Sanding Neck

[Duff Beer Man]

Im getting to the point where im about ready to attach my fretboard to me neck. My neck is slightly wider then my fretboard. I have binding on my fretboard. What im wondering is if i should sand my neck without the fretboard with some 60 and 100 and kinda guess match, or go ahead and glue my fretboard on then sand with 60 and to get and exact match and really scratch my the binding, then sand the binding up too 2000 to make it shine and get all the scratches out. Or is there another way to do it them im missing?

[Mattia]

Uh...whu? I'm kind of confused here. Sanding what and how? I never use 60 grit on anything unless I'm trying to get rid of huge amounts of wood (say, level a top, as a flap disc in an angle grinder to carve a top, that sort of thing). 80 grit is even pretty darn harsh, so generally it's edge/rasp tools to get things into shape, 120 grit (or so) to smooth things out (80 if it's being particualrly evil), then 220, and that's often smooth enough, at least for a nice, good laquer job if you're using good quality paper. 320's good too, more is just excessive amounts of work (unless you're oiling, in which case it's just the beginning).

I always glue my fingerboards on when the neck blank is still square and oversized, then carve the back of the neck, which includes fairing in the binding/fingerboard edges (they're not 'square', but part of the curve on the back of the neck; gotta be careful never to go through the binding, though.

Worry about polishing scratches out when you're prepping for finish, although you should always endeavour to prevent massive scratches if at all possible.

[Duff Beer Man]

Well hmm, let me see if i can explain this better, i have my fretboard tappered and my neck round, i did them sepereate. Now im going to glue my fretboard to my neck, but the neck is about 1/16 of an inch bigger then the fretboard on each side. I was wondering if i should sand the sides down with 60 to get rid of the extra wood, or glue the fretboard on then sand it down... combine this post with the things i said in my last post, hopefully it makes since. Ill go home and take some pics and post if it still doesnt make since.

[rhoads56]

you made the mistake of shaping the neck prior to attaching the fretboard. Binding is like wood, just sand it, it wont care.

[Guitarfrenzy]

I don't understand why you couldn't use a router table with pattern bit so the bearing is at the table end, you could let the bearing ride along the fingerboards edge and it will flush the neck wood. You'd have to be extremely careful though, especially if you have a pre radiused neck.. yikes. But it can be done. This is another time you might want to break out the Robo-Sander. Of course you'll have to recontour the back of your neck, there is no way around this though.

[Guitarfrenzy]

you made the mistake of shaping the neck prior to attaching the fretboard. Binding is like wood, just sand it, it wont care.

←

Very true, and it's like any other mistake you do while building, you learn a lot from them..

[gripper]

Duff, your task sounds like what you have to do every time you remove and replace a fretboard, like when changing a trussrod, except you have some extra width in your neck to get rid of. Use a smooth file or 100 paper wrapped around a flat block and get rid of the extra wood. Try to angle the file/block so that it doesn't hit your binding (plastic or wood?) and stop before you take any binding material away. Like frenzee said, you might have to do some recontouring but if you are like me and not too fussy it won't be much. When you are done just imagine how much it would suck to do this for a living every day. Rock on dude

[Duff Beer Man]

Yeah thats what i figured to do, my binding is peraliod plastic. The binding could acutally prolly be sanded on a little bit, its still kinda think. I dont know, its need to be sanded on a little bit cause i think there are parts that have a little over spillige of glue from when i glued the binding to the board. This is only my 2nd guitar, 1st with binding so im learning the steps of process lol.

[Southpa]

One of the last things I do is carve the back of the neck. I already have the frets on by then. It just makes all the processes involved like clamping fretboard and binding, inlaying, sanding and radiusing fb, fretting etc. so much easier when you are working on a solid foundation. And you don't have to worry about denting and scratching the back of the neck while doing all this stuff.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Southpa

[Duff Beer Man]

Well i figure out how im going to do, i cant believe i didnt think of this before. Im going to glue the fretboard then tape off the binding with some masking tape and hit the neck with some 60 till it gets close then work my way up grits, when i get into the higher grits i will take the tape off and sand the binding along with the neck and work its shine up.