspaper under the seam so that I wouldn't glue the plates to the work surface.  You lay the far plate down first against a stop and fasten it with clamps (I use fiberglass rods), then you put a thin bead of glue on the second plate, lay it down against the first, slide it back and forth, then clamp it from above.  After that you wedge it from the side to close up the seam nice and tight.  I let it dry over night and you can see the result below.

In an effort to keep my posts shorter so that more people may consider actually reading them, not that I hold any real faith that anyone will, I will stop boring you now... 

Aaaah finally he's getting somewhere!

Yes indeed, finally it's time to stop blathering and start building.  Well my first project began with the Honduran mahogany neck.  I purchased a single block large enough to actually cut out two necks (just in case I royally bombed on my first try).  I decided early on to take a purist's approach to this guitar project - time and experience has tempered my visions of grandeur, though.  In this vein I decided to make everything as high quality and traditional as possible - hence the Adirondack Spruce, the other uber expensive woods, and the single solid neck. 

Many of today's luthiers and guitar manufacturers actually build composite necks by cutting the neck completely straight, then going back to cut the head at a specific angle to re-glue it upside down to make the proper attitude.  It's called a reverse headstock (you can see a good explanation at http://www.seagullguitars.com/seagullstory.htm).  This method has been proven to increase neck strength with minimal appearance drawbacks.  I personally, though, didn't like the idea of introducing any more room for errors or weak points than necessary.  Besides, I bought a nice truss rod from LMII and used the best grade mahogany I could get my hands - so the benefit is a wash and I get to keep an unmarred monolithic neck.

I began by tracing the rough outline of two necks on the large block.  After cutting both outlines out with a band saw (thanks for the next five Christmas presents dear!  I'm currently on buying restriction till I die...).  Next I drew the many views (top, side, heel, etc.) from the plan on tracing paper.  I then cut the views out with a razor blade and retraced them on the rough mahogany block.  Once I had the neck drawn I proceeded to tackle the most difficult and important part - the heel.

The heel is one of a few critical structural parts of an acoustic guitar.  It is how the neck attaches to the body and there are many methods to choose from, ie. mortise and tenon, bolt-on, dovetail, etc.  I won't go into them, but suffice it to say I went with the plan instructions given to me - the routed dovetail.  I was not about to go changing the professional designs for my first ever guitar just willy nilly.  I also figured it would be a good excuse to go buy some more man toys (thanks again, dear, for the next ten year's worth of birthday presents!).  So long story short, I bought a Porter Cable router and other needed accessories, built a router table into my table saw wing, and then began to experiment.  I'm usually very impatient, but so far I've been successful at cooling my jets and working slowly and deliberately.  With as much hard work as making a guitar is, I did not want to inadvertently have to start from the beginning again because of a rushed blunder. 

I finally figured out the best way to rout the dove tail and went for it.  It turned out perfectly until I got sloppy finishing up.  The dove tail was done, but then I noticed a final bit of material that needed to be cut off, so I ran past the router one more time.  I should have been paying attention because as I was intent on getting that last little nobbin, I inadvertently shaved a corner of the dovetail.  To this day I don't know if that will ruin the entire connection and whether I will have to start all over again or not.  So far I'm not worried, I think it will be just fine.

Once the heel was done, I cut the taper in the neck to match the future fret board on the band saw.  This I couldn't manage also without making another minor mistake - I got a little too fresh with the band saw and it bit back by cutting into the neck close to the headstock.  It's pretty small though, I think I can fix it with sawdust mixed with epoxy.  I doubt it will be completely unnoticeable, but it's maker's marks just like that which give our creations character!  After carving the neck down some with the foredom tool and sanding it a bit, I decided I had had it up to the chin in dealing with necks and put it down until it was time to attach it to the body.

So ends this first chapter in creating the guitar neck.