Rockhorst

I have only a few guitars with binding, but the binding seems to curve a bit with the shape of the neck.. May have been done during shaping, I don't know. And I'll definitely keep at it. The money pit this project is makes it 'too big to fail', by which I mean I have to see it through (but not expecting a perfect instrument). And it keeps me busy in a nice way. So much that I've only build a handful of guitar pedals in the past year (which was the hobby before this). I still have problems with the lungs after every 'big' task like routing stuff out. That's my biggets issue and I'm still trying to sort out why I'm so sensitive to it and how to work around it.

Only now realising that one side of the binding is convex for a reason not really meant to scrape that square (which I did do). Oh well. The other side has been bound and drying up overnight now.

As always, thanks for all the tips and help (and fast responses) Tape should be strong enough to keep it flat, certainly (the strength of the tape, once it sticks, keeps surprising me). I'll get to it in the next couple of days. Reshaped the headstock today with a scraper and a leveling beam with sandpaper. Happy with its current shape, though it's a bit curvier and thus looks smaller than originally intended.

The fretboard has a slight back bow in it already, so keeping it flat and having a light touch at the same time may be difficult. (it started flat but bowed a little after sawing off the sides). I do have spare fretboards laying around, but I don't think it's necessary, as it is eadily flattened when pressing/gluing down).

Probably very true So, after I fix the headstock best bet is to glue it to the neck and route away the existing binding, creating a new channel. At the ends and at the first fret, I will probably have to clean it up a bit with a chisel. (the headstock binding channel extends to half way between nut and first fret).

Yeah, it was a test fit indeed. The gap is pretty constant across the length of the fingerboard. The unbound side seems to still sit nicely on the neck, but it may be fooling me (dark wood/shadow). To be honest, I don't trust the neck's straightness and squareness 100%. After routing a straight ledge I seem to always have to take out a few minor bumps and with my limited wood working skills...it's straight enough to be shaped into a neck, but maybe not good enough for a binding channel rout. I really liked the idea of binding the fretboard separately, but in hindsight gluing it to the neck is much preferred, as it should circumvent the entire issue. On a related note, I feel I'm fast approaching the point where I shrug my shoulders and decide to start over. There's sort of a build up of errors and by themselves they are all fixable, but its slowly drifting away from the intended design. Had a mishap with routing the binding channel on the headstock. I could've totally prevented that if I had thought about it a little more deeply. It's fixable but only at the expense of headstock width.

I clamped the fingerboard down on a flat piece of MDF-board covered with some taut wax paper. The end result seems to be square to me. What would be the best way to remove the binding without having to much clean up?

I added binding to one side of the fingerboard using acetone. After it dried I filled some spot on the underside with plastic-and-acetone goop. So far so good. I did some scraping of the side as the binding tape made a few indentations. I also tried to level the underside with a scraper. Clamping the board onto the neck for a test fit, there's now a very clear cap between neck and fingerboard where at first there was none. I may have overscraped a bit, but I also read somewhere else that trying to get this entirely flush is more or less futile. Should I attempt it, or perhaps fill in with binding paste after gluing? I guess this problem could've been prevented by binding after gluing the fretboard.

Past week I worked on cleaning up the neck. The lasered templates where a bit too wide, but I decided to run with it and sand/scrape to the desired thickness. This produced blotchy sides, not straight at all anymore. I wanted a perfectly straight edge to run the binding bit over. Rerouted and fixed that. Now my neck is about 42 mm wide at the nut instead of the 43 mm (like the Fenders I mostly play) I planned, but that's ok. My Music Man Silhouette is a very narrow 41 mm wide at the nut. I'm now basically shooting for something in between the two. Shaping the headstock with a drum sander went like a charm. It's not an exact match to the template, but I'm more than pleased with it. Still have to check for tuner alignment though. I also debated with myself at length whether the (bound) fretboard should be made separately or after gluing it to the neck. My thoughts on that changed about every half an hour. The neck troubles described above eventually steered me towards a separate fretboard. It's now slotted and routed to be the same width as the neck after binding is installed. I have a good picture of the possible steps ahead, but can't decide on the best order to do them in. I'd like some advice on that. The neck is still at a constant thickness, the fretboard has not been bound or radiused yet. For the shaping of the neck I'd like to use the method of taking away facets that tangent the curve. The thickness at the nut is going to be about 4 mm less than the heel. First, I'll cut the headstock binding slot. Then either one of the two plans below (currently I'm liking Plan A the best) Plan A Finish fretboard, including radius and possibly frets, while fretboard is not glued to neck With neck at constant thickness take the first facet off and then route tapered thickness (this is a lot less material to remove) Glue on fretboard Finish shaping Plan B Attach fretboard to neck as it is now and use the 'ridge' of the neck to help with binding it. Radius fretboard (no frets yet) Cut first facet and taper thickness by hand (because the neck can't lie flat on the fretboard anymore) Finish shaping

Back after a two month period of silence. I made another mistake with a router and had to get some new wood for the neck and start over. I got super busy at work and so the project didn't progress much. I've now progressed just beyond the point where I was two months ago, so back on track. First of all: I did manage to finish the cigar box guitar. The neck I made for it turned out to be quite nice, though the fretwork is a bit dodgy in places. Some pictures. Back to the Regius type build. I've routed the neck outline and roughly cut out the headstock shape.. I will clean up the rough cut headstock this week on a drum sander. After that I think I should route the binding channel for the headstock, before attaching the fretboard. I could use a make-shift router table for that, but am not really comfortable with the idea. I'd much prefer using a hand held router. I can't find a lot of instructions for this procedure, so hopefully someone can offer some advice or suggestions? The headstock is at a 14 degree angle to the neck shaft. Oh, and happy holidays to all

I've switched from a Moldex 7002 (half face) to a Moldex 9002 (full face) with the same P100 filters installed. It's looks like it's really making a difference. I've only done some light work sanding and sawing the past few days, but previously that was enough to make my lungs 'itchy'. This weekend I'll try it on while jigsawing maple and ebony. That'll be the definitive test.

Your build updates just give me serious GAS everytime I check in Just so perdy

Too soon for anything definite, but I've switched from a half-face mask to a full face mask and it seems that it is working a lot better for me. I read somewhere yesterday that P100 filters with a half-face mask is not a good combo since the increased pressured needed to breathe makes leakage more likely. I even looked into active masks, but they all have P2 filters which sort of seems to be missing the point imo. Curious how the full face mask holds up when I'm doing machine work.

Good to see you're making progress I would seriously suggest not bothering with the super glue trick by the way, no matter what Ben Crowe says about it. Double stick tape works just as well. But I'm glad it works for you

Color me impressed! Wow, nice overhaul!