Rista

Would 16" be long enough for you? THIS place sells 16" long blocks with any radius you want. I have no experience with them as I ended up making my own blocks but the price seems pretty good to me for a CNC machined quartersawn maple block of that length.

What kind of glue did you use? Titebond? I've heard of this happening with water-based glues because they cause the wood to expand.

Yep, this happened on my first build. I used Titebond to glue on the fretboard and it did move although nowhere near as much as in those pictures. I saw people recommending epoxy for attaching the board to the neck because it doesn't introduce any moisture so I tried that on my latest build. It worked great and I'll definitely be using epoxy for fretboards from now on.

Looks nice! But I was thinking the same as eddiewarlock. My first build was an explorer and by looking at pics my bridge seems to be located where your bridge pickup cavity is:

What's the scale of the neck?

Very nice, it's coming out great.

You're going to use pickup rings? I prefer the way ESP does it (ie no pickup rings on diamond plated guitars). Looks cleaner IMO. Other than that, the guitar looks really good

I have glued the neck in, drilled the holes for the switch and pots, installed the bridge and tailpiece and strung up the guitar. The neck feels nice and the guitar sounds good acoustically I also like the clean looking fretboard with no inlays.

Now that the neck is under string tension, I can see that very little fret leveling will be needed.

Thanks man!

Hehe, yeah, I couldn't keep my hands away from it indeed I just had to give it another go and I did everything way faster than before. For some reason, it was a lot more fun as well. Could be because I didn't screw up anything

I thought you gave up on your project as you haven't updated your thread for a long time as well. Nice to hear that's not the case!

Ahem... so, here's a new guitar:

Specs are pretty much the same as before. This time, the neck is made of mahogany only instead of mahogany/maple laminates. No experiments with neck profiles this time either There is still work to do but I should complete the guitar soon.

I still think it's just the angle.... notice how the truss rod cover points right at the tip of the point, rather than where the point is "supposed to be"?

I know, I was just pointing out why it looked like that to me The right side of the headstock is a bit narrow and the left side doesn't follow the headplate, that creates an illusion that the headplate is off center.

Thanks a lot! :o)

Rista, I believe it is the angle, also the trusslooks wrongly placed in this picture.

I still think the right side of the headstock is a wee bit narrow, but nothing more than I can live with...

Cheers!

Yeah, the right side seems a bit narrow compared to the left. That's why it seemed like it slipped to the right:

What kind of finish are you going to use? Are you going to paint it or leave it the natural color?

Nice. Both inlays are pretty cool, especially the truss rod cover one.

BTW is it just the angle or did the headplate slip to the right when you were gluing it?

I made my own tenon/mortise templates and made sure I routed everything at the correct angle.

And you're going to drop the project?!

I've had tons of creative projects (writing stories, songs, building things) where I had to take a break. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months... whatever you do, man, don't destroy what you worked so hard on! Maybe if you take some time off, focus your energy elsewhere, and forget about it for a while, one day you'll look at it again and be inspired to finish it.

Your build could still be a fantastic guitar!

I think, even if you don't like the shape of the neck, someone else may. Even if you can't sell it for too high a price, you could probably recoup the expense of the materials. Your neck looks like the foundation of a good guitar. SOMEONE out there will use it if you finish it!

But, it's up to you...

Well, it's too late now. The neck has been "demolished".

I see what you're saying though. Selling it to someone for the price of the materials is a good idea but I just didn't feel like building a guitar for someone else yet. I've always wanted a KL style explorer and that was the only reason I got into building even though I had no woodworking knowledge and experience whatsoever. I just couldn't see myself finishing the guitar that I'm not going to play.

The only thing that angers me is that the neck came out the way I "wanted" it, so it was a good job, just a bad decision. I deliberately carved the neck into an oval shape thinking it would suit me better than the U shape that all of my guitars have had. Well I was wrong big time.

Anyway, I would like to thank anyone for the comments. This forum was of invaluable help to me

If I could ask you one thing, the neck joint that you make, have you found some sort of tutorial or so for it..?

I'm thinking about using the same for my next build, and I'd like to find some info about it...

Don't know if there's any tutorials (I didn't need them so I didn't search for them). Basically, the joint is similar to Gibson's. I made my own tenon/mortise templates and made sure I routed everything at the correct angle. Just take time to make the templates the best you can, the rest shouldn't be hard. My tenon is 36mm wide and 30mm thick, but you can use any dimensions you want as long as you leave enough wood under the neck pocket.

it is not like you are going to burn it or anything, is it..?

Actually, I was thinking about something along those lines. If I destroy it, I will never try to build a guitar again which = no more frustration

Looking forward to seeing the pics of your build

c'mon man! you have to finish it!

It's looking very good!

she's gonna sound amazing too.

maybe you could sell it, buy more wood and try again later on!

don't give up!!!

Like anyone would buy a guitar from a first time luthier

Nah, even though I do have wood for another neck, I don't have time and motivation anymore. This was like the longest build on PG and it won't even be finished, hehe.

I finally glued on the fingerboard and started shaping the neck. It was the most fun part of the build yet.

I wanted to try something between the oval and the "U" neck profile and it came out fine... except that I don't like it I should have went with the U profile neck as that obviously suits me best. This one is slightly too oval for my liking. Seeing as I'm building the guitar for myself (ie to make it comfortable for my hands), this is unacceptable. Given my lack of free time, I don't think I will continue with the build. It would take too much time to build another neck to be even worth it. It's a shame, 'cause I was really looking forward to finishing and playing this thing.

I guess I just can't get over the fact that it can be done and I didn't do it right. But, I think I found a solution. What about routing the sides of the fretboard off and installing rosewood binding? That way, I'll get another chance to drill the holes properly AND it will nicely hide the fret ends which I like a lot.

Dude, its about time someone came along and didnt accept "rough enough is good enough". Awesome! Keep it up, this guitar is rocking, especially for a first time build

Thanks man. That means a lot coming from you

keep up the great work.....you'll learn from your mistakes, and make new ones on the next guitar!!

Hey man! Looks great.

I was beginning to thing that you might have lost the spirit, since I didn't hear anything for a long time.

Good to see that your back on track again. I have come a lot closer to the end on my neck, not as clean and nice as yours at all,

but considering I haven't touched a woodworking tool for more than ten years before I started this project, I'm pretty happy with it,

and I learned so damn much!

Keep at it man, remember only quitters quit. You have a really excellent piece of woodwork there, it would be a shame if it were laid to waste...

Hey, I've seen your inlay. Pretty good for the first try. How close are you to finishing the neck completely? Have you installed the frets yet? Got any pics?

Progress!

After almost quitting I had some free time these days and decided to continue with the project. Here is the new slotted and radiused fretboard bound with rosewood. Side dots have also been installed (correctly this time ).

Next I have to glue the fingerboard on but need to make a radius block first.

Very nice. I really like the natural maple look combined with gold hardware.

If I understand correctly, and I'm not sure I do, I don't think the joint will be strong enough. Endgrain to endgrain is the weakest joint and would not be strong enough to withstand string tension. At least that's what I've read everywhere, I never tried it myself.

I recently received Stewmac's stainless steel template and using their indexing pin there is no play at all.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Gotoh. I got my black Schaller TOM and black Gotoh tailpiece from www.rockinger.com and they both seem like quality products.

Nice to see you're making some progress! I also wonder did you cut the MOP (or whatever material you're using) first and then routed the fingerboard or you're planning to make the inlay later? I'm not an expert by any means at all (never done it on a fingerboard) but I think cutting the inlay first and then routing is how it's usually done.

I'm gonna order those MOP dots and some MOP blanks from that guy but will not use them for this project. I'm having enough trouble drilling the sidemarker holes perfectly centered let alone having to drill them at the exact depth

So anyway, I made binding strips from rosewood fingerboard blanks and then proceeded to glue them to the fingerboard. I clamped them well from the sides but obviously didn't clamp them DOWN good enough so one side slipped up a bit. I decided to sand the entire bottom of the fingerboard until it's flush with the binding. When I finished, everything was nice and flat and you could barely notice the binding (same color as the fingerboard, this is what I wanted). Then I re-radiused the board and made a mistake number two (the first one being sanding the board): I took too much off. The fret slots were still deep enough but the overal thickness of the board is almost a milimeter thinner than I originally planned. So although the board is perfectly functional, it looks weird and I'm not happy with it. I want the center of the fingerboard to be 6mm thick at minimum.

I'm gonna make another fingerboard which isn't a problem 'cause I have jigs for slotting and radiusing and can do it very quickly HOWEVER, I like the wood binding idea so much that I want to use it on the new fingerboard as well. The thing is, I don't have enough material to make more binding (the blanks that I have don't match in color at all etc etc, long story) so I'll have to decide which board to use (I have enough ebony but don't really want ebony on this guitar). Either that, or I'll order some rosewood binding. Still undecided what to do

On a brigther side, lookie what I just got:

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/9803/dsc02304zz5.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7153/dsc02305sc4.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4834/dsc02306pn2.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/3060/dsc02307kg2.jpg

Enough mahogany for... this guitar, if I continue screwing up like this