Fingerboard sanding......

Yesterday I didn't get much time in the shop but I did get enough time to bind the fingerboard in curly maple. I cut the end of the fingerboard to a curved point using my band saw and drill press with a sanding drum. I then took some maple and bent two small curves over a hot pipe using my heating blanket as a heat source. (I ran out of propane in my torch!) I cut the miteres and glued the pieces to the fingerboard and taped them in place to dry.

Today I removed all the tape and inspected my work. The bindings looked pretty nice and my miters were pretty nice. It is hard to cut a good miter on a curved piece of wood! I sanded the binding flush with the top and back of the fingerboard and then checked the fingerboard to see how level it was. It had a fairly good sized hump in the center which tapered down to the ends. I took some time with a level with sand paper on the edge try and get it level. It is pretty good now and is ready for frets. I am still on the fence on if I will install the frets before gluing the fingerboard to the neck, or wait until after the neck is on the guitar so I can get it perfectly leveled out before fretting. I like that idea because I can keep from removing much fret material during the setup, but I am a bit nervous about tapping frets in on a finished guitar. I am kicking both thoughts back and forth.

I drilled out the neck block for the bolts and truss rod access and temporarily bolted the neck to the guitar to check the angle. The fit is okay but it needs a lot of work. The neck is dead on from left to right, but it is angled down so the straight edge is only about 1/4" above the top at the bridge location. It will need some adjustment, but it won't be too bad.

This morning I was looking out my front window and there at the corner of my barn were two nice looking whitetail bucks with their antlers still in velvet. They hung around the barn for a little bit before walking into the woods across the road. What a site to see first thing in the morning!

Here are the two visitors to my barn this morning. If you click the picture you will get a better view. One is a 6 point and one is an 8 point buck.

The fingerboard as of last night. All of the binding glued and taped up.

The fingerboard after the tape was removed.

This is the end after some sanding. The miteres turned out okay.

Here she is for her first poser picture. It looks like a real guitar!

The back

Here is the heel point. I need to cut the heel down to allow for the heel piece thickness. I have curly maple for it, but I am strongly thinking that I will go with box elder to match the pointed piece just below it. I think it will look pretty nice. I need to look to see if I have enough of the pink stuff left though.