Today was neck fit day. I spent quite a bit of time getting the bridge location and the neck lined up. I also sanded the end of the neck so it fits flat to the guitar sides. I had a little bit of trouble trying to get everything lined up straight with the center line of the guitar top being off, but I think I was able to get it all lined up so it looks good and compensates with the soundhole being off.
I was reminded by Ted that I may be looking a bit too hard at this build and might be overly critical. He is probably right. I am trying hard to get everything right, and it seems like I am having more trouble with this build than I did with my Dreadnaught. I guess I need to relax a bit and not expect perfection. After all, this is only my second build and perfection is not something I should be expecting at this stage in my learning. I am learning a lot with this one, probably the primary lesson being that certain parts of the build are critical to the proper alignment of other parts of the build. It all ties together. I know that with my next one, there will be a lot more measuring and re-measuring just to make sure things are straight. I will also make sure that things are lined up properly by double checking my work.
All in all I am very pleased with this guitar. It looks great and other than the few minor flaws I seem to be focusing on, the quality of my work is significantly better on this one than the last. The bottom line is that means I am moving forward and improving. Isn't that what it is all about anyways?
Speaking of next build...... I spent a good part of last night on LMI's site playing with the kit wizard. I think I have my next one ready to order. It will be an unserviced kit, Adirondack spruce top, Indian rosewood back and sides, Spanish cedar neck, granadillo fingerboard, bloodwood bindings heal cap backstrip peghead and bridge, and maple perfling. I put a lot of thought into how I want this one to look. The only thing I am going back and forth on are the peghead and bridge. I may go with rosewood as I think that there might be too much bloodwood. I am still on the fence with it. I would go with a little fancier wood but this will be my first try at bending so I figured it would be wise to start with wood that I have read is fairly easy to bend, and is not Mahogany. I really don't want to hear that dreaded "CRACK" while bending! The guitar will be a OOO model. I am really looking forward to having to do all of the hard stuff this time. It will be nice to have something that I can actually say "I made this out of a pile of wood" instead of having to admit that some of parts were done by someone else. I also realized that I can save a lot of money this way too and that is always a good thing! I will most likely pull the trigger on this one once I get to the finish stage of the OM so I will be working on one during the boring 'wait for it to cure fully' time.
First up, undercutting the neck for the fit sanding. When I did this with my Dreadnaught, I took a big (1/2"x1/2") chip out of the side. I was able to glue it back and it is almost invisible, but I was very careful this time not to do the same thing!
Here I have the straight edge down the centerline of the fingerboard to help with the bridge location. Notice that I have the neck at a very slight angle to the left causing the center line to skim to the right of the end wedge center. I did this on purpose as it helps get the strings closer to the center of the soundhole. The neck still looks and feels perfectly straight, but it helps move the strings just a touch to the right. The neck is sitting at less than a 1 degree off perfect left to right angle. Every little bit that I can get those strings to move to the right the better it will look. This is one of those "thinking outside the box" fixes that I mentioned in my last post.
Here is my neck fit after a bunch of fine sanding. See that little gap between the fingerboard and the edge of the binding? Anyone got any ideas of how to fill that so it looks good? It is caused by the binding being rounded over at the edge of the body. I tried not to have this happen, but it did.
The other side. I am thrilled with how nice I was able to get this joint. It is much better than my Dreadnaught.
The tail piece sanded to meet the curve of the body. That was a little trick to get right.
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