Building a neck in 10 easy steps

[Brian]

A new tutorial is up over on the main site thanks to Alex!

[Jehle]

A new tutorial is up over on the main site thanks to Alex!

Alex sure makes it look simple.

I have two comments:

1) I'm not sure what he means about drilling through the fretboard at the 1st and 15th frets. There might be a dot marker on the 15th fret to cover a hole. But, the 1st fret? Does he mean to drill on the fret slot location? That makes more sense, but the instructions could be really specific about that.

I think the problem is that as a guitarist "the first fret" actually implies about two square inches of wood to me.

2) The inner tube idea for claming in the glue phase is a much better solution than the rubber bands that I had suggested. The missus might not like the idea of me stealing her inner tubes though.

[LGM Guitars]

what he means is, drill about a 1/16" hole in the fret slot at the 1sth and 15th fret, these are locators for your fretboard, that way you know it's aligned, once the board is dried, you remove the drill bits,

Personally, I use round toothpicks and glue them with the board, then I just recut that spot on the fret slot.

Eitherway, it's simply a location method.

[Jehle]

Personally, I use round toothpicks and glue them with the board, then I just recut that spot on the fret slot.

I figured it out as I was writing the initial response. I thought that some other newbie, like myself, might have the same "huh?" response.

Now if I could only find some Maple or Rosewood toothpicks. I'd be set.

[Guest AlexVDL]

what he means is, drill about a 1/16" hole in the fret slot at the 1st and 15th fret, these are locators for your fretboard, that way you know it's aligned, once the board is dried, you remove the drill bits

yeah... I couldn't have said it better myself... but then again... I didn't

I often use 2mm drill bits, so they won't break while pulling them out of the board.

2mm seems a big hole, but when you place the frets, the hole will be covered by the frets.