Bizman62

Three... You should be able to make them in a similar way to the binding. With your CNC skills carving the moulds to a scrap piece should be a no-brainer as you already should have the digits for the angles on the top...

Not only that, the recess also is a cup which adds tension to the edges of the neck end which helps in getting any gaps closed. You could even bevel the edges of the neck end towards the recess but I'd leave that until you've got the angle right.

Never thought of predrilling the belly carve with a forstner bit! Definitely much less fine dust! Then again, the big belt sanders I've been using have a very powerful dust extraction so that has never been an issue for me.

@ScottR, the current slots look nice indeed but they've been cut the old way with just a scalpel mark.

That's simply gorgeous! The blotchiness of the spruce top makes it look even more true to the era - although the builders back then did perfect finishes, the memories of the sixties tend to have such a blotchy vibe. Think about the Soviet Lomo cameras who have given the name for Lomography, an art form mimicking the pictures taken with poor quality toy cameras. Or just old photos and colour prints from catalogs to record covers from the late fifties, early sixties... Even the movies from that era look washed and a bit off-focus! You've managed to catch that all! I'm not sure about shimming the pickups, at least not before you've done the changes in the electrickery. Old electric guitars weren't too loud so the output may be just right for "rhythm".

The triangular file idea for deepening the scalpel marks sounds interesting, I'll be waiting for your results before going to the file shop!

I'm as experienced as @ScottR in building acoustics but I can't help thinking about the reasons why a tenon joint is so common in acoustic guitars - and Les Pauls for that matter. The shoulders can be fitted seamless no matter how slanted the actual joint is. I can see no reason why the same principle couldn't be applied to a bolt-on neck. Just align the centerlines and reshape where it can be done with least effort. If my thinking is way off, please chime in before something irreparable has been done!

Hush! I tried to keep this family friendly... BTW are your beverage cans down there as thin as I've heard they're in the US? Ours are a bit thicker, playing detonator not to speak of smashing empty ones on your face can be challenging... Anyhow, thinner cans allow better adjustability.

Thanks for verifying! I've never built an acoustic but the hundred videos I've seen on the subject made me wonder - and as you said they will be routed away for the binding. Same with the go bars instead of spool clamps. If they work, they're good! Plus that using go bars allows for leaving the top or bottom oversize which can be of big help in getting the edge just right.

You're telling it all wrong! "I experimented with the truss rod installation to leave more wood below the adjustment nut. What I didn't remember is that it works backwards but that's only human." Hint: Soda cans are a perfect shimming material. They're easy to work with scissors, solid and pileable with some super glue for easy adjusting for thickness. One or two strips are basically invisible.

What? Didn't you put that pair of headstock images there on purpose, for someone like me to find and comment? Photo editors today are amazing! If only they could be used for fixing flaws in the real objects instead of pictures of them... I'd buy one at once!

I was wondering about the same! The sparse grain pattern leads to thinking that the pale growth ring stripes are much softer than the darker ones which makes sanding a PITA.

Ooh, some scarily interesting times ahead! I already was wondering how you're going to make that -if I may say - dull washed blue look stunning. A burst, definitely! And natural binding, trying hard to prevent the burst bleeding... Just reminding you of how @Lumberjack does it by protecting the binding with a good layer of clearcoat. But of course you already knew that, didn't you?

As many others I've learned to expect perfection from you... That said, would you reveal how you managed to fix the dents around the high e tuner hole in the headstock? Here they're visible: And here not:

Can't you use some sort of pore filler in the channel?

Ahh the dreaded sun, always spoiling your pleasure by revealing flaws in your sanding! My daughter is moving from home and I decided to finally do something for her desk. The top was just an unfinished piece of glulam pine with stains from leaking felt pens and such. So I took my random orbital and went through grits from 60 to 240, fast and furious. Then I applied three layers of dye for a cherry red finish only to find out that there's a hand long scratch at one end and some swirl marks at the other... I just couldn't see those during the sanding, it was cold outside and it looked like it'd rain in a minute so I hurried. And the stain ran out so I couldn't sand it back and redo the staining. I see the flaws every time but she's very happy with the overall result and as it won't be the eye catcher of her new apartment it's just fine as such. And light years from what it was before! Guitars are a different thing, you'll look at them all the time.

Anyone with a fat wallet can buy all those fancy figured woods and cut the outlines to look like a guitar. But it takes a true craftsman to glue and carve a multi laminate neck with a strip in the scarf joint! Your necks are pure art, a pleasure for the eyes. They please at first glance, and when taking a closer look one can see the harmony in the proportions of the strips. And the scarf joints! There's no continuity issues whatsoever, it looks like you've just magically inlaid the extension piece! Even the X figure is perfectly symmetric to the smallest detail where the centre strip peeks through. I'm in awe!

Ouch indeed! That looks familiar... As @Prostheta said, you'll have to flatten the headstock no matter what. The biggest question is, how thick is the continuous straight grain there will be in the weakest point after you've carved the neck. My '84 Strat has about 8 mm (5/16") there so you don't need much. The red line shows the carving, the blue shows the continuous grain area:

I find it odd to have relief on the neck after pushing the frets in. Logically thinking it should be the other way around: As the frets should sit tight in the slots there's a tiny bit more material in the slots than there originally was which should make the fretboard bend backwards. A stiff enough neck should be able to withstand the bow and tighten the frets into the slots instead of giving in. The harder the fretboard material is the more backbow there theoretically will be. Anyhow, a relief can easily be fixed by tightening the truss rod, both dual action and single action rods are built to straighten the relief. Sometimes the neck doesn't seem to straighten no matter which way you turn the truss rod nut. If there's glue in the truss rod channel or something else hindering it to work properly, tapping (rather banging with your palm) the neck can help releasing any snags.

A hump in the neck at the scarf joint below the fretboard? Do I read you right? Heating and removing the fretboard, then straightening the neck and regluing the fretboard is an option. No guarantee for it to succeed but if the alternative is to just cut the fretboard off for a replacement you'll lose nothing in trying. Another option is to remove at least some, rather all of the frets and re-level the fretboard.

That tape won't do any more harm than the heat shring tubing used on many dual action truss rods. Yours doesn't seem to have that so now you've normalized the amount of plastic in the channel according to the industrial standard

That's unbelievable! You aren't even hitting the string, just releasing it! I had to test that with some of my guitars just to check how much the string moves and can I make it buzz. Well, the low E seems to buzz more or less on most of my guitars (both self and factory built), not from the very start but for a little while after a second or three, cleaning again. The one with the lowest action buzzes a bit up to the fourth fret or so. That one also has the most flexible neck of the six.

Back in the 70's I lent a guitar book from the library. On the cover there was a 'sharp dressed' guy in a latte coloured suit with at least four buttons, apparently from the sixties. Neatly combed hair, a great big smile and the guitar up to his chin and the right elbow way up high. Even back then it looked too uncomfortable! I tried to find that cover but to no avail. But the search revealed that many of the iconic players have had their guitars pretty high (like George Harrison and Keith Richards in their early days), or at about the level it would be when sitting straight. And of course there has been those 'bad boys' since the start of rock'n'roll with their guitars down on their knees.

@Armaan that's perfectly normal and valid and I guess many players do that since they can reach the lower frets better that way. It's not a stone carved rule by any means. I like to hang my guitars pretty high, actually there's no difference whether I sit or stand as the strap doesn't move at all. Should I have learned to play standing in the 'Rock' position with the guitar covering my crotch and legs spread, the sitting position might be different for me. Or if I had it hanging lower on my side like a Tommy Gun. This was not meant as criticism, just showing how richly different we all are!

Now that you mentioned it... I didn't think about the jack until now and most likely I would have put it to the same place myself without thinking. Yet I've thought about the red line against my leg when sitting! Actually I suffer from the same with my round bottomed guitars, the jack or rather the plug is always hitting my right leg. Out of curiosity I strapped one on my shoulder standing up and when I sat down it naturally fell between my legs with the green on the left and the red on the right thigh. An angled jack might help if you put the red on your leg. For future builds rethinking the location of the jack might be recommendable - although at the time of drilling we'll all most likely forget about the sitting position and drill it randomly where it seems to fit! Guess that's one thing that tells a professional luthier apart an amateur builder!