Proud necks and broken teeth..........

DAY 11

Today I spent some time finishing the back bracing and sanding the kerfing to the radius angle. First I took the back out of the go-bar deck to see how my bracing worked. It worked great! The back now has a nice side to side curve, but nothing from top to bottom. This is of course because there are no vertical braces to help it hold its form. I sanded all of the braces down to their final shapes and sizes. Then I cut and installed the center strips and put the whole thing back in the go-bar deck for drying. After that I turned my sites onto sanding the kerfing. I sanded both top and bottom using radius boards. I ended up breaking a couple of 'teeth' out of the kerfing when my board caught the edge but this was easily repaired with a bit of superglue. I know I have said this before, but I am determined now, I WILL BUY THE RADIUS SANDPAPER for the next one. I can't help but think that having the paper for the dish will make all of this shaping and sanding a ton easier and more accurate. Sometimes it is worth the cost of something if it makes the job better. I know, I know, a craftsman never blames his tools. But hey, I never said I was a pro at this! As a side note, I never blame my tools when I am doing electrical work. :)

Once this was done, my curiosity was getting the better of me so I had to try and fit the neck. After reading the problems Ted and others in the forums are having with the LMI neck block not being correct I just had to find out how mine is going to work. I cut out the side sections so I have access to the pocket and slid the neck in. Well, mine doesn't fit correctly either. Sometimes however, I have found that it is better to be lucky than good. You see, when I glued in the head and tail blocks, I remembered from my Stewmac kit that they were cut at an angle which made the edges closest to the soundhole sit a bit proud of the edges. In fact, I had to cut a pocket into the cardboard that I built it on in order to get the sides to sit flat . When I was gluing these parts on this kit, I decided that in order to get the correct radius I would need to set these blocks a bit proud of the side wood. Because of this, instead of having a huge difference to deal with I only have a sliver maybe 1mm to deal with. Believe me, this was pure luck on my part as I could have just as easily made a big problem with the neck sitting too high. Anyways, it looks like my problem can be easily fixed by reaming out the bolt holes enough to slide the whole thing up a tiny bit so it sits flush with the top.

On to the pictures.....

Here is the back with the braces all shaped and sanded. The center strip is glued and drying.

You can see that the back is sanded and radiused to match the radius board.

This is the top sitting next to the neck tenon. You can see that it is just a bit short of the top but not as low as it could have ended up. Again, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good!
Note the handsome hand model in the picture. :)