torstai 22. maaliskuuta 2012

Bound headstock and heel cap

I decided to try out two new things with the neck. Binding the headstock and laminating the heel cap of several layers. Both seemed to come out pretty nicely.
The koa wood binding with black/white/black purfling comes from stewmac and looks awesome!
Both the ebony fingerboard and the headstock are now
bound with koa, with black/white/black purfling at the bottom.
It does give the neck a pretty finished look!

The heel cap is walnut/koa/walnut/flame maple sandwich

The neck-to-headstock transition is not the smoothest possible yet.
Anyway, the binding has to be cut down to accommodate the bone saddle.
The side dots I made out of black shielded solid copper wire.
It looks a bit messy right now due to cyanoacrylate. Hope it cleans out later.

Some detail issues here. Fortunately out of sight of the right handed player

The fretboard position dots are classic 4mm abalone.

perjantai 16. maaliskuuta 2012

Neck to the body

The neck for Jyrki's guitar has been furthered to the point of refinements and fine tuning in neck shape and fit. Here's a few pics of the neck fit test run.
In this pic the neck is still square, and as you can see, not properly aligned.  The heel had to be shaved/sanded a bit from the treble side to make it sit straight

More of this view later. An observant reader might spot a deviation of the tradition here.
The fingerboard is bound with the same flame koa trim as the body

The fret wire is Ewo Gold from LMII. Nice stuff! Headplate is indian rosewood. Another nice stuff with distinct scent.

torstai 1. maaliskuuta 2012

Neck with a slotted headstock

Once the box is put together, it's come time to focus on the neck.
I'm making a scarf-jointed heel-stacked 12-fret spanish cedar neck with slotted headstock. The fine scent of Cedrala Odorata is just wonderful - worth working with!

I made the slotting by hand, drilling, sawing, chiseling and filing. Still some sanding is required, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

The tuning machines are Golden Age Restoration tuners from Stewmac. A fitting choice for an old-timey job like this 

Rosewood overlay with a 0,5mm walnut veneer in between

Umm, I think I might need to shape the neck a little more