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Hi babe. Glue up went well. Everything is where it should be and alignment seems close to perfect. I will know more when everything is cleaned up and routed but I have no reason to worry (yet). The neck is now resting in my guitar room, intimately getting to know the fretboard while it all finishes to dry in a proper environment (if that's what you call german weather right now). Can't wait for the next steps!

Drilling allows for using softer pin material like plastic or tooth picks. Plus if the fingerboard wood is very hard you may end up hammering the poking part deeper into the neck wood.

Hah I see how you do it now. The way I did it didn't require to drill anything. Slightly hammer the nail in, cut it, and use whatever was poking out as a "secondary nail" since the cut made it pretty sharp (sharper than the actual nail actually). Good idea tho.

You don't have to press them much, only enough for a mark so you can drill the marking hole deeper. If you're using very hard woods you can first drill holes into the neck, then put the pins in and finally put a piece of masking tape to the approximate locations of the pins. Don't burnish the tape so it remains somewhat foamy to get a mark for drilling to the fingerboard.

Yep, I'll do that for the next one. The funny thing is I had the pins at a tad over 1mm at first and then redid them thinking "I don't need much that it'll just make it hard to press". Hindsight 20/20, live and learn, etc

I do. Tried it and faced the same. The glue layer is thick enough to cover most of the heigth of the pin and the glue is also thick enough to cover the very tip so the fretboard slides over it. Think about a snail that can glide over a razor blade without cutting its foot. The muckus is that thick. Same thing with glue. Next time I'll leave it at least 1 mm tall. Oh, and I used side dot pins instead of nails just in case.

I managed to squeeze in some building time into a busy work travel schedule yesterday evening. Yay me. That was the order of the day: put this together. This time everything was fairly well prepared so not difficult. One rod goes in after the other first, with a line of high viscosity superglue in the slot, some tape to protect the surface around it from squeeze out, and some sanded-flat toothpicks and clamps to make sure the pressure is good. One rod ended up VERY slightly proud of the surface, one slightly under. This is due to the two rods not being the exact same size and another issue I tracked: the depth gauge of the caliper I use is 0.3mm "recessed" so the readings are wrong. I will need to take this into account when moving further. Funnily enough it also explains why everything was ever so slightly off with my first build when it comes to depth. Anyhow, this time around, the slightly proud rod is fixed by scrapping it until flush. For the one slightly recessed, I decided to leave it as is as the wood glue would fill up the sub 0.5mm gap easily enough. I also added two drops of silicon to the truss rod channel, as this particular one has the ends slightly bigger than the actual thread. I wanted to make sure that even with zero tension there would be no rattle. As it was my first time placing an already slotted fretboard onto a neck blank, I went back and looked at a few videos on locating pins. I do not think having it every so slightly out of alignment is bad (will basically make no difference at the bridge, at least none that setting up the intonation can't correct). I didn't like so much the toothpick / nail / side dot tube through the fretboard as it requires drilling blindly through a crack prone fretboard into the space between the carbon rod and the truss rod. So instead, I used the thinnest nails I got, put them on the neck, cut them off slightly proud (keep that in mind for later...) and used them as invisible locating pins. It worked wonderfully well in the dry run I do before glue up. Time to tape the truss rod and go with the glue! I also prepared the rosewood and ebony for glue up with some 320 sanding and some naphta to remove the oils. This gave me a glimpse of what the PME was going to look like and holy shit. If I don't mess up the stain on the maple, this might look awesome. So during glue up, I faced a stupid issue. While the locating pin close to the nut was fine, ensuring the "vertical" alignement or the board, I couldn't for the life of me put the fretboard in the heel pin. I do not know why. So I had to realign manually with the glue deciding to make everything slippery. Took me a bit but I think I did it as good as I could using my eyes, the routing template, whatever I could. Then I pressed down to repin it, clamped it with hand clamps for 5 minutes, then switched to the full clamping for the night. Next time, I will simply not cut them so short (see I say next time already, as if I had already planned a third build). I use an MDF board slightly wider than the fretboard, with one thickness of tape alongside the border + a length of foam to make sure the pressure is well distributed with a slight overpressure on the edge. Provided nothing moved, it should be perfect. Bare the slight amount of tape that stuck around the nut (yay for chisels afterwards). Anyhow, this is the status and will stay so till tonight: This went faster than I thought, and I forgot the dxf file to laser cut the pickup template and the side project I have going on. So early night. I will take it off the clamps tonight, let it dry and settle for at least a week, route the fretboard sides, carve the headstock and rough carve the neck next. Then it will get at least another week to settle during which I will glue the body.

Thank you so much! I will let you know how it goes. It will be a good learning experience, because one day I want to build a guitar. Thanks again!

I know that feeling. I've snapped some 8 - 12 mm bolts just with an adjustable wrench. Not to mention smaller screws. Regular steel isn't that strong. Good luck with making the rod! It's not rocket science, just make sure that the rod can't rotate inside the anchor! Here's a tutorial including several anchors. Just follow the instructions for the flat bar one.:

I think I will try making one, that seems like the most cost-effective way to do it. So if the guitar is still junk once I am done, I am not out of much.

I was adjusting it, and my muscles go carried away. And, I went way to far way to fast. It wasn't till I was researching how to replace it that I found out you're supposed to turn it a quarter rotation per day. I went like 3 rotations in an hour! I am fifteen and learn by trial and error, so now I have to learn how to fix it! Hopefully minus the error part. It is broken a tiny ways below the nut. I may have been able to remove some wood and fix it that way, but now I have it apart so I might as well replace it.

You can take a longer one and cut the rectangular washer end to desired length. Then put the washer back in a way it can't rotate. A square nut tightened and peened works. Or you can take a length of welding rod of the right diameter and cut threads for the nut and the square anchor. Out of curiosity, in what way is the truss rod broken?

Hello, thanks for the response! It is a single action rod. It has the nut up by the tuners, and a rectangular washer down by the body. It is 371mm, and I am having trouble finding one that length.

Hi and welcome! What type is the original truss rod? If it's a single rod in a curved or slanted slot it's single action. If it has a flat rod welded both ends to a round one or two round rods connected at both ends it's a two way rod. You "can" replace a single action rod with a dual but that would require filling the original slot and routing a new one. After finding out which version it is, simply measure the length and search for a suitable one. The FarEast online shops may have inexpensive two-way rods, a single action rod is relatively easy to make by yourself.

Hello! I am 15, and I broke the truss rod on a Yamaha FG-75-1 Black Label parlor sized acoustic guitar. I got the fretboard off, and the truss rod out. Does anyone know the size needed, or do you know of a cheap truss rod that would work? Could I use a two way truss rod? Thanks!

I agree with you about the hardware, I especially do not like the old bridges with the barrel saddles for two strings at a time. I don't even like gold hardware as a general rule.......but this top... in this color....is just begging for it. SR

Bonus today, I designed a jig to drill the cable channels... Only the diagonal channel made but got the concept down. The right part of the code is the block builder. The left creates the right lines to create the drill tube and then extend it drill tool side.... I will cnc the jig as a 2 parts flat vice that fits in the cavity with the hole predilled (ball mill). This way I dont need a jig to do the jig...

I really like the pickup choice actually. I think it's a nice combination. I just have never been a fan of the classical tele hardware, I think it hides too much of the top. Just a matter of taste really, some people swear by that. The gold in on point with the stain though, so hats off for that!

Thanks Asdrael! It does indeed have personality.....junkyard dog maybe? I'm presuming the choices you'd had made differently are the pickups and tele hardware? The P-rails are nice, quite good even. I like different aspects of them than I expected to. I like them in humbucker mode more than either single coil. The humbucker in series is hot and will push the amp nicely, and in parallel it is sweet and clean with some nice growl with a heavy attack. The P-90 and rail are fine but I've heard better. The green one I just built for example. As far as all the combinations you can get out of both pickups at the same time, I just don't hear enough differences between any of them to make it worth the effort. SR

Here's my 3rd carved body. Finally up to speck.

No, not how I figured in the previous post! You were chopping firewood when you suddenly realized the gorgeousness of a couple of pieces but some damage had already been done which you cleverly fixed by putting the cracks on opposite bouts.

Great work (and nice pictures to boot!). Two thumbs up, and that's only because I only have two hands. There are some choices that I would not have made but that makes it even more of a personal instrument and the end result looks awesome so that's what counts. It oozes personality (Side note: how are you liking the p-rails? I am tempted to have a build around those at some point...)

Haha, didn't notice that! Now it's time to change the explanation: You must have noticed the cracks (caused by an axe) and stabilized them by putting a solid piece on the opposide face.

An axe maybe? If you take another look, you might notice that your images are from opposite edges of the body, which would take be an even larger mishap to create. SR

Ahh... I was wondering how a crack like that would be possible in a dual layer body.