ScottR

Thanks Ash. I hope so too.....it is the plan. SR

It's alive! SR

Thank you sir! Very nice of you to say so. SR

There some pics of it in here. SR

I recently did a table top with Total Boat. Your description fits that nicely as well. SR

That's good to hear. It certainly felt smooth routing out that neck pocket. But then it was brand new and and as sharp as it ever was going to be. Let's see how long it lasts. SR

Thanks Henri. That headstock and volute has evolved a bit over the years. In my earliest builds I was always concerned that headstocks were fragile constructions with the stress of angles, string tension and trussrod channels and counter tension. My early headstocks included the stout volute and a center spline to give the headstock added strength (in my mind anyway). That got refined to eventually lose the spline since I saw no evidence of breakage, and was often fighting with enough room for the tuning machines as I tried to get them closer to straight pulls. That lead to them more current shaped volute, which I freely admit took some design features from @killemall8's volutes, namely the transition from the neck to the headstock. Then I was building a guitar for my son and getting some pressure to sign the builds. I recalled a comment from @sdshirtman stating the volute would be a good place for a logo. This didn't happen all at once....there was no lightbulb going on over my head. In fact I thought it was all my own idea, but over the years I recognized the influences. Anyway I signed my son's guitar like this: And have done so since. SR

For a long time I've been looking for spiral cut pattern following bits. I hate the noisy chattering of the straight bladed pattern following bits that seem to be what is only available. I found what I was looking for this year. It's from SpeTool, sold on Amazon, made in China, a half inch compression bit on a quarter inch shaft, with a one inch cutting surface. It's the smoothest cutting pattern bit I own. So far. It hasn't had a huge test yet. Zero chatter. I'd think it would guess less tear out in figured wood. We'll see. Look at this beastie! It cut a fine neck pocket. Set neck guitar neck set. SR

Next I signed the headstock.... Then I taped off the fretboard and go to leveling and dressing frets. Is it just me or does Evo lose some of its gold color after polishing? SR

That's an idea that's been tempting me as well. What brand of epoxy did you use? SR

I do enjoy seeing such fine examples of precision machine work. SR

Thanks MIke! SR

Haha! Come on. You'll have to wait till I'm done with this build though. SR

I've had good luck wetting the surface with water and planing 45 degrees to 90 degrees to the grain direction. Don't know how that would work in a scraping situation. SR

Mahogany often has interlocked grain....that's what makes that ribbon striped figure. What that means is you get one stretch with the grain running uphill sandwiched with another running downhill, and that keeps repeating. Looks great, but hard to scrape, or plane. SR

I may have mentioned this in the past, but I truly enjoy making necks! SR

Time to carve the neck. I'm still using my wicked rasp I made from a used bandsaw blade. SR

All those tiny pieces......makes my eyeballs twitch. SR

Holy crap, that's ambitious! SR You see many of those in Arizona? sr

I have never. Ever, Not even once have a fretboard survive booger free after doing it this way. But I want to put the frets in while the neck is still flat. So the fretboard has to be as close to finished on the surface as I can before fretting.....because that's nearly impossible after fretting. And for me shaping the fret ends is part of the neck carving process and for me the neck profile begins at the rollover on the edge of the fretboard, not under it. Once the neck is shaped and the frets are dressed, I'll tape them off until the thing is assembled and the body is shaped. I'll do the finish sanding on the headstock, neck and body all at the same time, and uncover the fretboard to see what kind of boogers I have to fix..... SR

Yeah, rosewood is wonderful stuff. Did you ever pick up any of your local Arizona Rosewood? SR

Then I fretted it with EVO. I haven't used anything other than SS for years. It was cool to be able to cut the frets with regular fret trimmers, but the stuff felt a little brittle compared to stainless. This is something I should have gotten years ago! I just barely started evening up the fret ends, and then called that a stopping point. SR

This weekend I radiused the fretboard to 16", inset gold MOP fretmarkers and side markers made from those little bamboo skewer things. SR

Time lapse photography..... SR

Thanks Andy. I rather like the way that S curve turned out. SR